The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders podcast, where we discuss leadership in Catholic education. My name is John Mahalio, the president and founder of Elementary Advancement Solutions, where we're dedicated to enhancing Catholic education and connecting Catholic school leaders worldwide. Now today is a great podcast episode for a number of reasons.

Today I'm getting the opportunity to speak with an incredible Catholic high school educator. Her name is Amy Ely. She serves as a director of the STEM program at Detroit Catholic Central High School. Now what's great about this interview is, you're going to see what happens when you dream big, and what happens when those dreams become a reality.

And I think you're also going to hear a lot about what happens when a school leader Uh, Advancement Officers, and Teachers all share a common vision for where they want their school to go. So, whether you're a Principal, you're an Advancement Director, you're a Classroom Teacher, [00:01:00] Uh, you're going to take something away from this episode, and I hope it inspires you to start dreaming big, and just to see where those dreams can take you.

Now, speaking of dreaming big, I, as I've mentioned before, you've heard me say this before, if you're first time listening to the Catholic School Leaders podcast, I think there's six things that every Catholic school needs to have and that's going to help them be successful to become a great school. And I want to share this with you for free, no cost.

Uh, some great questions and thoughts to help start some, hopefully some great conversations with your school leadership. Absolutely free. Go to www. elementaryadvancement. com. Get your free copy of The Keys to a Successful, The Keys to a Successful Catholic Schools today. Um, just sign up for that and, and you'll have that emailed to you.

I hope it's very helpful to you. Hope it provides some great discussions and some great conversations for your school. And finally, before I introduce Amy, I want to remind you, if you're enjoying this podcast, hey, please take a quick second, give it a thumbs up, [00:02:00] um, if you have 30 seconds that you can leave a nice review, if you feel the podcast merits such an honor, I'd be really appreciative of that, and subscribe if you can.

Uh, I can't say thank you enough, and, and I guess the last thing I would say is, In the United States alone, there's over 6, 000 Catholic schools. Uh, and, and we have to help each other continue to grow Catholic education. So if you know of a Catholic school leader who would benefit from this podcast or any of our other Catholic school leaders podcasts, uh, be sure to send it their way and hopefully somebody will share resources with you as well.

Um, we're all in this together and helping each other out. So, uh, thank you so much for that. And now I want to introduce my guest today, Amy Ely. Amy began teaching in 2013 in the Taylor School District as their elementary technology teacher, where she built a tech curriculum for grades K through 5 in her first year.

She then moved to Riverview Community School District, where she spent last eight years building a STEM program that students [00:03:00] love and districts from across the state are using as a benchmark. Teaching in STEM aren't just a job or a career for Amy, they are her passion. Her students get excited and energized.

About the latest technology in STEM careers because she truly ignites their desire for learning all about things that are STEM related. And as she uses every bit of technology that she can get her hands on, ranging from neuroscience tools to backyard brains, to creating virtual worlds and VR using co spaces.

Uh, when she's not in the classroom, Amy can't stay away from her interest and stays busy all summer. Uh, last summer she did a fellowship for a joint project between MIT. in the University of Michigan in neuroscience using artificial intelligence and machine learning in which she guided 10 undergraduates from all over the world in their pursuit of using neuroscience technology to develop better AI.

She's also a director for Camp Invention [00:04:00] Vanguard, a high intensity summer STEM camp sponsored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. She also strives to share her love of all things STEM by presenting at conferences across the Midwest and hosting numerous professional development opportunities for local educators.

In fact, this year she was a featured presenter at the MACUL conference and Mercy High Tech Talk, as well as being the only teacher in the U. S. to pilot Robotify. a cyber Roblox coding platform, and helping launch their product in the U. S. Welcome, Amy, to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast.

Thanks so much for having me, John. I'm excited to be here.

So there is some excitement going on at Detroit Catholic Central High School. I mean, I am reading and watching videos of you giving tours of this wonderful I don't want to give it away, but just the amazing things that are [00:05:00] happening there. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about Detroit Catholic Central High School.

Catholic Central is the largest private high school in Michigan. We currently have 1, 017 students and it's all boys. So Catholic, all boys, and there's a whole bunch of them. 50 percent of our students come from a public school background and about 75 percent of them identify as Catholic. Our students come from over 80 zip codes throughout Michigan, more than 100 different schools.

So it is a large and varied population. Thanks

That's amazing. And, and the school looks incredible. And, and I love the shirt and ties and, and everything. Everybody's looking sharp. tell us how, how did you your background a little bit in terms of things? Because what we're going to be getting into is some, is some amazing things.

But I think it's important to know kind of how you got to the point where you are right now to lead this amazing endeavor that's happening at Detroit Catholic Central.

