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
Vision
Catholic Education in the greater Dayton area will be transformed and sustained by a communion of Catholic parishes, schools and the community dedicated to excellence.
Mission
Therefore, the mission of the Catholic Education Collaborative is to engage area educational leaders and communities to promote best practices that ensure Catholic education is academically superior, grounded in faith and tradition, and fiscally effective.
For a brief summary of what the CEC has to offer, please access our 2011 Fact Sheet.
By applying a 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 schools and parishes in the following areas:
Catholic Education Excellence
Key Dimensions of a Catholic School will be utilized as the framework to determine Catholic excellence. For more information contact Anne Battes.
Annual student growth assessments are a tool to demonstrate excellence in education. They will be used to inform educational programs and professional development opportunities to strengthen leadership skills of principals and aspiring leaders. For more information about annual student growth data, contact Anne Battes.
Two Professional Development Days per academic year for our more than 600 Collaborative teachers and administrators. This is in collaboration with our partners at the University of Dayton (UD) and supports UD's Excellence Initiative, focusing on Professional Learning Communities through curriculum mapping, assessment and differentiated instruction. In addition, more than 400 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 about St. Remy, contact Toni Moore. For more information about Curriculum Mapping through the Excellence Initiative, Center for Catholic Education at the University of Dayton, contact Susan Ferguson.
Through the Center for Catholic Education, educators from the Montgomery County Education Service Center conduct Instructional Reviews at Partner Catholic schools. The Instructional Reviews assist principals and teachers in evaluating the instructional and educational programs of key subject areas. For information on Instructional Reviews, contact Susan Ferguson.
Facilitating Emerging Issues
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 skills of our staff members combine to create a unique support system for our Partner schools and parishes. We will also continue to explore and develop models of urban education and evangelization. For more information, contact Anne Battes.
Empowering Families
The Catholic Education Collaborative is dedicated to serving students in Catholic schools as well as their families, and to offering the support they need not only to survive, but to thrive. Working with Dr. Stephen Gavazzi, Director of The Ohio State University's Center for Family Research, as well as other Catholic leaders, the CEC is currently exploring ways of implementing some of Dr. Gavazzi's research to increase awareness of the importance of emphasizing students' and families' strengths, as they play a critical role in the development of meaningful adults. For more information on Dr. Gavazzi's research on families, please view his Key Takeaway Points on how families are the key to academic success. Dr. Gavazzi's book, Strong Families, Successful Students, is also available online. For more information, please contact Angie Swearingen.
Finance and Vendors Savings
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, electricity and more. Some of our current vendors include IGS Energy, Waste Management, e-rateconnection.com, and Creative Impressions. More vendors are added annually to this program. For more information about the Vendor Savings Program contact Michael Sticka, Strategic Leadership Associates, Inc.
Sustainability of Catholic Education
Focusing on development and enrollment management, 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. The Collaborative offers opportunities to support the various initiatives of the Catholic Education Collaborative through grant proposal donations through the Circles of Excellence. For more information contact Sue Koverman.
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. A new regional Summer School Program has been a great success since 2009. For more information contact Sue Koverman.
