Schools

In Catholic education, the phrase “college preparatory” is more than a label; it reflects a tradition of academic rigor, faith and moral formation, and a commitment to excellence. Our schools have long been places of transformation, shaping not only minds but hearts. Yet in today’s complex educational landscape, we’re invited to deepen that promise by ensuring that transformation includes the skills students need to thrive in college and beyond.

The big question to ask ourselves is: Are we preparing students to be successful throughout college, or simply to get in?

The distinction matters. While Catholic schools boast impressive graduation rates and college enrollment figures such as 99% graduate, 86% enroll (NCEA, 2023), these metrics don’t tell the full story. Nationally, nearly one in four college students fail to return for their sophomore year and among part-time students, the retention rate drops below 60% (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2023). These numbers reveal a troubling gap between readiness and persistence.

So what’s missing? The answer is twofold.

One lies in executive functioning, which is a set of cognitive and emotional skills that allow students to manage their time, regulate their emotions, advocate for themselves, and adapt to new challenges. These are not soft skills. They are survival skills. And they are often assumed to develop passively, rather than taught intentionally.

The other lies in the will of school leaders to transform the high school experience to reflect the needs of young people entering college today versus forty years ago.

The Myth of Passive Development

Too often, schools operate under the assumption that executive functioning will emerge naturally through academic rigor and structured environments. College presents a radically different reality. Students must navigate unstructured schedules, complex social dynamics, and high-stakes decision-making, all without the scaffolding they’ve relied on in high school.

Consider daily life: Are our students consistently managing their time, completing tasks independently, and making thoughtful decisions? Or are these skills masked by external structure and adult oversight?

Academically, we celebrate high achievement. But beneath the surface, are students truly equipped to organize complex assignments, sustain attention across multiple modalities, and retain information under pressure?

Socially, we emphasize community and character. Yet college requires emotional regulation, self-advocacy, and the ability to navigate diverse relationships. Are we creating environments where these skills are practiced and refined, or merely preached?

And when it comes to long-term goals, do our students know how to set meaningful objectives, adapt when plans falter, and persevere through ambiguity? Or are they entering college with a transcript full of achievements but little experience in personal strategic planning?

Catholic Education’s Unique Opportunity

Catholic schools are uniquely positioned to address this challenge. Our mission is not just academic, it’s formational. We aim to develop the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. This holistic vision provides fertile ground for cultivating executive functioning in ways that align with our values. This requires intentionality on the part of the school.

We must move beyond the assumption that structure equals skill. Instead, we need to embed executive functioning into the curriculum, advisory programs, and spiritual formation. That means teaching students how to plan, reflect, regulate, and advocate-not just in theory, but through lived experience.

It also means tracking what matters. Graduation and enrollment are important, but they’re not enough. Catholic schools must begin monitoring alumni persistence, transfer rates, and degree completion. Only then can we assess whether our preparation truly endures.

A Call to Action

If we want “college preparatory” to mean more than a marketing label, we must interrogate our practices. Are we cultivating executive functioning intentionally, or relying on tradition and structure to carry the weight?

We need school leaders, boards, and counselors to rethink the growing employment opportunities and career paths available for students in the 2020’s and to the future in the 2030’s. What exists for students to build a successful life, one with a sustainable family income, growth potential, as well as personally fulfillment?

Let’s teach our students to manage their time, regulate their emotions, and advocate for their needs. Let’s prepare them to set goals, adapt to change, and persevere through uncertainty. Let’s ensure that when they walk across the graduation stage, they’re not just ready for college, they’re ready to build a better life for themselves.

In the end, college readiness isn’t about acceptance letters. It’s about formation. And Catholic education, at its best, is formation that lasts.

 

-Dan Heding

As summer winds down and backpacks begin to fill with sharpened pencils and fresh folders, Catholic school leaders stand at the helm, ready to guide their communities into a new school year. Beyond lesson plans and enrollment numbers, the mission is centered on forming minds and hearts rooted in faith. A school that constantly renews its mission stays alive and relevant in both heart and purpose. The new year is more than an academic refresh, it’s a spiritual recommitment. Catholic school leaders have the chance to be shepherds, scholars, and stewards all at once. By planning intentionally and leading faithfully, they’ll not only educate minds but ignite souls.

Here are five key areas for Catholic school leaders to prioritize and set the tone for a meaningful and well-rounded school year:

1. Renewed Spiritual Leadership

Catholic schools aren’t just institutions of learning, they’re sacred spaces of formation. Reigniting the spiritual heartbeat of the school helps anchor every decision in Gospel values.

