About Us
Testimonial
"When I transferred to St. Charles School for my eighth grade year, it was in the hopes that I would get more out of my school experience. This has happened and more. Right away, from my first day at St. Charles...."
Daniel Grigg
St. Charles Elementary School
About Us
The mission of the Catholic Education Collaborative is to sustain outstanding schools that are welcoming communities which integrate excellence in learning with Catholic faith formation.
By serving as welcoming communities, our Partner schools in the Collaborative open their doors wide to all children, regardless of their religious faith. By applying this Christ-centered evangelistic approach, a Catholic education is enthusiastically offered to both Catholic and non-Catholic families seeking a faith-based education for their children.
As welcoming communities and places where the Gospel and God’s love are shared, Collaborative PreK-12 schools serve as caring environments wholly dedicated to preparing students for life, higher education, employment, and service. That exceptional goal is achieved by uniting academic excellence, knowledge and practice of the Catholic faith, a vital community life and outstanding service to the local community.
We provide services to our Partner school and parishes in the following areas:
Professional Development and Curriculum
Provides two professional development days per academic year for our more than 600 Collaborative teachers; works with our partners at the University of Dayton (UD) and supports UD’s Excellence Initiative, focusing on developing Professional Learning Communities through curriculum mapping, assessment and differentiated instruction. In addition, more than 200 teachers have taken advantage of training opportunities in programs such as curriculum mapping, instructional implementation reviews, and the St. Remy initiative. St. Remy focuses on faith formation, providing the leadership for the future of the Church and developing leadership skills. For more information, contact Toni Moore.
Shared Student Services
Student support services have also benefited from Collaborative partnerships. By working with area groups such as Ready Set Soar and the YMCA of Greater Dayton, we are truly making a difference for our children and families.
School support staff is also beginning to see benefits in their program areas as a result of regional dialogue and collaboration. Throughout the Deanery and surrounding areas, new collaborations among librarians and music and art instructors are taking shape.
Schools are working together regionally on programs such as shared tuition, and the launch of a new academic summer school program which piloted to great success in the summer of 2009. For more information contact Sue Koverman.
Administration, Governance and Finance
A major goal of the Collaborative is to provide cost saving measures for our Partner parishes and schools. By negotiating with local and national vendors, the Collaborative has been able to save our parishes and schools money in areas such as natural gas service, office supplies, waste management and more. More vendors are added annually to this program.
Looking toward the future, the Collaborative is guiding four of our schools and parishes in a yearlong planning process as they explore models beyond individual parish-specific schools. The Collaborative is also providing guidance to two schools in the northwest area of Dayton as they discuss a potential school consolidation. The skills of our staff members combine to create a unique support system for our Partner schools and parishes. For more information contact Anne Battes.
Stewardship and Advancement
Focusing on development, enrollment management and marketing, Stewardship and Advancement has already contributed greatly to transforming and sustaining Catholic Schools in this area.
In an effort to truly map out effective strategies for the future of Catholic education in this area, the Collaborative’s board of trustees determined that an in-depth market research study was necessary and retained the UD Business Research Group to manage the three phases of the study. It was important to learn what our Catholic community and community at large thinks, and what they need and want for a child’s education. The results of this study form the basis for current and future advancement initiatives.
The Collaborative is also helping schools attract and retain students by offering our schools cost-efficient opportunities to learn proven strategies for enrollment best practices.