I would love to tell you about it. It's kind of a crazy journey. First, I'm a Catholic schoolgirl myself. I went to [00:06:00] Our Lady of Mount Carmel, shout out and wind at which is now Our Lady of the Scapular and didn't go into education. I went into science. I was an industrial hygiene chemist. Until my second daughter was born and I was laid off.

I ended up staying home with my girls, I have two daughters for six years and raising them as a stay at home mom, being super involved in their school, being there almost every day doing educational outreach, whether it was science experiments, helping with reading, helping in the library, just doing whatever they needed me to do.

And I realized in doing that, I loved to teach. So I went back to school at 37 and got a master's degree in education and became a teacher. So when I started my first teaching gig, it was to work in the Taylor School District to develop a technology curriculum for an elementary school that had a computer lab.

But nothing really to do with it. And that really started me out, started me down my path of learning how STEM was really my passion. Because you take the science of it. I originally started college at U of M for [00:07:00] engineering. I love engineering, but the science just appealed to me more. And so all of that put together is this big amalgamation of why STEM is my jam.

I ended up in Riverview Community School District in 2015, where over the following nine years, we built a STEM program, K 12, that was really a benchmark throughout the state, and it gave me an opportunity to further dig in, in different areas of STEM. And when Catholic Central called, the irony, I was about to get married, I was buying a house 15 minutes from the school, but an hour from where I had grown up.

And This opportunity presented itself in a honestly, John, it was like God had made a plan and this was where I was meant to be. And I truly believe that everything that I've done in my career up until this point has led me to this role to be most effective for Catholic Central.

And I always say God has a plan and it's better. His plan will be anything than better than anything I could ever come up with. And [00:08:00] so just, just listen and follow and don't be afraid. Cause you know, sometimes it's, Oh, I don't know why. And boom, it all makes sense. And so you lead you to where you are today, which is this amazing, amazing STEM program that you have at, at Catholic Central.

First off, and, and I, and I want to make sure that cause there's a lot of schools out there that may hear. STEM, STEM, or STEAM, or STREAM, or anything like that, but when we hear STEM a lot, and I think maybe sometimes people have this idea in their head of what a STEM program is. Can you give me just a quick overview of a STEM program from somebody who's not only doing it, but implementing it and living it each day?

Absolutely. So, first of all, STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math, and it's. Quite simply, an amalgamation of those four or any combination of those curricular areas. And what I like to use for a venue, not a venue, excuse my wording. What I like to use for an avenue is project based learning is the most effective way to do this.[00:09:00]

And, When you bring STEM into a school, it's not just a class. It's a way of thinking. It's integrated into every discipline. You can have STEM in theology. You can have STEM in math, obviously. You can have STEM in English. But using that cross disciplinary approach and focusing, having a focus on any of those four or more disciplines.

As many of them as you'd like, those curricular areas gives you a way to bridge that gap between science and bringing in more than one discipline.

I, and I think that's awesome because when you make it part of your culture, part of who you are as a school you know, oftentimes I hear schools, they say, we have religion class one day a week for, for this much time, or we do religion for 30 minutes a day. And to me, like religion, you do everywhere. And what you're doing with STEM is you're saying, listen, we're not just doing STEM for 30 minutes or 60 minutes a day.

It's part of everything that we're doing at our school, and I think that makes your school much more [00:10:00] effective when you're, when you're truly getting into the roots of what it is you're doing.

I agree with you. In fact, we so much so in the school setting, we take the stem and bring it in. We've done we're debuting a Brand new scheduling system. We call it a concentrated block schedule where monthly each week, like one week of each month, we'll have a concentrated block schedule where two days of that week will be 90 minute blocks.

So each student will have all of their classes over a two day period. But in 90 minute blocks, allowing teachers to use more of that project based learning strategies, giving the boys that hands on effective learning that really helps them remember and engage. And I'm super proud of that transition that we've made into this year to also to prepare them for, for university, because when you go off to post secondary or to secondary post secondary education, you're not just sitting there for 45 minutes or 60 minutes, you're there for a long time.

So this is going to help them be better prepared for [00:11:00] when they leave us. and move on to college.

And I think that's awesome because so many times we say, hey, we want you to do this, but then we don't give them the time or we don't make the schedule fit what, what it is that we're asking teachers to do. And so what you've kind of done is to take the approach saying, this is what we want to do. Now let's tailor how we're doing it to make sure that our teachers are able to do it and that our kids are able to do it, which I think is, is awesome.

Now, to truly bring something to a school, what you're doing, you've got to have a vision of where you want to take the school and, and, and why you want to go there. Talk to us about how did STEM come to Catholic Central

So STEM came to Catholic Central through a number of different avenues. First and foremost, we've had some really amazing and strong science content here for years. This is not, that's not something new. Same thing with math, engineering. We're blessed with the teachers that we have, but bringing it to a cross disciplinary [00:12:00] platform so that you can effectively teach multiple disciplines at once.

