The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

What Makes Your School Unique?
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast, where we discuss leadership in Catholic education. I'm John Mahalio, your host. and this podcast is dedicated to enhancing catholic education and connecting catholic school leaders all across the world. Now as we attempt to connect catholic school leaders all across the world, today's episode is actually going to be titled and focused on something that's in the exact opposite of that.

And that is to ask you this question. What is it that makes your Catholic school unique? What makes you stand out from anybody else around you, whether it be a private school, public school, other Catholic schools? What is it about your Catholic school that makes you unique? And that's going to be something that we're going to focus on today.

Now, one of the things I do before each episode is that we start with a prayer. And so as you Start this episode first and foremost. Thank [00:01:00] you so much for listening. Thank you so much for tuning in If this is your first time listening to the Catholic school leaders podcast, welcome. I hope you find this episode helpful to you If this is not your first time listening, thank you so much for coming back I hope that you find this beneficial and I hope you have found other episodes beneficial so one of the things I like to do is start with a prayer and so I would ask that you please at this time just Gather your thoughts for a minute, stop, and, uh, let's say this quick prayer one, with one another.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to come together today as your children to just talk about what makes our Catholic schools unique. Together we aim to give your name honor. Praise and glory through our work and vocation as Catholic school leaders.

We pray that our conversation today will bring your light, love, and mission to listeners all across the world. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. In the name of the Father, and the [00:02:00] Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. So let's look at that word, unique. What makes your Catholic school unique? Now, by now you've probably been thinking about that question for about the past 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

And I'm going to guess that, uh, if I could do a magic trick here and, would ask 100 people at your Catholic school, what makes your Catholic school unique? I am going to guess that, of the 100 students, schools that may reply, 95 of them. would say one answer, and that one answer, I'm going to tell you, is not good enough these days.

And so I'm going to come back to that in just a moment here of what that one answer is, that is just not going to get it done these days. We got to be Go a little bit deeper than just this one answer. And so, I want you to think about that again. If you haven't been able to, just take a quick pause.

What makes your Catholic school unique? [00:03:00] Now, while you're thinking about that, if you enjoyed today's podcast, if you are enjoying This podcast as a whole, please take a quick half a second. I think that's all it'll take you pick up your phone or your device that you're on. Uh, there is an area right there where you can just say, Hey, I think this podcast is awesome.

And to drop a quick five star on there helps so much. If you are so inclined and you want to say a kind word or two, Uh, and you have 30 seconds that you can drop in a quick comment about, Hey, this is really helpful, or this is an awesome podcast, or something you'd like to hear more about in future episodes.

Drop a quick comment in there and really help us to grow this audience. Obviously, if this is something that you feel anybody in your network could benefit from listening to, I encourage you to share this episode or any other ones with them. It's the only way that we're going to help each other in our vocations as Catholic school leaders is to share our resources to help one another grow in our vocation.

So thank you so much for listening and thank you so much [00:04:00] for commenting, subscribing, dropping a comment in there. It really means the world to me. So, I asked you that question, what makes your Catholic school unique? And I told you that probably 95 out of 100 schools would give one answer as to what makes them unique.

And I'm gonna tell you that one answer, we need to go on a deeper dive than just that one answer. And here's what that one answer is. Because we're a big family. Now, that's the right answer, but what I'm going to tell you is that when I say you're a Catholic school, that better be part of your answer.

It's an expectation anymore. It's not what makes you unique. It's an expectation. When I enroll my child into a Catholic school, I assume and I expect that your Catholic school community is going to be one big family. And so if that's your key selling point is we're a big family, I'm going to tell you that you need to go on a little deeper dive than just that right now.

And [00:05:00] so I'm hoping that by the end of this episode, you'll be able to think of some additional things in addition to we're a big family. That help you to really stand out from your competition. Now, as a Catholic school community, One of the other things I hear oftentimes from Catholic schools is, Well, we go to Mass.

Once again, I'm going to say to you, To me, that's a baseline. You should be going to Mass. You should be a big family at your Catholic school. When you say you're a Catholic school, to me, That is a given. That is going to be part of your Catholic school community. We're a family, and we go to Mass. You should be doing those things.

Those aren't anything that makes you unique. You should be doing those things. And so, when we ask that question of what makes us unique, let me phrase it a different way of, what do we want people to know about our school? What's going to make us really stand out? What's going to be something that really captivates people to want to take a second look at us?

