HSA Meeting and Terra Nova Scores

Last night the Home and School Association held a meeting. As a portion of it, they asked Principal Makey to tell about the results of the latest Terra Nova tests. It is a standardized test taken by all the archdiocesan schools as well as the local public schools.

"I’m still surprised at the number of people who think that the academic preparation that St. Columbkille students receive is less than what they might get in the local public school," Principal Makey said, "Part of that is due to the fact that they do have a good public school here, and another part might be because they do such a good job of promoting themselves."

"When we compare the Terra Nova Scores of the local public school students with the Terra Nova Scores of our students, we outscore them at every level and in every test. This means our students aren’t sacrificing a good academic education just to get a good, moral Catholic education. At St. Columbkille Catholic School they get both! It’s kind of like having your cake and eating it too!

"In fact, the Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Omaha typically score higher in achievement tests than their public counterparts. That leads one to wonder how we at St. Columbkille compare with the other Catholic schools in the Archdiocese. While we aren’t privy to each individual school’s scores, we do have access to the overall averages of the Archdiocesan schools. When we do a direct comparison in all of the grades and all of the test scores we outscore the Archdiocesan schools in 33 out of 36 areas.

"While this is nice information to know, it certainly doesn’t mean that we have no room for improvement. We have adopted the attitude of continuous improvement at St. Columbkille. There will never come a time when we can sit back and say, 'Finally, we have arrived!' On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to know that we’re heading in the right direction."

Principal Makey also announced that the school has received a grant from the Ignite the Faith Campaign. While some of the exact details are being finalized, the grant will allow all 6-8 grade students to have laptops they can work with at school and at home. We are excited to roll out this program in the fall.

Ignite the Faith Campaign Results

“I’m very grateful to see the generosity of so many people,” Archbishop Lucas declared yesterday as he announced that the Ignite the Faith campaign which had a goal of $40 million dollars actually raised over $51 million dollars. As a Tweet from the Archdiocese said, "the Archdiocese crushed its fundraising goal by $11.8 million."

All of the money over goal will be distributed proportionally to the stated intentions of the goal. It is important that all of the money goes where the Archdiocese said it would.

Here at St. Columbkille, parishioners gave and pledged $1,357.943. Considering that the Source and Summit campaign for the church's worship space raised just over $1,500,000, this was amazing.

We are delighted to see such a strong commitment by the people of St. Columbkille to support the efforts of the Omaha Archdiocese!

An article from the Omaha World Herald can be found here.

He even brought Dinner

Archbishop Lucas came to St. Columbkille last week. After he fed a roomful of people he spoke about the Ignite the Faith campaign he is kicking off.

The campaign is an opportunity for everyone to play a role in strengthening the Catholic Church in northeast Nebraska. The campaign will focus on raising $40 million to strengthen our Catholic schools and parishes, provide for our priests and support faith formation programs in our parishes. Archbishop Lucas has asked our parishioners to prayerfully consider giving 2 % of your annual income to the campaign for 3 years. This fits within the model the US Bishops have advocated where everyone  gives 5% of their income to their local parish, 1 % to the local diocese and 4 % to other charities.

Archbishop Lucas took questions from the crowd. In response to one question, he explained that the Annual Appeal will continue as normal this fall and he hopes we would be as supportive of that appeal as we have been in the past. This is a short term for funds.

He was also asked how we can better support teachers in schools. Archbishop Lucas said he would love to give the teachers a raise through the campaign, but that wouldn't be sustainable. One thing the campaign will do is offer grants to teachers to improve their education. He also spoke of how all of his moves to consolidate some parishes and schools have been made to make certain they are sustainable over time.

He was also asked, "What if out of the 4% of your tithing you have already made commitments to other groups?" He responded that by all means one ought to honor those commitments. He simply asks that we all prayerfully consider how we might help.

As always it was delightful to have the archbishop in our parish. He said, "I can't play favorites in the archdiocese, but today St. Columbkille is my favorite parish."