Yesterday, we mailed to parents a “IHC State of the School System, Sep 30, 2013” message. We encourage parents and community members to read (or skim!) the message. We also encourage your feedback and comments. For your convenience, the message and images are below, and the .pdf version can be clicked-on above.
Thank you,
Mr. Chris Hornbarger, Executive System Administrator, IHC Schools
Mrs. Lisa Parsons, Principal, IHC Junior/Senior High School and Curriculum Coordinator, IHC Schools
Mr. Gary West, Principal, IHC Elementary School
State of the IHC School System: A Bright Year Ahead
September 30, 2012
Dear Parents, Faculty, Alumni and Friends of Immaculate Heart Central Schools:
Primary School Students, Ash Wednesday, 2013
As we begin a new school year, we write to provide a thorough and candid report on the state of Immaculate Heart Central Schools. We are excited about the year ahead, which is off to a great start. Looking back over the last school year, IHC’s students, faculty, parents and alumni accomplished a great deal, and the school system made significant progress in important areas. We also learned a great deal, particularly from the feedback provided by parents, students, and faculty. Your feedback has helped us identify areas in which we can improve, and we are taking actions to do so.
As we look ahead, we are filled with faith, hope, and a renewed dedication to IHC’s mission: “To provide a quality Catholic and secular education, to cultivate holiness based on the love and imitation of Christ, and to form responsible citizens whose Christian values will transform the world.”
As an administrative team, our top goals for the 2013-2014 school year are to:
Lead our schools based on the love and imitation of Jesus Christ, infusing the teaching, modeling, and practice of our faith in everything we do at IHC.
Focus on achieving and sustaining academic excellence, ensuring our Elementary students are ready for Junior and Senior High School, and our High School students are ready for college and careers.
Strengthen the partnership and communication between our administrators, teachers, and parents, ensuring every member of the IHC community feels welcome, well-informed, and supported.
Empower and encourage students to take ownership and pride in their schools.
What You Told Us – and What We Are Doing About It
High School French students using new technology.
The goals above are shaped by the feedback you provided in last spring’s survey. They are also aligned with IHC’s first five-year Strategic Plan, completed in April. We thank all of the parents, students, and faculty who took the time to complete the surveys and provide feedback. We were particularly impressed with the input of our students, who provided mature and thoughtful insights. Of course there was a broad range of feedback, and views varied on many issues, but there were some common themes or areas of emphasis. Some of these areas of emphasis were specific to either the Elementary or the Junior/Senior High; some pertained to both.
Strengths. On the whole, you overwhelmingly conveyed that IHC’s strongest attribute is our faith-based foundation, and that your children have the opportunity to worship God and learn the faith in school. You believe in our mission. You told us that our academic program is outstanding and needs to continue to be refined and revised to meet the needs of our learners in preparing them for college and careers. You told us that your children are learning good study habits, values, accountability, respect, self-motivation and healthy priorities. You told us that IHC is a family, and that the sense of faith, community and tradition is wonderful. You are overwhelmingly pleased with our service programs. Many expressed that the teachers, students, parents (or all three!) are our greatest strength. You told us the school environment is safe and secure. A sizable percentage expressed appreciation for efforts to keep tuition affordable and provide aid. Of course, in every one of these areas, the spectrum of feedback was broad; we are paying attention to all the input we received.
Lead our schools based on the love and imitation of Jesus Christ, infusing the teaching, modeling, and practice of our faith in everything we do at IHC. You told us this is what we do best. We believe we can do better! Here are some things we are focusing on:
Strengthen the integration of religion teaching in all aspects of the curriculum and school life.
Increase professional development for faculty on how to do this effectively.
Conduct several faculty and staff retreats, focused on this central part of our mission.
Continue our focus on service, liturgy, Eucharistic Adoration, and monthly prayer services.
Enrich and deepen how we welcome new families and students to IHC.
Elementary School picnic
Focus on achieving and sustaining academic excellence, ensuring our Elementary students are ready for Junior and Senior High School, and our High School students are ready for college and careers. Again, you told us this is another area where IHC excels, and our demonstrated track-record of academic excellence supports this view. Your expectations, and ours, are very high, and we continue to strive for excellence.
Develop IHC School Report Cards that transparently convey objective academic performance data.
Continue our ongoing efforts to strengthen curriculum, improve the alignment of curriculum between and across grade-levels, and implement the rigorous Common Core Standards, which emphasize reading, critical thinking, and college and career readiness.