Now, when we do this, a couple of things. Number one, [00:06:00] I'm going to ask you, are you being honest? You can't tell me that you have a robust STEM program where you are going to be putting people on the moon within the next 12 months if that's not what your school is all about. That's not honest. It's, actually far from it.

It's very dishonest and that's certainly something that we don't want to be. We want to make sure that we're having that integrity and being honest in everything that we say and everything that we do. So number one is when we talk about what do we want people to know about our school? Are we being honest with them about who we really are?

And what are we telling them to highlight who it is that we are as a Catholic school? The second part about what makes our school unique, I want to ask you this, is Is what you're telling people accurate of who you are today? Sometimes we see that schools are telling people about who they were 5, 10, sometimes even 3 years ago.

But it's not an accurate depiction of who they [00:07:00] are today. It's not an accurate depiction of what they're offering today. If five years ago you had a robust Latin program at your school, but now you don't even offer a Latin class or even have anything that teaches your kids the language of Latin, you can't necessarily tell people that you teach Latin at your school, because that's just not accurate, it's not honest.

However, that said, if that is something that you're doing that makes you unique, then you want to make sure that you're shouting that from the hilltops. If you feel that that is something that, Make sure school unique from everybody else. We want to make sure that we're getting out in front of that and telling everybody about that information.

So, number one, are you being honest about who you are? And number two is, are you accurate in who you are today and accurate in telling people about who you are today? Now, The third thing that I will say about what you want people to know about your school is that you should be thinking about the future, but honoring the [00:08:00] past.

Now, those of you that listened to previous podcast episodes, those of you that know me, know one of the things that I dislike, the, the phrase that I just dislike more than anything else is, well, that's the way we've always done it. And that's your reason for doing something. There's a way to do things and that's the way we've always done it is probably not the right answer.

That said, there are traditions at each school that should be honored. It's a big difference between a tradition And that's the way we've always done it, so we're going to continue to do it that way. So we want to think about the future, but honor our past traditions at our school. Where do you see your school going in the next six months?

Where do you see your school going in the next two years, three years, four years, five years? What's that future look like for your school? Because that's something right there that is going to make you unique. If you want to add something, and we talked a little bit about STEM a few minutes ago, if that's something that you plan to [00:09:00] add at your school is a robust STEM program, there's nothing wrong with saying in the next three years we're going to have a STEM program.

It's a great episode that, I had a few months ago with the STEM school, it was absolutely fantastic to hear the vision that they laid out for it. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode yet, I strongly encourage you to do it. Uh, it's been really a lot of fun to follow what they're doing up there and, and just, continued success heading their way.

But if that's who you're going to be, put it down on paper, map it out, and make it a reality. But again, you can't just say, hey, this is who we are, when you're not there yet. So, being honest with people about who you are, being accurate in what it is that you're telling them about who you are today. And thinking about the future while honoring the past are three things that we definitely want to keep in mind when we want people to know about what makes our school unique.

Now, one of the things that I think is really important for every [00:10:00] Catholic school to consider about what makes them unique is a free tool that I give. It's on my website, elementaryadvancement. com, forward slash, keys, K E Y S, like a set of car keys or, you know. Keys to get into your house or apartment.

Keys, K E Y S. And on the website you can sign up for our free copy of The Keys to a Successful Catholic School. Now I want to tell you about this though because there's been a lot of really great feedback and people have had some wonderful conversations at their school just from this resource that they have.

One person said this is the keys right here to Uh, any sort of Catholic school being successful, and that was just such a compliment right there. This right here, this resource that you can get, does not give you all the answers. I want to just tell you that one right now, and you say, well then why should I bother to download it if it doesn't have the answers?

Because the goal of this resource is not to give you [00:11:00] all the answers, it's to give you the questions that you should be asking at your school when it comes to what makes us unique. And those areas that make up a successful Catholic school, they're gonna provide you with the foundation for any Catholic school to be looking at.

What makes them unique? They're going to give you some great questions that you can have conversations about with your leadership team, with your pastors, with your board or advisory committee, with your teachers, with your community as a whole, but they're really going to dive down to help you figure out what it is that makes our school unique, but it's also going to show you areas that you say, Ooh, this This is an area that we really need to do some work on and that we're maybe not doing so hot in.

