Last month we gathered at Hilbert for our Board training. This partnership with Boston College’s Roche Center has proven to be fruitful as the participants were sent resources for helping develop their capacities in the three-fold functions of our School Boards: supporting the principal, developing & monitoring the school’s finances, and support the school’s advancement efforts. As we continue to build out these resources, we’ll post on our website.

In the meantime, we have several schools who are just starting the work and don’t know where to begin. We also have a few schools who weren’t able to send board members. So I’ve created this brief training (20 minutes) to highlight where to start and what to pay attention to.

I’m also available to dialogue and come to your meetings in person. Now that the volleyball season is wrapping up, I’ll have more evenings free! Let us know what you need, and we’ll try to provide the resources.

Recall that the vision for these new Operating Principles is to bring more people into our schools’ decision making to distribute the work as well as providing more expertise to help our schools become better. With common principles, it allows for more collaboration between schools and more training specific to this model, too.

Previous blogs can be found here. Want to keep up with the conversations surrounding Catholic education? Set up your own Google Alert, subscribe to this newsletter by clicking "follow," or subscribe to the Catholic School Matters podcast.

Dr. Tim Uhl

• The online requesting systems for the 2024 Grades 3-8 ELA and Math tests and the Grade 5 & 8 Science tests are now open. Online requests may be submitted HERE. The system closes November 10, 2023

• The Character Virtue for October is Sportsmanship. Please use this link to submit your student for October by Fri. 11/3.

• 2nd Annual Math Tournament at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. See here for details. Register by Nov. 1st.

• Catholic School’s Day with the BPO is Feb. 13, 2024 at 10:15am. Use the BPO Registration form to register your school (grades 1-4). Payments must be received by January 8th.

• 8th Grade Diploma Order Form must be completed by January 31st.

We've created a google doc for agendas and notes from the 8:30 am Wed Teams Meetings. Here is the link.

Here's the link to the Office Blog

• 10/28/23 Last day to register to vote in NYS – Encourage all Families to Vote!
• 11/1/23 Title I Letters Sent to Each Public School District w/Poverty Students
• 11/17/23 BEDS Report Due to NYSED via Business Portal IRS-Data Exchange
• 12/1/23 Fire Safety Inspection Must be Completed; Report Due 12/16/2023

Mandated Services for 2022-23 – Online Forms Available 1/2/2024 for 4/1/2024 Submission Deadline: NYSED just released the 2022-2023 Mandated Services forms. To help you prepare for the Mandated Services claim process, I have created a personalized Excel spreadsheet for each school which was sent to 8 schools over the last four months. For the remaining 44 schools, if you are ready to begin working on your claim please send me an email to request your personalized “Form 1” Excel spreadsheet. Verifying the salary and benefits information on Form 1 is the most time-consuming part of the Mandated Services process. Additional information will be sent to all schools when the online claims are made available by NYSED on the Business Portal around 1/2/2024.

BEDS Online Report Due to NYSED by 11/17; Save in Google Sheets For Our Office: Remember that there is a new application on the NYSED Business Portal (http://portal.nysed.gov/) for you to submit your BEDS report. When you are ready to file your BEDS report with NYSED, go to “IRS Data Exchange” under “My Applications” (do not use BEDS/IMF – that only holds your archival data now). It takes about 10 to 15 seconds to load but you should see “BEDS - Nonpublic Data Form” for “Collection Year” 2023-2024 as one of your choices on the new site. Once you click on it you should be able to enter your data using this form. Thank you for also saving your responses in the Google Sheet shared with you by our office; this allows us to see your submitted BEDS data.

Previous posts from Mr. Riso

This season's Catholic School Matters podcast season is underway. This month, I kicked off a series of podcasts on leadership in Catholic schools. These five podcasts will include a conversation with a Catholic school leader about five controversies which have impacted Catholic schools in the past year. Then I invite on another Catholic school thought leader to reflect on what they've heard. The fourth podcast includes a conversation with Dr. Melanie Palmisano about five controversies and then a reflection by Dr. Antonio Felix of LMU. Here's a blog post about the episode. Previous episodes:

• The third podcast includes a conversation with Dr. Kevin Baxter of ACE about five controversies, and then a shorter conversation Dr. Bill Hughes. Here's a blog post about the episode
  
• The second in the series includes a conversation with Greg Richmond of the Archdiocese of Chicago and commentary from Faustin Weber. Here's a blog post about the podcast.
  
• The first podcast includes a conversation with Dr. Daniel McMahon from DeMatha Catholic High School and a reflection by Beth Purvis of Wake Forest. I've also penned a blog post which gives a little more context to the project
• I invite John Kennedy of St. Joseph High School in South Bend onto the show to discuss the school's decision to drop their Native American nickname and the process by which this decision occurred
  
• I spoke with Fr. Jack Podsiadlo, SJ, the author of the recent book "The Nativity Phenomenon." In the book, he tells the story of how the Nativity schools began and their incredible growth. Now semi-retired back home at McQuaid, this was a face-to-face conversation.
  
• I brought David Palmieri back on the podcast to discuss diocesan policies about human sexuality. Palmieri has done the homework to discover origins of different policies and find out how they are related to each other. We discuss the different types of policies, their origins, and their implications
  
• I spoke with Rob Birdsell of Amerigo Education & Catholic Virtual. It's a wide-ranging discussion about Catholic education and innovation
  
• I spoke with William Daily, the longtime principal of St. Mary Magdalene School in San Antonio which has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past decade.
  
• Conversation with Christine Healey. The Healey Foundation has been in incredible partner with the Diocese of Buffalo and Christine describes the new direction for the foundation.

Here is a link to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

A weekly newsletter of resources to spur enrollment and excellence in our Catholic schools.

Email: catholicschoolmatters@gmail.com
Website: www.wnycatholic.org
Location: Buffalo, NY, USA
Phone: 716-847-5520
Twitter: @WNYCatholicEd

1. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (2013) by A.G. Lafley & Roger L. Martin
   

2. The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila.

3. White Too Long : The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2020) by Robert P. Jones
   

4. The Art of Learning ( 2007) by Josh Waitkin

5. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped It (2023 ) by Timothy Egan
   

Click this link for a full list of my professional reading

October 17, 2023 "Systems Thinking"

October 10, 2023 "Leadership Lessons"

October 3, 2023 "Friday's Colloborative Community"

September 26, 2023 "Character"

September 19, 2023 "Goal Setting"

For previous newsletters, click this link

A few years ago I set out to write a book which would explore the challenges of Catholic school leadership. My premise that there are no easy answers and that we have to learn from our (and other's) mistakes in order to form a mindset appropriate for orchestrating conflict proved prescient as we all faced completely new and unexpected challenges in 2020. The book,Orchestrating Conflict: Case Studies in Catholic Leadership is now available on Amazon or on the Barnes & Noble site in print or e-book formats. The book explores issues in Catholic school leadership and the tensions between building community and following Church policies and introduces deliberate practice as a method for leadership formation. Most recently, I have completed a new book proposal so book #2 is underway!