Analyze standardized test performance to achieve data-driven goals regarding student achievement.
Implement a career exploratory program for Junior and Senior High School students, to better assist them as they consider choices regarding college and careers.
Pep rally, Fall 2012
Strengthen the partnership and communication between our administrators, teachers, and parents, ensuring every member of the IHC community feels welcome, well-informed, and supported. While the majority of feedback regarding school-parent communication and partnership was very positive, there is room for improvement. Here are some things we plan to do, or are already doing:
More frequent use of SchoolReach automated telephone calls and email.
At the High School, better use of the communication features of PowerSchool. At the Elementary, adoption of a new student information system (MyStudentsProgress).
More disciplined updating of the school’s new website, in particular a single, system-wide calendar.
Rebuilding and improving teacher websites, which is underway as we convert to using Google Sites, a free component of the Google Apps for Education platform used across IHC.
More frequent Open House events and “Parent Dessert Conversations” during the school year.
Inviting increased parental involvement in activities such as the Performing Arts Club.
As much as possible, schedule school events to best accommodate parental schedules.
Prioritizing responsiveness and attentiveness to visitors in our main offices.
Use of Facebook and other social media to share the rich variety of activity in our schools.
Junior Kindergarten student explores new SmartBoard
Empower and encourage students to take ownership and pride in their schools. Student leadership and school spirit are proud IHC traditions, and there was significant parental and student feedback that we need to ensure these traditions remain alive and well!
Empower the IHC Junior/Senior High School student leadership in a wide range of areas: planning events from liturgies to retreats to pep rallies; involving students in dress code revisions and standards; holding class meetings to solicit student input on issues.
Provide leadership training and guidance to our student leadership.
Assign IHC’s National Honor Society the responsibility to create an “ethics in action” program for K-12 students.
Increased Educational Value
We are grateful that, over the last several years, IHC has been able to hold the line against any cuts to academic programs, any cuts to faculty, or any cuts to activities or athletics, at a time when most local school districts are facing difficult financial choices. In fact, IHC has added programs and faculty every year for the last three years. Strong financial performance, healthy enrollment, and effective planning have also allowed us to invest substantially in instruction, including great strides integrating technology in the High School and Elementary School, increased professional development for faculty, new programs such as the Junior Kindergarten, new High School course offerings such as Accounting, and improved library resources.
Continued Academic Excellence
IHC continues to uphold our strong tradition of academic excellence. Last year’s 100% graduation rate significantly exceeded the 83% local average and the NY State average of 74%. Nearly all of our graduates went on to post-secondary education. IHC graduates continue to finish their college degree programs on time or ahead of time, whereas the trend nationally is more and more students taking 5 years or longer to finish a 4 year degree (with added college tuition costs!). Our SAT and ACT scores continue to be well above NY State and national averages. The average passing rate on our most recent High School Regents test scores was 95%; again, highest in the local area. This past year, the High School set a goal to increase the percentage of students achieving “mastery” (a score of 85 or higher) on the Regents tests. The percentage achieving mastery rose from 42 to 54% – an extraordinary one-year 12% increase. At the Elementary school, IHC’s average English and Language Arts (ELA) standardized test scores were the highest of any school district in the local area, and our Junior High Grade 7 and 8 had the highest scores of any school district on three out of four of their ELA and Math tests.
Mrs. Biedekapp honored as Outstanding Catholic School Teacher
These results directly reflect the quality and commitment of IHC’s faculty and staff. This year, Mrs. Amy Biedekapp, the High School Physics and Chemistry teacher, was named the 2013 Outstanding Catholic School Teacher for the Diocese of Ogdensburg. In a few weeks, Mrs. Missy Minter-Powell, director of IHC Junior/Senior High’s Faith Community Service program, will receive the Caritas Award from Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Ogdensburg. The Caritas Award was established in 1978 to recognize “devoted and unselfish service to the people of the North Country, exemplifying the spirit and ideals that Catholic Charities embodies in its mission: ideals of service and social action, of justice and charity.” In June, New York State Senator Patty Ritchie honored IHC’s Terry Ranger as a 2013 “Teacher of Excellence.” Terry is beginning her 31st year in IHC’s St. John Bosco Pre-School. High School religion teacher Toni Leone was recently recognized by the IHC Education Council as she retired after 34 years. Deanna Freeman begins her 40th year in the High School cafeteria, having served every graduating class from 1973 to 2013. And Mike Delaney begins his 41st year coaching at IHC, after notching his 500th victory as the boys’ baseball coach.