We were limited more by facilities and funding. Right? And we have a donor that wanted to really unleash us as a school, allow us to do more, allow us to think futuristically, allow us to have things that would take us into the future with successes that were benchmarked on industry and university standards, and also, where we predicted those standards would be.

So not just 2, 5, 10 years down the road. We're looking 30, 50 years down the road. Some people call those futurists. The donor also said they wanted us to challenge others within our school community and the community at large to come in and be involved as well. And we were, that was probably the best part is that everyone really, it was a synergy.

Everyone came together. worked together to help make this happen, whether it's our president, our principal, our director of operations, our head of [00:13:00] I. T., our science department chair, all of the teachers that are moving into the eight amazing laboratory classrooms, as well as the engineering lab, the machine shop for robotics, the 3D printing and computer programming laboratory, our observadome, where people will be able to teach using Five different Celestron telescopes, you name it.

Everyone came together to really help like lead the charge to get into this building.

and that's amazing and and you brought in something there You said, you know, we wanted our community to come together to kind of say hey This is what but there's even more we're not just bringing in and asking What you're doing there is actually doing something as well where you're giving back to the community and there's that outreach piece of things That's happening as well.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely. One of the main missions of the George and Mary Turk Hall of Science is to educate all, not just our shamrocks, although they are the first ones that are walking through the door, right? That's for our community as well. For example, we've [00:14:00] developed some partnerships. And one that I'm particularly excited about is with Gleaners.

Food banks and we'll be working with Gleaners of the Tri-County area. This one in particular that we've met with is from Oakland County, and they have a farm out there where they grow fresh produce to put in their food banks, and we'll be able to use our greenhouse to start all of their seedlings for them early, which means it won't delay.

their growth season, it'll actually kind of jumpstart it. And even better than that, our shamrocks are going to be able to go out there and help do the planting. And then later in the year, they'll be able to go help do the harvesting. So it's really a full circle moment for the young men here at Catholic Central, because volunteerism is a huge part of what we do.

Each of our boys is required to have anywhere from 15 to 25 or 30 hours of volunteer service time. off campus, not here volunteering, doing something, but leaving, spreading out into the communities where they live, where they grow. Because part of being a [00:15:00] Shamrock and a good man of Catholic Central means you give back to the community and back to the world.

So this partnership with Gleaners not only will help us give back, but it will give them that platform to see, you know, Food insecurity, it happens everywhere. You don't know where food insecurity is going to come from. It is a real system that's, you know, kind of, we're trying to diminish it here within the U.

S., but there are strict, strictures in place now that, like, Gleaners has amazing open food pantries, so anything that we also grow our, our greenhouse has an eco sustainability focus, so we have aeroplanic towers as well as standard tables and racks that we'll be using to grow seedlings and things, but those towers are going to be huge producers and anything that we grow in there we'll be able to donate to those food banks as well.

And then they get to see exactly what they're doing in their community immediately, which, which just shows it's such an, it's such a big impact for our kids because I think sometimes we walk into the grocery stores or to the [00:16:00] a farmer's market or whatever, it's kind of like, okay, yeah, that's there.

But then when they get to see the process of it all it makes them appreciate it so much more. and knowing the

I agree. Yeah, another great outreach that I'm personally excited about because while I am full on a STEM nerd space is my jam, and we have our amazing Celestron telescopes. They're the biggest one is housed inside of an observatome. Which, when you pull on campus and you see this big silver dome, you're thinking, what the heck is that, right?

Like, is that part of a church, or is that, you know, you don't automatically think at a high school that it's a super high powered telescope that's fully digital, and that you can program to watch the stars at night and you can see them during the day based on the recordings, but it's not. I remember when I was a little girl, I went to my local high school, which ended up being where I went to high school, and they had pardon me, I'm losing the word, not an observatory, and they had a planetarium.

And I went into that planetarium, and for the first time saw what, like, a lot of stars looked like in the sky, because the [00:17:00] areas in which we live, we have so much light pollution. Kids don't always see that, right? So we'll have the power to do the viewing with the telescope and then stream that down into our immersive theater, which is like an IMAX without a back screen.

It's 270 degrees. We can seat 140 people in there and we're going to be having community outreach star parties. So bring those kids in, let them see what the stars look like, literally at that moment. And maybe, you know, help nurture some future astrophysicists or astrobiologists or astronomers.

Inspire them to, to just get that spark in their mind. That's so important. That's so important for our kids. What do you see in terms of, of the benefits for the kids? And I, and I know this, you've talked about so many of them already, but when you're talking about the short term and long term benefits of STEM, what are you seeing in terms of those at your school, especially at a high school level?

