Today marks the beginning of Catholic Schools Week, where we celebrate the importance of Catholic schools. I can’t overstate how important Catholic education is to handing on our faith to the next generation, and our faculty and staff to a wonderful job of forming our children in the image of Christ every single day.
This is always a fun week here at the school, and the kids bring lots of energy to the various Catholic Schools Week celebrations. This also gives us a chance to honor this year’s Christ the Teacher Award winner, Mrs. Julie Rolinski! Mrs. Rolinski is a long-time parishioner who is one of our Pre-Kindergarteners, and we are very happy to recognize her outstanding work in the classroom with the youngest of our students, which is a special vocation in and of itself.
Congratulations, Mrs. Rolinski!
This month we also made another big announcement in the school. Our longtime Principal, Mr. Stephen Hoffman, has announced that he is retiring at the end of the school year. Mr. Hoffman began his service to Christ the King in 2004 and is currently the longest-serving principal on this end of the diocese. Over the past 19 years (and three pastors), the school has thrived under his leadership. Most people don’t see the behind-the-scenes work that goes into running a Catholic school, but Mr. Hoffman and the rest of our administration put in a lot of extra hours that go largely unseen. He has given his heart and soul to this ministry, and he will be greatly missed, but we wish him every blessing under heaven as he moves forward.
I am very excited to announce that our Assistant Principal, Mrs. Lindsay Jeffress, will be our new Principal beginning this fall. This is Mrs. Jeffress’ third year as Assistant Principal, and she has had a tremendously positive impact on our school during this time, as I’m sure our faculty, students and parents can attest. Her strong background in educational leadership, combined with the time she has spent working closely with Mr. Hoffman, will ensure a smooth transition for our school. Please join me in congratulating her and praying for her as she assumes this important role.
One more note about Catholic Schools Week: Today (January 29th) is our School Open House, from 11:30 am to 2pm. The past few years we’ve had to scale this event back because of COVID restrictions, but this year I’m ecstatic that we can throw the doors wide open to the entire parish. Even if you don’t have kids or grandkids in the school, I hope you can come over to the school to check out the outstanding work. After all, this is the largest ministry in the parish, and your collections subsidize this important work, so it’s only right that you should know what’s going on in our school. I think you’ll be really pleased with what you see, so I hope to see you there.