"Preserving the Vision"
Executive Summary

September 25, 2008

Mission of Catholic Education: The mission of Catholic Education is realized in partnership with our Catholic schools and parish programs of faith formation.

Mission of Catholic Elementary Schools: We believe that the mission of Catholic schools is to educate our young people in the Catholic faith – intellectually, socially and morally. Schools must seek to strengthen families as the prime place for faith formation.  We reaffirm our desire to make Catholic education accessible to all children who desire to attend a Catholic school, regardless of where they live in the Diocese, financial means or challenges faced by their parents. Finally, our schools exist to lead our children and parents to active worship in their home parishes.

Long Term Goal: We will preserve the mission of Catholic elementary schools by proactively realizing a new paradigm that creates “multiple partnerships” designed to strengthen every aspect of a Catholic elementary school’s life and to transform it into a regional school that includes competent lay leadership in its governance. These partnerships will strengthen each school’s Catholic identity, further enhance and promote its academic excellence and strengthen its long term economic viability.

Four Basic Tasks Needed to Renew this Vision within the New Paradigm:

I. Diocesan-Wide Prayer Campaign:

We will pray for the renewal of the mission of Catholic education, especially as it is lived out in our Catholic schools and our parish programs of faith formation.

II. School Re-Configuration/Re-Imagining Process:

The Diocese of Brooklyn will oversee a collaborative re-configuration/re-imagining process that will establish a vital communion of schools, with each school possessing all of the elements needed to enjoy stability and achieve excellence for years to come.

The benefits of this process include the opportunity for schools to become pro-active in their long term planning and work toward ever greater academic excellence and financial viability.

A coordinated educational/marketing campaign will promote a positive public understanding of Catholic elementary school education. 

This process will involve seven steps, the first six of which will be completed by June, 2009:

1. The data for each individual school will be assembled and sent to each respective school by the Office of the Superintendent for Catholic School Support Services.

2. The pastors and principals of each local Catholic school will be asked to review the data. This review will include both on-site visits led by members of the Schools Office and regional informational meetings. There will also be a solicitation of feedback regarding the challenges posed by the data in each
   individual school.

3. A “Blue Ribbon Committee” of experts in education and business will be created to assist in the planning process.

4. There will be an announcement of an “initial re-configuration plan” for each region/cluster of the Diocese.

5. There will be cluster consultation meetings designed to solicit feedback regarding each regional proposal.

6. At the conclusion of the consultations, the Bishop will adopt a final diocesan wide plan for the re-configuration/re-imagining of our schools.

7. The plan will be implemented through 2013.

III. A Diocesan Parish School Alignment Plan

In order to foster the pastoral interrelationship that exists between the parishes and the schools of the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Diocese will oversee the creation of a plan that aligns each parish with a Catholic elementary school.

The goal of this plan is to allow the clergy, religious and lay members of the parish staff tangible opportunities to assist in the pastoral care of the children who attend their aligned school. 

Another goal would be to provide reasonable, annual, financial assistance to the aligned school.

IV. Introduction of a Two-Tier Governance Model

We will introduce, over the next four years, a new governance model for each of our Catholic elementary schools that will empower competent, lay leaders to assume an active role in the governing of each Catholic elementary school.

In this model, members have the responsibility to ensure that our schools remain faithful to the Catholic faith. Lay directors will take on fiduciary responsibility to help run their respective schools.

The existing school advisory boards will remain as consultative bodies that will assist the work of the members, lay directors, principal and staff of their respective school.

Copyright 2008.  Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. All Rights Reserved.