So I've been here for two years, John, and my first year I [00:18:00] started off teaching biology and I love biology, but I'm I wanted to teach something cross curricular. That's more of a stem aspect for me. So last year, I launched a course called stem explorations, which is designed to help some of our freshmen and sophomore boys.

figure out which specific area of STEM appealed to them most. And we do that by working through projects that are focused around the 10 grand engineering challenges. So things like virtual and augmented reality, civil engineering, engineering for our environment, learning how to, more, more or less, empathy through engineering.

For example, we did something with the boy who harnessed the wind, Michael Kamakwambe, who built a wind turbine that helped bring water to irrigate fields at his village in Africa. And the boys built with their own wind turbines, which they then solar powered. So getting them hands on, like in any type of STEM area, where they can see, is this something that I like?

Is this something I can be passionate about? And even if you don't love it, if [00:19:00] you eliminate it from your realm of possibilities, you kind of take the confusion of choosing your scheduling out of the picture, right? And then as we move forward, we've been, like I mentioned earlier, we benchmark with industry and at university level.

You know, I've been to over a dozen of the leading STEM universities in the country to try and help figure out what are they looking for from prospective students and what do they offer for my boys that might want to go there that I can help better prepare them for. So in doing so, it helps us get them further down the road and understand not just.

Again, like I said, what's happening in 2, 5, 10 years, but what's going to happen when you leave for when you leave college? Are you going to go right into the workforce? Are you going to go do some doctoral level or master's level education? Or can you go right into a career position? And to be best prepared for that, you have to have the leading edge technology because technology is changing so [00:20:00] rapidly.

I think about 30 percent of your STEM curriculum needs to be adjusted on a biannual basis so that you're keeping up with industry, which is why we will have our finger on the pulse of what's going on. And when it comes to that, we're super blessed to have a huge network of Shamrock alumni. They have been incredibly supportive.

Like, I can't thank them enough for reaching out and saying, Hey, I have a 3D printing company. Would you like to come and tour it? Or, Hey, we work in manufacturing and we use CNC machines. I know you're going to have one in your machine shop. Would you like to come and see how we use it? And using our alumni as our partners has been such, such a blessing.

And that engagement with your alumni Keeps them involved with what's happening at the school it gives, allows them to give back, it allows your kids and your students to see your alumni and the, and the great work that they're doing, and that just continues to, to foster that partnership between the school and its students, even after [00:21:00] they graduate, which I think is so important it's not just like as soon as we graduate, it's like, all right, well, thanks it continues that partnership for years and years to come.

It really, really does. And we're always thankful to welcome the boys home because a lot of times when the boys come home, they're grown men with children of their own, or sometimes their grandfathers, I've met a number of alumni over these last couple of years that are so many multi generational families, and they all just feel like family.

They want to come back to C. C. to see how things are going. I think the one thing that has really when it relates to the STEM building, other than the fact that our primary benefactor is an alumni, Mr. Turek, and he wants to give back to his school, his alma mater, to help, as he says, make us one of the greatest high schools there is, right?

He wants us to look into the future. We were launching an aviation program, which you don't see at most private or Catholic high schools, right? And this was something that I didn't know anything about when I started this job, but it was a rapid learning curve and we just [00:22:00] jumped right in with both feet because we were fortunate that Mr.

Turk also donated an FMX full motion flight simulator. So this isn't something that you go to Dave and Buster's and put in your little card with your credits on it, hop in and, you know, go for a flight. Like this will be used for boys to accumulate flight hours. Yeah, it really is. So our aviation program launches this August.

We've got 25 boys in our inaugural flight class, and we'll have instruction here. They'll do their ground school here for their private pilot's license at Catholic Central, and then they'll be able to choose where they do their flight lessons just depending on where they live to find the flight school that's closest to them.

And at the end of that first year, they'll graduate with their private pilot's license and then move on into their instrument rating and then further into their single and dual engine commercial licenses.

Which, and I know from having relatives that are pilot, that's, I mean, that's big because that's, it's very, the biggest thing is to accumulate those hours and to get [00:23:00] that certification to be able to move to the next level. You're allowing these kids to do it while they're still in school. That's amazing.

It really is. And our not only do we have the FMX, we've all just We've also just brought on board six TD2 desktop flight simulators, which have three huge panels that surround them. It looks just like a cockpit. You're sitting in an actual pilot's seat, which is mounted to a platform. You're wearing pilot's Bose noise canceling headphones.

You got the throttle, the yoke, the pedals, you have everything. It's not just a joystick video game like this is a simulator. And there's six of those as well. And all of our simulators are endorsed by the FAA. So when the students are here with a flight instructor, they'll be able to use those hours to count toward their license up to as many as you're allowed for each individual level.

