We all hold in trust the mission of St. Pat's School.  As beneficiaries of the mission and the adults who act to further it, all of us are called to reflect on how our school is currently living that mission.  As you know, St Pat's is in the self-study phase of our accreditation process, and tomorrow evening we will be holding our first of two stakeholders' meetings.

As an elementary and middle school, our mission is not unique to us but it does distinguish us as a Catholic school.  We will be reviewing ourselves in light of our Catholic identity, inspired by the traditions of the Dominican Sisters who founded the school.  While we desire to be a challenging academic institution, all of our learning is in the context of faith, especially as followers of Jesus.  I am hopeful that a number of you will join our Catholic Identity Committee tables in the gym to help us look more closely on how we can improve being faithful to our Christian call of discipleship.

For those of you who have background in education or a keen interest in data analysis as a tool for improvement, we have a series of questions that will help us become more sophisticated in seeing trends and areas requiring pedagogical focus.  We need parents to help provide evidence on governance and the role of parents in leadership. This self-study calls for us to look practical matters of school safety, budget and finance, and even facilities.

I know you are busy but give us an hour of your time on Tuesday evening.  We promise you an efficient meeting where we will be poised to listen.  There will be light sandwiches for those coming right from work or who have scrambled to get the kids fed before getting out the door.  You will have opportunities to go to two different topic areas that we are covering in our self-study.  There will be a facilitator and a recorder at each small group table.  We need your experiences, your perspective and your hopes for us.

Accreditation can be burden, a hoop to jump through, or it can be a significant opportunity for communal self-reflection and truth telling.  If we do this right, accreditation will give evidence to what we do well and insight as  to what we need to improve.  It is a chance to look at our mission in light of our current realities and desires and create an improvement plan that shapes our future efforts.

On behalf of my colleagues and parent leadership through School Commission and Parent Association, thank you for making the time to help us in our self-study, Tuesday evening in our school gym.  Our future is at stake.

Chris