Life after Jacono

A reader sent this in, and I thought it was good enough to deserve it's own post, although it will probably overshadow one of my more clever posts below it....

For the record, there is life after Holy Cross and it's wonderful! The public school teachers and administators openly welcome parents who volunteer, even more so they adore them! The school uses up to date testing, unlike the outdated testing used to track at Holy Cross. Intelligent children are challenged academically, as the school knows these children's success will bring them better funding!

The teachers truly appreciate my well behaved, religious children (and I take credit for that, Holy Cross did not raise them). All students are treated equally and fairly, not just the ones who don't disagree with the principal. Fundraising is minimal and any effort applauded. Specials are not changed randomly year to year, and they are all solid options. Teachers are respected, and if they aren't they can take action, amazingly the same goes for parents ( I know that sounds strange to HC parents it was strange for me at first too!).

Then there are the little things. You can go to any class celebration. You don't need to get fingerprinted to go on a field trip with your child. Your child won't get detention if the dentist can finally get them in at 8:30a.m. on a Tuesday. If you want to sign your kids out with no notice five min. before the end of the school day, so be it, they're your children after all! (shocking I know!) Oh and the secretary won't give you attitude for doing so! Lunch is a dollar and you don't have to plan a month in advance to buy it (get this it's even nutritionally sound and filling to boot!). If your kid wants a rolling backback and notebooks with cartoon characters, they are free to express themselves in such a manner.

Best of all not only do all the students have to play by the rules, but so do the teachers, secretaries, principals, assistant principals, and even ass. supers and superintendants. They don't fly by the seat of their pants making up rules and picking and choosing who they are accountable to. Funny, it's like I left the twilight zone and entered back into reality. I can't tell you how refreshing it has been! While I miss the parents I have become friends with over the years and watching their children grow with mine, and the teachers my children and I have come to know and love, the sense of communtiy left when Jacono came. The teachers weren't the same, stressed Im sure by their own dealings with Jacono, The sense of community was gone. Friendships I had with many parents was shattered by their lack of action despite their many complaints about Jacono.

I am not one to go with the flow sacraficing my childrens education and my own morals, and I was shocked and disheartened when others were so willing to. There is life beyond Holy Cross, it is not the only option, you can raise good, Catholic, well educated children while they attend public school.The ultimate reward for me was when at the end of this school year (we left HC mid-year((yes J it's me your favorite Dr's daughter)I gave the children the option to return to Holy cross if they wanted to, and they both answered with a resounding "NO!".

I am confident next year will be even better, as the children won't have the burden of transitioning to a new school mid-year. I never, ever thought in a million years I would even consider sending my children to public school. Jacono made that decision for me and for that I thank her! We couldn't be happier!!

Part I of Recomended changes

I didn't like the way the last post came out, so I'm going to break the next posting into two parts.
However, I did notice a few odditities about the report, starting with it designating Holy Cross as an "urban" school. Okay, we're within city limits, but do you really think one would or should call it this?

Anyway, on with the post....


The pursuit of the goals set forth in the action plan to ensure the school’s strategic plan
remains a living document

In other words, update and modify the existing plan to something that has measurable items. No arguments on this.

• The establishment of an Office of Institutional Advancement that will ultimately include a Director of Development

This would require good community and alumni relations, which aren’t exactly a strong point right now. THIS probably should be a priority, even in troubling economic times. However, I think any resources are being forced into simply looking for bodies to put in the seats.

• The pursuit of a traffic control study and the establishment and enforcement of rules to address safety issues.

Something that some have been calling for since she got here and pursued a few actions that made the traffic problem worse. The "enforcement of rules" works IF the rules make sense and actually would help solve the problem.

Security "concerns"

Security IS important for the school, and steps have been taken in the past, but there is a limit. The “sake of the children” program has it’s advantages, but based on when it started and under what light, it seems to be primarily a public relations move to show how much they are doing to combat abuse…while more and more lawsuits on priests continue to come to light.

Personally, I think the teachers AND parents feel better with more parents in and around
the school, especially if they have already been cleared. There are those we don't want in the school, and we need to keept them out, but please tell me when the last Catholic school was sued because a parent abused a kid in the classroom.