And here's another place where our alumni came in. I was thoroughly amazed because I hadn't thought of this aspect. We have Alumni that are pilots or retired pilots, but maintain their status as a flight [00:24:00] instructor. They're volunteering to come back and be those flight instructors and be able to sign off and certify those hours for the young men that are working toward their private pilot's licenses.

When you regularly would have to go somewhere and pay a lot of money to get that done. So our Shamrock Aviation guys are coming out of the woodwork and I'm so thankful for that.

It's incredible the connection that you're getting with your alumni, with your community. I think it's an amazing thing. I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible there. Many schools are kind of seeing what you're doing, and they're hearing you talk, and they're hearing these amazing things that you're doing, and they're saying, we don't have that donor who can give us this, or we don't, you know, right now we're, we're not, but we'd love to do something STEM related, or, or, you know, They're intrigued by it, but they kind of want to dabble in it a little bit before they go all into it.

What do you, in terms of your advice to those schools that want to get [00:25:00] started with a STEM program at their school, what advice do you have for them to get, get, take that first step? 000 mile journey begins with the first step. What's that first step that you would invite schools to explore to kind of maybe become what you're doing right now?

I'm super glad you asked that question, because when I first started I had a tote bin that had scrap stuff. Toilet paper tubes, paper towel rolls, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, and granted that was in an elementary level but that was my start. But the first thing that I would tell any school, and I speak on this all across the Midwest, like this is my jam.

If you are interested in learning about STEM and how to bring it to your school, reach out. I can point you to some resources, but my first piece of advice. Find your passion and pick your direction. If there's something in particular that you have a lead teacher that they really love to do or they're super passionate about, let them fly with it.

Because when you teach with that passion, you're [00:26:00] engaging your students in a way like No one standing in front of a classroom teaching about something that they're not passionate about is going to be able to do. You're going to ignite that interest, and even if it's not something that they want to continue doing after you teach them, that's okay.

They're going to learn even better because you're passionate about it. Now, when it comes to monetary things, your direction is key. Is this something that you want to do with a pre purchasable program? Something like Project lead the way, or is this something that you want to create organically because you feel that you have a staff that's creative and they want to develop their own scope and sequence for whatever coursework you may do K through 12?

There's a number of ways of doing it, but to do it for free, the best thing are community partnerships and grants. For example, We were just awarded an approximately 10, 000 Explore Learning Gizmos grant, and Learning Gizmos are an online simulation lab tool that can be [00:27:00] used in science and math. That's what we're using them.

Well, we're using them specifically for science and STEM, and they're math applicable as well. This tool allows our students to not only have hands on laboratory experiences, for those visual learners, and as we know, kids now are digital natives. When they see it on a screen, they're having a lot more retention.

So they can do an online laboratory simulation that is going to be something that helps them learn through those different pathways and develop better retention of the topics that they're learning about. But that was a grant that I've applied for, and interviewed for, and we received. And you don't have to You don't have to have a hundred, a thousand, a million dollars.

You can start by applying for grants, and there's tons of them out there, and asking partners in your community, like, for example, if there's a cardboard or box maker nearby or a palette maker, Hey, we're gonna work on building a cardboard boat or we need some of your pallets to break down to use that [00:28:00] wood to build the basis for some wood or wind turbines.

Would you be willing to donate some things so that we can get working in our STEM group? And you would be shocked at the number of people that would say, heck yeah, and what else can we do to help you? So you need to reach out and develop those relationships as well as look for grants.

Just making that ask is so important and, and just start. And I'm going to tell you the other thing too, that, that I think really has helped your cause. You have that vision of what it is that, that you want to do. You, you had that vision two years ago of what it is that you wanted to do and it's grown.

And I think when you go, and I'm sure for your advancement directors or your fundraising offices, Your president, your principals, to be able to go to a prospective donor and say, here's the vision. Do you want to support it? As opposed to, hey, can you support us? What are you gonna be doing? Well, we're not sure yet, but once you support us, then we'll let you know what it's gonna be.

Having that vision to lay out in front of them [00:29:00] is so important because they can see it, it's tangible, and then they get excited. And, and that support is just going to pour in financially or other, through other methods, as you're saying, in terms of bringing your alumni back. So having that vision to me is so critical.

Really it is. When you sit down as a group, as an organization, and as a school, and determine what are your priorities, what are the things that you want to make sure that you have available as resources, as courses, as materials in those courses, it's a huge, huge obstacle. So if you can't do that, then you're probably going to fizzle.

right? But if you can sit down with your school administration, with your advancement, like you mentioned, because that all plays in Catholic schools, that plays a huge role, right? And I am, we are so incredibly blessed and fortunate here at Catholic Central that we are of one mind, like we are, we are Educating our shamrocks using goodness, discipline, and knowledge, and that STEM is [00:30:00] going to be a cross curricular, cross disciplinary part of that, and they're incredibly supportive.

