
by Vince Cascone
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” — Mt 6:33
We celebrate National Catholic Schools Week from Jan. 26 through Feb. 1. The theme for this year is “United in Faith and Community.”
In anticipation of this celebration of our Catholic schools, I have a very exciting announcement to share with you. After a thorough discernment process, the archdiocesan office of Catholic schools has entered into a partnership with The Catholic University of America and its Lumen Accreditation process.
In addition to being accredited by the state of Kansas, we will participate in this distinctly Catholic accreditation process. Catholic accreditation is unique in a world of secular accrediting agencies because it helps us to look at our Catholic schools and evaluate every aspect of them in light of our Catholic worldview. This integration is missing in secular accreditation processes, which hampers a Catholic school’s ability to grow in its unique mission.
As Archbishop J. Michael Miller writes in “The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools”: “A collaborative and systematic exercise of assessing a school’s catholicity would serve to identify, clarify and strengthen its effectiveness in its service of Christ and the church.”
It is of paramount importance that we have a quality assurance process to help us measure the effectiveness of fulfilling our mission and setting a course for continuous improvement. In this process, we will work with Lumen to review and assess our standards of excellence and how successful we are at attaining them.
As the Gospel passage at the beginning of this article highlights, every aspect of what we do must begin with prioritizing God’s will above all else and putting our focus on living according to God’s laws and seeking a deeper relationship with him.
If we do this rather than focusing solely on worldly concerns and material possessions, God will provide for our needs. We must have a continuous drive to assure all we do and all decisions we make are pointing to our primary mission of helping our students to have a relationship with Jesus and to be with him in heaven. If we do this faithfully and completely, we will achieve our other goals as well.
Our students will continue to excel academically as our schools help students discover, connect and deepen their understanding of faith and reason. We will seek excellence in all areas for our students, including in their learning, behavior and athletics. First, we will seek his kingdom!
I thank you for your support and prayers for our Catholic schools and for all of our faculty and staff members.