Partnerships and possiblities

It's hard to believe that three weeks have passed since our last Coffee with the Principal.   The pace and sheer expanse of project work and future planning that has come in this year of our accreditation self-study has left little time for reflective writing, but I am nonetheless anxious to highlight some exciting exploration that has grown in relation to that study - and was the topic of discussion at the Coffee.

Some context for our conversation came from the tool that will be used to evaluate our school at our on-site accreditation visit in in the fall: The National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools.  The tool - which has also guided our year-long self-study - is divided into four domains, one of which is the area of Operational Vitality.  This domain focuses on the operation of the school, or how it works and how it is supported in the areas of finance, human resources, facilities, and institutional advancement.

Why do we need to talk about this?  Because "Catholic schools exist in a milieu of constant socioeconomic challenges grounded in continuous need for sustainable planning.  Schools must maintain standards for operational vitality in order to support the academic rigor that is part of our Catholic identity, and even a very strong school will not survive without operational vitality"(NSBECS).

On the revenue side of financial planning, best practice includes the development of sources of revenue that extend beyond the parish and school.  Another contextual reality for us is that despite an existing diversity of revenue sources, our school is facing substantial financial challenges due primarily to declining enrollment that is not predicted to turn around in our demographic. So, it is clearly time for us to look beyond tuition and the Annual Fund and even beyond Home and School fundraising to explore additional ways we can enhance our enrollment and, thereby, our revenue.

We discussed three evolving partnerships that present exciting possibilities not only for enrollment expansion, but for program development as well.  First among these is our nascent Catholic Urban Scholars program.  This program is an existing partnership with three central city parishes that heavily serve underprivileged populations (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Martin De Porres, and All Saints).  The program allows pastor-recommended families to attend St. Robert with the assistance of generous financial aid - and, we hope, will motivate larger-scale giving to our scholarship investment fund.  It is also an opportunity to expand our mission by offering a transformative education to children who might not otherwise have access to a school of this caliber.

The second opportunity is a potential partnership with St. Francis Children's Center, which serves special needs and neuro-typical children in an integrated early childhood environment. This partnership would bring an Arrowsmith Program to St. Robert.  Arrowsmith is a capacity-based program that remediates learning disabilities, by actually changing under-functioning areas of the brain (as distinct from special education, which teaches skills through alternative methodologies).

Finally, St. Robert has recently been approved as the first local middle school partner of the Wisconsin International Academy in Wauwatosa.  WIA is a total care (dorm-stay) program that brings Chinese students to the US to study in American schools in preparation for admission to US colleges and universities.  We have not yet signed a partnership agreement, but are aiming to be ready to recruit seventh and eighth grade students for the fall of 2018.

So, by working with other agencies to bring more students to St. Robert, we can accomplish the fundamental goal of increasing our sustainability by increasing enrollment potential.  But we also expand our capacity to teach in new ways, thereby enhancing instruction for all.   And, perhaps most significantly, these partnerships have the potential to enhance our diversity - of learners, of cultures, and of economic background - making us a richer community.

The nine parents who attended this recent Coffee were filled with ideas about how to capitalize on these opportunities.  They emphasized how important it will be to engage families who are already here in "the power of the story" to bring these partnerships to fruition.  Please contact me if you would like to join me in any of these efforts and help us tell the story of the exciting possibilities on the project table at St. Robert.

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This season of triumph and celebration is a season of unspeakable tragedy for two of our St. Robert families.  Please pray for the Kohlers, who said farewell to Michael, husband of Laurie and father of Abby (sixth grade) and Maddie (fourth grade), on Sunday.  Pray also for David and Kathy Wyatt, who lost their son Devin (St. Robert class of 2007) this morning.  And let us never cease in our prayers for each other.