Like, I can't emphasize how blessed I truly feel to have the support that we do and the single vision that we all share.

Huge. And, and let's talk for just a minute, okay? So, so we're going to narrow our focus here to the principal out there or, or the teacher out there who says, Gosh, I would really love to do STEM, but we don't have that in our budget. We can't afford that. We just, it just, we just can't do it right now.

I'm, I'm struggling to balance a budget. And we can't even afford to think about that, and they're going to put it off until later. So, so talk to that school that's interested in doing this, but just feels like it's just, maybe there's a fear factor, maybe there's a whatever that just is, we just can't do it right now.

And what they don't realize is, is by putting that off you're working passively and, and not moving your school forward. So talk to that school that [00:31:00] is, that is interesting, but just as afraid to take that first step.

So if STEM is something that you haven't fully embraced yet or started your journey down that path, you need to now. I mean, at this point, we've developed artificial intelligence and kids are using chat GPT to help with schoolwork. We here at CC thankfully have embraced chat GPT and we're teaching our students how to use it more effectively.

But my point, I'm sorry, I'll get back to it. If you have not gone down that path, you definitely need to because the careers of the future When these kids graduate from college, we don't know what they're going to be. You have to be using cutting edge technology, and it doesn't have to be expensive. You need to educate your students about what's happening in industry, what jobs are out there, what careers, what does it take to get into specific careers.

You can do NASA internships. All you have to do is apply and put yourself forth toward it. But if the kids don't get those [00:32:00] experiences in elementary, middle and high school, then they don't know that they exist. And you're almost robbing the world of these potential brilliant minds that could somehow become, you know, biomedical engineers, or maybe they're going to develop a way for us to terraform Mars.

You have no idea what you have going on in your school unless you unleash those creative STEM juices from these kids. So don't be afraid. Find a teacher in your building. It takes just one to get started that has a passion for something STEM related and say, Hey, would you like to take, start taking a look into building some STEM programming in our district?

Because that doesn't cost you anything. That's somebody that's already there with you. And probably more often than not, that teacher is going to look at this as an opportunity to grow themselves as well as grow your school. And it's important for our teachers to be able to grow too. And STEM helps you do that.

We talk about the identity of our schools. We're all [00:33:00] there with that, the Catholic Foundation. But unfortunately nowadays if we're relying strictly on, well we're a big family, and that's why you should come to our school. We're, we're missing such a huge component of what we can do as Catholic schools.

There's so much more that, that people are looking for these days. Talk to us about the results that you're seeing because of course with anything you have a great idea But if we're not getting the results, but I know you're seeing incredible Results of what you're doing up there

We are the sheer volume of students that we have applying for Catholic Central. For example, our incoming freshman class is right at about 300. It's the largest it's been pre COVID or since before COVID and the kids are coming in and a good chunk of them are coming for STEM. Catholic Central is traditionally known as an amazing athletic school.

And we hold, gosh, I want to say it's over 90 state championships in different sports. It's like this year alone, I think, [00:34:00] and please forgive me, Mr. Babbitt, our athletic director, if I get the number wrong, I think we have seven state championship sports just this year. It's insane. And kids are now understanding that you can be a football player or an amazing state championship hockey player or a nationally ranked wrestler.

And you can also go to school to be an engineer and be on a robotics team, or come here and decide that you want to pursue astrobiology through our astronomy programming, or you want to learn about modern space exploration. So athlete doesn't necessarily mean that you just need to focus on one thing, because our young men are leaving here with an average over a cumulative 3.

3. GPA. This year alone, we had five National Merit Scholars in a class of under 200. The academics are strong here. Our former National Championship winning Quiz Bowl team proves that. I mean, they're state champions yearly and go back and forth between winning the National Championship as well. So, what we are bringing to the table is [00:35:00] continuing with the longevity of the tradition of excellence that CC has.

has always had. We're just bringing some extra stuff in. That STEM programming gives you that extra oomph to help them get further, like, integrated into career fields and understanding of those career fields before they leave us.

And it's contagious because people see that and they say, I want that. I want that for my child. Maybe the student themselves say, I want to be part of that. Boy, boy, I can go and be part of that national, that state championship team, but also I'm going to be able to get, you know, this or that stem, or the pilot's laser, you know.

Insert your, your, your component of that. But all those things put together make people want to be part of your school and it's contagious. And, and then that 300 students of interest becomes 900 become, you know, and, and it's like, well, my goodness gracious, we're just expanding it. So I think it's absolutely incredible of what you're doing there.

So what's coming next? Before I get to what's coming [00:36:00] next, because I know that that you're thinking ahead here on this one, as you've talked about things, but you mentioned before, because I just want to go back to this, you mentioned before about STEM carrying over into other areas. Talk to me a little bit about how STEM carries over into those other areas a little bit more specifically, because you do have the science, technology, engineering, math department.

