November 21, 2009
New principal named for regional school
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Laura Allen, principal since 1999 of St. Mary School in Sacramento, talks with some students on the school campus. Luis Gris/Herald photo
The new regional elementary school in south Sacramento has announced its founding principal. Laura Allen, principal of St. Mary School in Sacramento for the past 11 years, will take the helm when St. Patrick SUCCEED Academy opens its doors on Aug. 23 of next year.
Allen’s accomplishments at St. Mary School include expanding programs,
increasing enrollment to 365 students (the largest in the diocese), bringing
new computers to every classroom and new technology to the school computer
lab, and building in 2004 the Sister Cabrini Center, which houses music
and arts programs, administrative offices, a science lab and a chapel.
“I’m going to bring one of these buildings over there to St.
Patrick SUCCEED Academy, too,” Allen said.
“Kids can only participate in the opportunities that are given to
them, and they have no control over what those opportunities are,”
she said. “We have to figure out ways to think outside the box and
make opportunities happen.”
Allen’s new appointment results from the diocese’s efforts to
address declining enrollment and financial difficulties in two south Sacramento
schools, St. Anne School, formerly located at 7720 24th St., and St. Patrick
School at 5945 Franklin Blvd.
Both schools faced increasingly steep enrollment declines, with St. Anne
School closing this year after its enrollment declined in the last decade
from 221 to 92 students. St. Patrick School enrollment had dropped from
379 students 10 years ago to 109 last year, but picked up some transferring
students from St. Anne School to bring this year’s enrollment to 157
students.
St. Patrick SUCCEED Academy consolidates the two schools into a regional
school at the site of the St. Patrick School campus, and places the governance
of the school under a board of directors appointed by Bishop Jaime Soto.
Both St. Anne and St, Patrick schools were part of the five urban elementary
schools designated SUCCEED schools by the Sacramento Urban Catholic Children’s
Equal Education Development (SUCCEED) organization, formed 25 years ago
to help struggling urban schools. As more affluent families moved to the
suburbs, and Catholic schools, formerly staffed by religious communities
of sisters, hired lay staff at higher salaries, Catholic schools in increasingly
low-income urban neighborhoods faced tremendous challenges funding the schools
through the traditional parochial school model, in which parent-paid tuition
and parish subsidy (from parents and others in the urban parish) financed
the school’s operation.
Supported by a $453,000 advance from the Diocese of Sacramento for upgrading
the facilities, the board of the new academy has made improvements to the
campus on Franklin Boulevard, installing new air conditioning and heating,
new lighting, new flat roofs and repaired tile roofs, and new floor coverings,
and will be refurbishing the athletic field, according to Tom McNamara,
chief financial officer for the diocese.
An additional $1.5 million in improvements is planned to be undertaken in
2010, he added. A fundraising effort is anticipated to fully fund the $2
million in improvements to the campus.
When Bishop Soto announced the academy in February of this year, he noted
that he did not want to create “a school for the elite,” but
instead “build a system that will be affordable, accessible and attractive
to all Catholic families.”
“A substantial amount of tuition assistance will be available to families
at St. Patrick SUCCEED Academy who would otherwise not be able to attend
Catholic schools,” McNamara said. “This is consistent with the
vision of the SUCCEED program since its inception more than 20 years ago.”
Chuck Sylva, a board member of St. Patrick SUCCEED Academy, told The Herald
that the board intends to build a program at St. Patrick that will be a
model for the diocese.
Noting that his own children attended Holy Spirit School in Sacramento,
Sylva said, “I want a school for these kids (at St. Patrick SUCCEED
Academy) that looks like the school my kids went to. I want them to have
a school that is excellent.”
Allen, the new principal, agreed.
“I’ve accomplished what I could accomplish at St. Mary’s
and I feel called in my ministry to bring much of what we’ve done
here to St. Patrick’s,” she said.
“We have to educate kids for the 21st century, for jobs that we don’t
even know about yet. We have to help these kids to become communicative,
collaborative, cooperative learners.
“I’d like to talk with the existing families at St Patrick,”
she added, “and ask them about their dreams for their kids, so I can
build a school with their input as well.” She plans to talk with families
from the former St. Anne School and the former Immaculate Conception School
also, she noted. Immaculate Conception School closed in 2003.
Allen, a lay member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Loretto
Sisters, has more than 30 years of experience as a teacher and administrator
in Catholic schools in California and Illinois.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education from California
State University, Sacramento, a master’s degree in educational leadership
and a credential from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, and a lifetime
multiple subject teaching credential and a single subject teaching credential
from the state of California.
In addition to her tenure as principal at St. Mary’s, Allen has taught
at St. Philomene School in Sacramento, St. Bride’s School and Queen
of All Saints School in Chicago, and St. Robert School in Sacramento, where
she was also assistant principal. As a teacher, she has most often taught
science, physical education and math.
“Catholic education is my ministry — not my job,” Allen
said. “I feel excited by being the pioneer here in order to bring
about this good quality, Catholic faith-filled school.”
