With the close of last school year, I completed my 30th campaign in education. Each of those years has been filled with joy and sorrow, challenges and successes, ups and downs and a ton of stories worth sharing. My (True) Life in Education Thus Far will detail 30 or so of those stories. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed living (most) of them!
OPENING A “NEW” SCHOOL
NOVEMBER 2, 2022
Sometime during the eighth year of my time at Regis Jesuit, talk began circulating about a change in the life of the school. Regis had been an all boys institution for over 100 years and, though I knew there had been periodic conversations about adding girls to the student body, none of them seemed particularly real nor did any seem as though they would take hold.
That changed rapidly in 2002.
As I understood the dialogue at the time (a dialogue that had, unbeknownst to most of the rank-and-file at the school, been going on since 1998), a group of families with daughters approached the school noting that there were hundreds of fewer “seats” in Catholic schools in the Denver Archdiocese for girls. There was an all girls school in the Archdiocese, but it was much smaller than Regis Jesuit. The fact was that more boys were able to attend Catholic high schools than girls. This was a persuasive argument, it seems, to the board of trustees at Regis Jesuit at the time, and they voted, not to go co-ed, but to open a separate division of Regis Jesuit that would serve young women while the original flavor Regis Jesuit could continue to serve young men.
I have written in one paragraph about the brave and bold decision this board made and I know that it was a much more prayerful, complex and amazing decision than my description of it makes it appear. This was an incredible choice and announcement, rocking the foundation of the school, of Catholic education in the Archdiocese and of the lives of thousands of young people.
It was astounding.
I was personally very excited. I had a daughter myself and was often struck by the fact that she would not be able to attend the school I was pouring my heart and soul into. I was struck by the inequity of that fact. I was struck by what I perceived as the injustice of the situation.
I immediately wanted to join this new staff.
The so-called (and, in retrospect – in my opinion – poorly named) Girls Division would open with a 9th grade class of about 125-150 students and a 10th grade class of transfer students who, by agreement with the Archdiocese of Denver, could not come from Catholic schools. I believe we had over 130 9th graders the first year and 44 sophomores.
I write “we” because I joined that staff as the first Dean of Students of Regis Jesuit High School Girls Division. More on that in a future post.
The first year at the Girls Division was the second most exciting year of my career (the first being my first year as principal of Mullen High School). Our staff numbered just over 20. We were housed off campus as the new building the boys at Regis Jesuit would move into was a year from completion. We were basing everything we were doing on the 100 year tradition of Regis Jesuit but also making policy and decisions as we went along. We were led by a first time principal, a very new assistant principal and, me, a first time dean. None of us had worked in an all girls setting prior to this year.
It was so energizing and, for me in my 11th year of teaching, it was just what the doctor ordered: an ability to serve the school I loved in a brand new capacity.
And the adventure was just beginning…