Think of it as a, as a, as a table, uh, with, the legs on the table. And if you're missing one of them, the table wobbles a little bit. If you're missing two, now that table's really, really wobbling. if you're missing more than two areas, you probably have a table that you [00:12:00] wouldn't even put a drink down on, okay?

So we really want to make sure that we're providing you with some resources, with some questions, to really give you some engagement at your school. Now, why are we asking questions and not just giving you the answers? And that, real simple, is this. Every Catholic school is unique. Every Catholic school is unique.

What's working at school A may not work at school B, and what's working at school B may not work at school C, and what's working at all three of those schools may not work at school D. Every Catholic school community is unique. And that's one of the things that I take a lot of pride in with the schools that I consult with, is it's just not a one size fits all here, go out and do this, go out and do that.

Really want to look at what makes your Catholic community tick, what's of interest in your community, what are you doing that's working, what are you doing that's not working. And let's see if we can have some of those conversations that are a much deeper dive to help [00:13:00] you find the success that you're looking for within your schools.

So, get the keys to a successful Catholic school. Again, it's a free resource. It doesn't charge you a cent for it. You can go on there right now. elementaryadvancement. com forward slash keys K E Y S and get your copy of that. It'll come in your email right then and there. It'll come as a PDF you can download immediately.

I really think it's going to give you some great starter questions in some of the areas that make up a fantastic Catholic school. Every Catholic school is going to be unique. And I remember one of the things that our schools would do when we would do our recruitment or our advancement efforts or whatever.

If somebody called wanted to know what we were doing, we'd tell them. And people said, why are you telling them what we're doing? And we said, because we do it because we believe it. And we do this because this is our unique strategy. You just go try to copy somebody else's strategy without making it your own, and without being, here's that word again, unique in your approach to it, and it being something that [00:14:00] you truly, truly believe in, you're probably going to see limited efforts, and you may even become frustrated with going, why is this working for School A, but it's not working for us?

Well, your community is a unique community that works for you, but it may not work for them, and vice versa. So, We want to figure out what it is that makes our school unique so that we can help people and so that we can figure out what it is that we're marketing in terms of not only our current families, but our future families.

So kind of just a little bit of recap. Number one, if that only answer when I ask you what it is that makes your Catholic school community unique. If the first answer out of your mouth is, well, we're a family, I'm going to tell you that's just not good enough these days. You've got to go on a deeper dive than that.

You've got to look at what makes you unique, what makes you stand out, and above all, you have to be a Christ centered Catholic community. Otherwise, you're just a private school, okay? So we really want to look at what makes us a [00:15:00] unique Catholic school. We want to be honest. We want to be accurate. And we want to again, think about the future, but honor our past.

Get your guide to the successful Catholic schools, keys to a successful Catholic school. I'm telling you it will engage some really great conversations within your community. I promise you that one. And if you. Find this helpful to you, reach out to me. Let me know what conversations you had there. you can find my email information on elementaryadvancement.

com. I would love to hear from you. If when you're in these questions, if you're having conversations with your community and you realize that Maybe your enrollment efforts, your advancement efforts, your, leadership efforts just, you know, not reaching our goals that we want. Reach out to me. Set up a time with me.

Let's have a virtual cup of coffee. It takes 30 minutes of your time to sit down and have a conversation with somebody outside of your school to give you a perspective on where your school's goals are and where your school's heading. Love to have a conversation [00:16:00] with you. And would, and would welcome that.

That's the only way we're going to grow Catholic education. thank you so much for listening today. I hope this, information was helpful to you. I hope that you, find it useful, and I hope it really starts some great conversations at your school, uh, especially this time of year when we're starting to think about enrollment for next year.

We're starting to think about a lot of different things for next year, even though we're Midway through this school year, but we really want to ask that question. What makes us unique in this crowded world of education where there are schools popping up left and right all over our communities across the country, across the world?

What are we doing to make sure that our schools stand out? What are we doing to make sure that our schools are unique? I'm telling you right now, you won't regret it. Elementaryadvancement. com slash keys will give you a great, great look into how your school's doing in these key areas that I think you're really going to benefit from.

If I can help you out, don't hesitate to reach out. [00:17:00] John, J O H N, at elementaryadvancement. com. Would love to set up a time to talk with you about your school and your school's goals, and see if I can help you in any way, shape, or form. Don't forget to like. Don't forget to subscribe. If you have a second to drop that quick review, please do so.

And again, if you've heard anything here today that you feel a school would benefit from, please share that with them. Let's continue to grow Catholic education together.