But, you know, obviously that's not all you teach at your school. And so you touched a little bit of before, but I just want to go back to it one more time just to see if there's anything else you want to add to that.

you know, one great example. I was the liaison for our theology department. And when I say liaison, we have a tech team, which we're the We're the team of nerds that help people get more comfortable using technology, figuring out different technologies that they can use in their curricular area, or picking out things that they might not have thought of in project based learning, because as I mentioned, we're moving on to the concentrated block schedule.

So we spent quite a bit of time this school year and last school year preparing our teachers with professional development on how to do that. A lot of that is STEM integrative. So, The theology team is the team that I was the [00:37:00] liaison for, and you think theology, STEM, faith, STEM. How does that go? Well, science and STEM are the, are the how.

Faith is the why, right? So I worked pretty hand in hand with our amazing theology department, learning about how project based learning works, how you can integrate more technology, where the science is, math components come in, where the engineering comes in. For example, the greenhouse, one of my personal pet projects, we, you know, the boys learn about the ancient grains in the Bible, and they think, well, what the heck is an ancient grain?

Like, you know, you're not going to talk about that at the dinner table. So now we can actually grow some of those ancient grains in our Ecosustainable Greenhouse, so they understand a little bit better how that works. We have some virtual and augmented reality systems like a class wide system where the boys put on the HTC Vive and they've got the controllers, and they can actually walk the stations of the cross.

How impactful is that? You know, you talk about Jesus did this. Now we can show you and [00:38:00] immerse you in that. And I think that in and of itself, being able to bring those different things to any curricular area is going to be so much more beneficial for our shamrocks and for our community when those are things that they're able to use as well.

And that's so powerful to be able to experience it because, and you know, we just think about things we experience ourselves, the memories of those things and the way we were, it's so much more powerful, so much more engaging. I also love that and we kind of touched on this earlier, but, You had that vision for where you wanted to go and I think so many times, it's like, hey, we have this great, it's like little league soccer, where the ball goes over here, everybody runs over here, and then the ball goes over here and everybody runs, there's nobody doing a play, so to speak.

What you had was this vision. I think this is really important for leaders out there to hear. You had this vision, but you took the time to prepare your teachers for what was coming. To give them that professional development, you laid out the vision. You gave them the preparation that they needed to then fully implement [00:39:00] it into what you're doing as a school, and I think that's so powerful and so impactful.

I agree. And you know, I've been the teacher in a public school district that was sitting in the professional development thinking to themselves, you know, I'm so glad we have the opportunity to learn things, but why are you teaching me this when it's not something that I use? This isn't something that's applicable to me.

In this case, here at CC, they did, like our leadership has had tremendous vision when it comes to making sure that our teachers are prepared. No one wants to be caught unawares. No one wants to feel like they're behind the eight ball, per se. And here, we made sure that everyone was so far out in front of that eight ball, like it is not even on the same football field or pool table.

Our

No danger of knocking the eight ball in on that one, until the end at least, I guess. A lab and an extension of this nature doesn't just happen. And now, one of the things I always tell schools, I said, dream big and then go [00:40:00] after it, okay? You mentioned before about your Advancement Director.

Because obviously to, to make this happen requires funding, okay? And maybe a school isn't planning to do a STEM lab, but maybe they have some other vision or dream that they want to make a reality. How does, just in terms of that process their, their involvement in this and the importance of your advancement directors and your fundraising component of this to make that vision for the school a reality.

Can you talk just a quick minute about that?

president, Mr. Turek, has a team that works with him in our advancement office that is just truly second to none. They have such a great relationship with our alumni. They bring them back regularly. They know who would like to help on different projects and make sure that when a project comes up that those specific alumni have a vested interest in.

They let them know and say, Hey, we've got this coming down the pike. So when it came to the George and Mary Turek Hall of Science, Mr. George Turk, our alumni that is the primary benefactor, [00:41:00] he took care of the building. With the things that go inside, he wanted a partnership, like bring more people in, bring more, more hands to the table, right?

So that's where the, the true amazing planning went into place, like the dedication of rooms, the different spaces within this building, the different iconography medallions, statuary. Those were things that were sponsored by different families to help bring other programming in. When you sponsor a classroom, you're helping bring additional materials and that students are going to be able to use far into the future and not just for a year or two.

So our advancement team, they really had a great game plan laid out on how to have everyone be involved and how to let everyone feel that they were involved in something that they had a vested interest in, not just, you know, Hey, can we have 50, 000? No. Would you like to help with something that is aviation related because you had a career as a [00:42:00] pilot, right?

So finding those synergies is what they are truly, truly good at. We're very, very fortunate and blessed to have them.

