August 12, 2009

St. Catherine of Siena School: Teaching kids to meet Christ

By Elizabeth M. DeLine

What is the value of Catholic Education?  What makes it different from other private or public schools?

Ask Suzanne Scheck, the new principal of St. Catherine of Siena School in northwest Denver, and she’ll tell you that the difference or “trade-off” is considerable.

“I would rather be here,” said Scheck spreading her arm, indicating to the school, “than anywhere else.” 

Why? “Because this is a home,” continued Scheck.

Before becoming the principal at St. Catherine’s, Scheck had been a teacher there for more than 40 years.  

“When I accepted my first teaching job here, for the third grade, I said I was only going to stay for one year,” she recalled. “I needed to go to a public school for the money.  But look, one year has turned into 40.”

Community of the Beatitudes Father Nathaniel Pujos, the school’s chaplain, explained even further the sense of ‘home’ at St. Catherine’s.

“Here,” he said, “we are a family, a Christian family with common values, history, and a way to relate to each other, which all come from Christ.”

Father Nathaniel, a French priest, serves the school in a unique way. Whereas other schools may have a pastor or counselor, they do not have a spiritual guide that focuses their undivided attention on the spiritual needs of the school children.  Father Nathaniel’s primary concern is that the children not only learn about Jesus Christ, but more important, that they meet him.   Besides visiting all of the classrooms once a week and being available for individual counseling, he takes all of the children every two weeks to the adoration chapel to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament where they can have a “heart to heart” with Jesus. 

“The first 12 years of life are very important for children because they are being formed in all areas of their life, not just academically,” explained Father Nathaniel.  He added that it is his goal to bring the children to a point in which they have a strong relationship with God. 

In addition to adoration, the school children go to Mass twice a week, once at the parish weekday Mass and once to their own children’s liturgy, where they do the readings and songs.  This helps carry out the beginning of the school’s mission statement, which Scheck summarized as being, “To educate the entire child spiritually, academically, emotionally, and physically in a caring environment.”

Even in P.E. class, the children at St. Catherine’s are reminded of the immense love that God has for them by their teacher Sister Nikki Borchardt.  Originally from Minnesota and also part of the Community of the Beatitudes, Sister Nikki is a perfect example to the children that even good athletes can give glory to God with their lives. Surely, all the Wildcats (the school’s mascot), when putting on their blue and gold for a game, draw inspiration from their teacher, Sister Nikki.  They know that whatever they do, if done for God, will have a positive outcome, even if the score board sometimes doesn’t show it.

St. Catherine’s School first opened in 1921 in the basement of the old, small church of St. Catherine’s, under the direction of the pastor, Father John Raymond Mulroy.  The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were the first teachers to be assigned there and as enrollment started to grow, so did projects for a new Church and school building.  Today, the same beautiful Lombardic Italian Renaissance church that was dedicated in 1952 by Archbishop Urban Vehr, as well as the school, gym and convent, wrap around the courtyard where the schoolchildren go out for recess.

In that same courtyard the annual summer festival is held for fundraising.  The three-day long event with food, games, music and prizes, not only helps to bring in money for the school, but it also creates community among the ethnically diverse school community and neighborhood.

More than 60 percent of the school’s enrollment is Hispanic, with the rest being Anglo and a small percentage of African Americans.  The parish still has a substantial Italian community and now with the predominantly French Community of the Beatitudes who run and take care of the parish, St. Catherine’s definitely makes visible the universal, Catholic Church.

Whether it is in creating community or forming body, mind, and soul of young people for the next generation, and for that matter, the kingdom to come, St. Catherine’s offers an integral Catholic education that is second to none, Scheck said.