• Schedule time for personal prayer and reflection.
• Plan community-building faith events like faculty retreats, student-led prayer services, and liturgical celebrations.
• Collaborate with parish priests or campus ministers to ensure that the school year starts with a Mass or blessing.

2. Strengthening Academic Excellence

Faith and intellect walk hand in hand. Leaders should ensure academic rigor meets high standards. Launch a professional development series that not only boosts pedagogical skills but also integrates Catholic identity into each subject.

• Review curricula to align with both diocesan and state guidelines.
• Support instruction that meets diverse learners’ needs.
• Promote math, reading and writing literacy initiatives alongside theology.
• Calendar staff/department meetings to consistently revisit the series throughout the year.
• Identify measures for success that can be recognized using classroom visits.

3. Fostering Environments of Safety and Belonging

Safety is more than just about physical space, it is also about emotional and spiritual well-being. A spirit of belonging affirms the dignity of each student, reflecting Catholic values and fostering a community of respect and support.

• Create proactive mental health support systems. This could be in the form of a peer mentoring program or regular wellness check-ins by counselors, teachers, and school leaders.
• Ensure that policies reflect the dignity of every person, adult or child, reinforcing that all faculty, staff and students are made in the image of God.
• Review emergency procedures and update safety protocols with faculty and staff and practice. Have a calendar of when drills and procedures will be practiced with students. These can often be put aside during busy times of the year.

4. Deepening Parent Partnerships

Parents are the primary educators of faith. Strengthening that partnership cultivates a richer home and school connection. A united front between school and home leads to stronger outcomes and deeper formation.

• Host a faith-centered back-to-school night or welcome breakfast.
• Tailor monthly newsletters to intentionally highlight spiritual themes, classroom happenings, and family resources.
• Invite parents to volunteer for service projects and classroom activities that reinforce Catholic Social Teachings and academic support practices.

5. Evaluating Long-Term Mission Goals

While daily operations can be demanding, it is important for leaders to carve out time for visionary thinking.

• Revisit the school’s mission statement and consider whether it reflects the community’s current needs and aspirations.
• Set 3 to 5 year goals for enrollment, fundraising, spiritual engagement, and alumni relations.
• Form an ongoing strategic planning committee to maintain long term visioning for the school.

 

-Dan Heding

“We become what we love, and who we love shapes who we become.” – St. Clare of Assisi

I remember one August (many years ago) when I spent several days preparing my classroom for the start of school. I had just been hired for my first teaching job, teaching middle school students in a Catholic parish school in a suburb of Milwaukee, WI. I was hanging up some motivational posters in the classroom (probably purchased through a catalog I found in the teacher’s lounge of the school where I did my student teaching). One poster said, “Who you are becoming is more important than what you are achieving.” I chose to put it at the front of the classroom. I certainly wanted my students to work hard, to get good grades, and to achieve a lot, but even at the beginning of my teaching career I had a sense that there was truth to that poster.

A number of years later I started working at a university sponsored by Franciscan sisters, in a lay ministry formation center called the Saint Clare Center. As I began to learn more about St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi, I realized that they would have agreed with the poster at the front of my first classroom. Rather than seeking upward mobility, they chose a life of downward mobility, embracing poverty and service because they wanted to become more like Jesus. For Clare, a key to becoming more like Jesus was prayer. In one of her letters, she encouraged the reader to “Gaze upon Christ, consider Christ, contemplate Christ, so as to imitate Christ.” Clare sought to become a vessel of God’s compassionate love for others, and prayer was part of her method to promote that transformation – as was her practice of washing the feet of the other sisters in the convent, or her habit of walking through the dormitory at night to make sure each sister was well covered by a blanket.

Today is the feast of St. Clare of Assisi. If she came to a graduation ceremony at one of our Catholic schools, I think she would be uninterested in our students’ GPAs and unimpressed by the dollar amounts of the scholarships they had won. I think she would be much more interested in whether the students reflected the goals we establish when we write a Profile of a Graduate or a Grad at Grad document. In those documents, we do say that we want students who have become academically strong, who have developed into critical thinkers and lifelong learners. But we also say that we want students who have become faith-filled, generous, and compassionate. We want students who, because of their time spent in our Catholic schools, have become more fully the people God calls us to be.

This raises one question for me, on this feast day of St. Clare. Our schools are intentional and systematic about how all the parts of the school work together to produce academically strong students. Are we as intentional and systematic about how all the parts of the school work together to help students become more faith-filled, generous, and compassionate – or do we leave that task to the campus minister and the theology teacher? Is there room for us to do better at identifying methods of transformation, simple steps that everyone in the school can take to help our students (and ourselves) become more like Christ?

-Michael Taylor