NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR  

NCEA DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE AWARD

 

The governing body of all U.S. Catholic schools is the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). For many years now, they have recognized the importance of our schools aggressively marketing themselves for image, enrollment, and dollars. They strongly believe that parents with school age children need to know the profound difference between a Catholic education and one offered in a government sponsored school. In the Joliet Diocese, our motto is WE TEACH MORE. Simply put, this means that we teach the traditional 3 R's of Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic but do much more as our curriculum is infused with ensuring that our students are also learning the importance, value, and necessity of 3 more R's.....Religion, Respect, and Responsibility.

Marketing is telling the story of Catholic schools in terms of students' knowledge of the Catholic faith, service to the parish and community, academic excellence, and participation in various extra-curricular activities.

Given the reality that most schools do not have the budget to hire a full-time marketing director, the NCEA offers marketing tips and strategies that are available to all member schools. These ideas run the gamut from yard signs promoting Open House events to the development of websites as a destination for current and future parents to become more familiar with school operations. Schools are also encouraged to become more savvy with social media and have a visible and active presence on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

While all of these ideas have proven successful to member institutions, perhaps none has done a better job of telling the story of the importance and value of Catholic education than the Distinguished Graduate Award. What better way to sell a school than to showcase its alums? That is why schools identify a Profile of a Graduate at Graduation to identify and describe what a graduate of a Catholic school, that enters in pre-school or kindergarten, will look like when they graduate from eighth grade. As Stephen Covey proffered in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People "begin with the end in mind."

Saints Peter and Paul School first began presenting the Distinguished Graduate Award in 1995 when Teresa Doolin '52 was the inaugural honoree. Last year, Bill Hayes '84 was honored.

We are now opening up nominations to determine who will receive this prestigious honor at our 8:00 a.m. all- school Mass on Thursday, February 2. If you would like to recommend a SSPP graduate, please click on this link and complete.