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Dear Scott & Tammy:
School leaders face an increasingly complex and challenging competitive landscape these days. By working with the School Growth team, Sacred Heart Cathedral School has become stronger and healthier, and I wanted to share some successes with you.
School Growth helps us achieve our mission within our means
As the principal of a large Catholic elementary school (PK-8, 625 kids), I, like many school leaders, have to juggle many competing demands for my time and attention. Our partnership with you has helped me focus on the factors that truly lead to the school’s success. The research, data and direction that you provide help me to develop an empirical approach to measuring our success and making meaningful improvements.
Catholic schools, in particular, have to really bring our "A game” everyday with our time, efficiency and direction. The stakes are high, and our commitment to being accessible to more families means we that have to deal with limited funding and time, so we need to maximize both. School Growth helps us achieve our mission within our means.
Building our Growth Engine for Success
This year, I decided to implement a leadership team model instead of using a traditional principal/assistant principal approach. This was a huge success and School Growth’s Leadership Coaching played a big part in that success. We structured each bi-weekly meeting around our “rocks” (key individual goals that stem from the school’s larger goals) and scorecard. This disciplined structure allowed us to focus on the school’s most important goals and helped to align each administrator with those goals through their daily work.
Also, I have your Laws of the Grapevine approach to communication printed and hung in my office and conference room as visual reminders! A specific, intentional approach to communicating with all stakeholder groups helps keep me on track and connected. I added a “feedback loop” to this approach this year in order to see if my intended message was the received message, and this has sharpened my communication habits and increased engagement.
95% Reenrollment and Growing!
Through School Growth’s enrollment management approach we have a great success story to tell. In our first year of implementation (2017-18) we achieved 95% retention, and that same level of success continued into 2018-19. Strategic Enrollment Coaching for our admissions director has put us in the position to open school next year with more students and strong momentum!
The cumulative success and focus that stem from our implementation of the School Growth approach have led, naturally, to improved faculty engagement and to a buzz and energy in our school. I am grateful for our partnership with you and look forward to continued success!
Dan
Daniel Breen, Principal
Sacred Heart Cathedral School
Knoxville, TN
