Catholic School Leadership

A volume in Research on Religion and EducationSeries Editors: Larry Burton and Anthony J. DosenThe administration of Pre K - 12 Catholic schools becomes more challenging each year. Catholic school leadersnot only have the daunting task of leading a successful learning organization but also to serve as the schoolcommunity's spiritual leader and the vigilant steward who keeps the budget balanced the building clean andmaintaining a healthy enrollment in the school. Each of these tasks can be a full time job yet the Catholic schoolprincipal takes on these tasks day after day year after year so that teachers may teach as Jesus did.The goal of this book is to provide both beginning and seasoned Catholic school leaders with some insights thatmight help them to meet these challenges with a sense of confidence. The words in this text provide research?based approaches for dealing withissues of practice especially those tasks that are not ordinarily taught in educational leadership programs. This text helps to make sense of thepastoral side of Catholic education in terms of structures mission identity curriculum and relationships with the principal's varied constituencies.It also provides some insights into enrollment management issues finances and development and the day in day out care of the organization and itshome the school building.As a Catholic school leader each must remember that the Catholic school is not just another educational option. The Catholic school has a richhistory and an important mission. Historically education of the young goes back to the monastic and cathedral schools of the Middle Ages. In theUnited States Catholic schools developed as a response to anti?Catholic bias that was rampant during the nineteenth century. Catholic schoolsdeveloped to move their immigrant and first generation American youth from the Catholic ghetto to successful careers and lives in the Americanmainstream. However most importantly Catholic schools have brought Christ to generations ofyoungsters. It remains the continuing call of the Catholic school to be a center of Evangelization-aplace where Gospel values live in the lives of faculty students and parents. This text attempts tointegrate the unique challenges of the instructional leader of the institution with the historical andtheological underpinnings of contemporary Catholic education.