Mille grazie

In the spirit of "students first and always," I announced my upcoming retirement to your children after Mass this morning. Following is the text of that message, altered only slightly to include you!

I know that Thanksgiving has become the gateway to a generic season of celebrations known as “the holiday season,” but I’d like us to pause and think about how important it is as a stand-alone feast day.  And not only as a day, but as an opportunity to reflect on the idea that an everyday attitude of gratitude makes for a healthy and satisfying way of life.  Even research studies have shown that gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness and greater health. 

And so, we put a reminder on our marquee sign out front to encourage the whole neighborhood to take the time to be grateful.  Have you noticed it?  It says “DO THE MATH: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.”

Well, I wanted set a good example, so I decided to do some math of my own to put a number to some of my blessings. I thought it would be fun to focus the lens of my gratitude this year very specifically on the blessings and privilege of leading this great school, so I needed to come up with some numbers to quantify that.  It didn’t take long to recognize that it’s the people God has entrusted to my care - the students and teachers and staff that I’ve worked for and with over the years - that are the greatest blessing of my work.  So I tried to figure out just how many students and staff have walked this journey with me over the 16 years of my principalship.  Here’s how I did it:

To figure out the number of students enrolled at St. Robert over the years of my leadership, I started with the enrollment of the school in my first year as principal. Then I added the new 4K students that came each year after that, plus 15 transfer students a year (which was our average through the 2019-2020 school year).  For last year and this year, when we had an unusually large number of transfer students, I used the actual number.  My math yielded a grand total of 993 students.  

Then I calculated teachers and staff by starting with our current staff and adding on everyone else who had been part of our team at some point since the fall of 2006.  That yielded 105 faculty and staff members.  Combining the number of students with the number of teachers and staff brought my grand total to 1,098 people.

A thousand people.  A thousand who’ve taught me and challenged me and loved me and inspired me.  A thousand gifts God has given me to care for, but who’ve ultimately made me who I am today...because while I was busy transforming the school, you were transforming me.

So here I stand like the Velveteen Rabbit.  A little worn out, but so much better.  Profoundly gifted.  Deeply grateful.

This will be my last year as the principal of St. Robert School.  I’ll be retiring at the end of the school year and I wanted a chance to tell my students personally even before I sent this message to you, their parents (who I opted to leave out of my math purely to keep the message simple).  We’ll continue on and do our work and walk this last great mile together... But today, I’m inspired by my math to share an expression from my Italian grandma who often said, “I thank you a thousand times.”  Mille grazie.  A thousand thanks to Almighty God and to you for a thousand ways you’ve gifted me.

Do your own math.  And enjoy a happy Thanksgiving and the abundant blessings of a happy, holy life.