Affordable and Accessible
In addition to increasing educational value and sustaining academic excellence, we remain committed to ensuring that an IHC education is affordable and accessible. IHC’s tuition is much lower than the national average for Catholic schools, even after correcting for different household incomes (for example, while the median household income of local families is about 75% of the national average, IHC’s High School tuition is about 60% of the national average for Catholic High Schools.)
IHC tuition is also much lower than the cost to educate each student. Support from the Diocese of Ogdensburg and our local Watertown parishes accounted for over 24% of per-pupil costs last year. We are also grateful to the many alumni, parishioners, community members, and parents whose donations have helped increase our advancement revenue from under 3% to 7% in the last three years. This has helped keep tuition steady at only 61% of per-pupil costs, increased the availability of financial aid and scholarships, and helped us implement a simpler, system-wide multiple-student discount policy.
We intend to announce tuition rates for the 2014-2015 school year in early January – six to eight weeks earlier than in the past. This is intended to give families more time to plan, and allow families to apply for financial aid and receive an aid offer earlier.
Thank You to the IHC Faith Community
First, welcome to the 107 new students and 44 new families who join the IHC family this year!
IHC’s greatest strength is our faith community of parents, grandparents, students, faculty, staff, alumni, parishioners, and all those who support IHC’s mission. Your commitment inspires us. This year, IHC Junior/Senior High School students contributed more than 2,500 hours in service projects for the community, and raised over $2,300 to help Caritas International serve hundreds of orphans in Djibouti, Africa. The IHC Mystery Players continued to share their prayerful performances throughout the Northeast; this Advent season, they will share their powerful message in Newtown, CT.
Volunteers kept our Elementary School lunch program running, staffed our athletic concession stand, organized the St. Valentine’s Day Dance and Founders’ Day events, contributed to student performances, helped with maintenance, spruced-up our grounds, and performed many other vital tasks. IHC would not function without such dedicated volunteers!
Faith Community Service Students with Mrs. Minter-Powell during the Summer 2013 Building Blocks project.
The Athletic Booster Club raised more than $8,000 for athletic equipment, organized our first Athletic Hall of Fame Dinner, and is organizing IHC’s first 5K “Family Fun Run” on October 5th. Reunion classes donated thousands for scholarships and aid. Alumni, faculty, and students helped write, edit and publish the “Echo” magazine. A dedicated group persevered through IHC’s first strategic planning process, producing a five-year blueprint to guide our school system. Our IHC Education Council members devoted enormous time and energy to the school. The Pastors jointly helped fund a 4.3% pay raise for teachers last year to ensure their pay would rise to accommodate not only inflation, but also an increase in health insurance costs, as well as the end of the “Social Security holiday” this past January. And of course, the Sisters of St. Joseph continued to teach, minister, guide and support the IHC school system.
Donors, making gifts of all sizes, continue to make an enormous difference:
Increasing financial aid and scholarships.
Funding technology and instructional improvements.
Funding capital improvements.
Increasing IHC’s Annual Fund by nearly 100%, to $48,720.
Eric Koproski, IHC ’91; Mark Puccia, IHC ’73; Mike Delaney, IHC ’68; and Pete Gaffney, IHA ’54, at the Inaugural IHA/IHC Athletic Hall of Fame Dinner, May 29.
We could go on! There are so many people to thank, and we are grateful to them all.
Conclusion: The Year Ahead
The year ahead is bright. We could discuss many more highlights of the last year, and outline many more plans for the year ahead. Instead, we leave you with IHC’s belief statements. These are our yardstick. They are who we are and what we strive for. If we live up to our beliefs, we are accomplishing our mission!
We believe in God, the traditions of the Holy Catholic Church, and Catholic education founded on the love and teachings of Jesus Christ.
We believe in welcoming students and families of all faiths and backgrounds.
We believe in a safe, nurturing environment.
We believe in the dignity, potential, and individual gifts of every student.
We believe in excellence – in academics, athletics, the arts, and service.
We believe in cultivating leaders and good citizens of our community, country, and world.
We believe in mutually-supportive relationships through a faith community of students, parents, faculty, alumni and friends.
We believe in lifelong learning and service to others.
We believe in accountability to those we serve and always striving to improve.
The first day of school, 2013!
Thank you and God Bless!