And again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sound like I'm oversimplifying here, but the importance of this, I think what you have done here is what every Catholic school should follow, whether it's a, they don't have to be doing a STEM, but just look at this, you had the vision, you knew what you wanted to do, you went out and you prepared your teachers, your advancement directors were finding the funding for that vision that you had, It's so much easier to go out and tell people and to sell people what you're doing when you have it laid out in front of you to say, this is what we're doing.

And then you found the interests of people. Hey, this is the aviation wing, this is this wing. You know what the interest is of your donors and you went out and you look for the support in those specific areas. I think that's something that our Advancement Directors and our Principals can learn from in such a big way.

So, kudos to you for that one and your school for that one.

Oops, I'm

go ahead, go ahead. No, go right ahead.

one piece of advice [00:43:00] that I didn't mention when it comes to that, when we put out our alumni magazine, it's now digital every I can't tell you exactly. I think it's monthly, but it might be quarterly. All I know is I read it whenever it comes to my mailbox because it's pretty awesome.

a survey linked in there that alumni can click and it says, are you interested in helping or do you have a specific interest? And there's one that delineates for STEM. So I at this point have a database of over 200 people that have clicked that link that said, Hey, you know, I taught forestry at university of Northern Michigan and I would love to be a subject area expert for you.

Sure enough, I reached out to that alumni when I was designing the stuff that was going in the greenhouse. So creating that database with a simple Google form. That then feeds into a spreadsheet. All it takes is for a one click for an alumni and everyone is digital, you know, no one is going to be calling to change their mailing address over the phone.

Everybody wants to just quick reply to an email. So make it easy for them. Create a simple Google [00:44:00] form, list out things that you know, what is your area of interest? What is your career field? Does your job provide an opportunity for shadowing for students? Does your job provide Opportunities for students to come in to do internships.

What are things that you might have available that we might not realize? Please share this information with us and please add anything here that I might not have asked because maybe they have special skills outside of work that they want to share with you. For example, all of the pilots that are coming to me now, which is amazing, but that simple Google form and a click for your people or your readership to access it is going to give you so much.

information and a jump start on helping you start prepare.

and it creates a true partnership because I think one of the things we're guilty of as Catholic schools so much is just come when we need you, okay? We need help setting up chairs, we need help doing this. What you've done is to go out and say to people, hey, tell us where your interests are. And then as a result of that, you're able to [00:45:00] get people engaged in the school and you're able to get people involved in things that they're interested in to bring so much more to your school than you could have ever imagined.

So I think that's so important right there, but it just starts with asking. Just make, just make that, it's not asking for money. All you're doing is asking for involvement. And that's, that's huge. That's huge. So. Tell me what's coming next. What does the future look like? What's the you're going to have your dedication coming up here soon, I know, and that's, that's exciting.

And, and so what's, what's coming next? Because I know that, you know, at Catholic Central, you're not just looking at what's happening next year but you're already looking at what's happening in the next 25 years at your school and beyond. So what's next at Catholic Central High School? It's

Well, first and foremost, no matter what year it is, no matter how many years down the road, we will continue to teach with goodness, discipline, and knowledge to bring these shamrocks out into the world to be better husbands, fathers, and friends. That is our mission. Primary Mission, and we always keep it at the [00:46:00] forefront of our mind.

But in the year 2028, it's our 100 year anniversary, so we have something called Vision 100. And part of Vision 100 is continuing to build tuition assistance. I don't know that I mentioned this, but just this coming school year alone, we'll begin, we will be giving over two million dollars plus. In tuition assistance so that a Catholic central education is available to any young man that wants to pursue his Catholic education.

So we're going to continue to build that tuition assistance to allow our school to be accessible to young people. We're going to keep funding teacher development because we know that. If our teachers aren't educated, then, you know, where are we going to, what are we going to do with everything that comes thereafter, right?

They need to be ready. They need to be prepared to help those young men want to move into their future most successfully, and then we're going to continue to develop our facilities to inspire students to aim high. For example, the aviation curriculum. We're going to [00:47:00] continue building on that. There's a huge dearth in the area of aviation.

There's going to be a pilot shortage. These are viable and really, really amazing careers that are out there. And we do things like that through starting with interest group clubs. So clubs that help develop the interest. We see if the interest is there, we build curriculum on it. So we'll continue to use those different pathways to help us determine.

what direction we go in, but we're founded based on goodness, discipline, and knowledge, and we keep that in the forefront. It

It's amazing. Well, let me tell you something. It has been. Wonderful to speak with you. It's been amazing to learn all the incredible things that you're doing at Detroit Catholic Central High School. I can't thank you enough and I wish you and your school nothing but the best in this launch that's coming up here, I guess, and the dedication that's coming up here but even beyond.

So Amy, thank you so much for your time today and wish you nothing but the best moving forward.

was my pleasure, John. Thank you so much for having me. [00:48:00]

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