As a Catholic school leader, I would often remind teachers, staff, parents, families, students, and other community members that maintaining the safety and security of the school stood as my top priority. In a sense, I considered it a pre-requisite in order for us to do the work of formation in the Catholic faith and intellectual tradition.
A safety concern remains the only time that I yelled in the presence of students as a principal. While I can imagine handling that situation differently at this point in my career, I see my tactic at that time as justified and in accord with my fundamental responsibility as a school leader.
Along these lines, a number of schools from across the Diocese of Cleveland invested in the safety and security of our schools during a recent Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) Training. Even though it may have surfaced more questions than answers, our engagement with the threat assessment forms, case studies, and dialogue with colleagues from our schools and across the diocese has provided a template for us to use in these incredibly emotional, high stakes, time consuming, and important situations.
As we take this system back to our school communities and use it as our process for identifying and documenting threats, and designing and implementing plans to ensure and restore safety and security in our schools, I also hope that it inspires other deeply held convictions and detailed plans that will allow us to live them out.
For example, Dr. Frank O'Linn, Superintendent of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Cleveland, often describes the goal for our schools to be "irresistibly Catholic, academically excellent, operationally sound and geographically accessible." We would do well to embody these goals as the non-negotiable covenants that we make with our school communities. As we do this, we can stand with confidence upon the guarantees to teachers, staff, students, and families that our tactics will allow us achieve these noble ends.
It will give new life to our efforts to celebrate the Eucharist, offer a comprehensive program of retreats, and turn service hours into opportunities for our students to build the Kingdom of God on earthy by performing corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
Rallying together in this way will provide even greater focus to our efforts to form and support teachers to enhance learning in our classrooms.
Working as a network of Catholic schools will multiply best practices regarding finances, advancement, marketing, communication, enrollment management and other administrative functions that will ensure the operational vitality of our schools.
Finally, as a system of schools spanning across the diocese's eight counties, the longevity of the Catholic schools in Cleveland remains essential to Bishop Malesic's vision for providing Catholic education in geographically accessible areas.
This is who we are.
This is who we must become: irresistibly Catholic, academically excellent, operationally sound and geographically accessible Catholic schools forming students in the Catholic intellectual and faith traditions.
