On this week’s Catholic School Matters Radio Hour podcast, I bring on three great guests to discuss my new book, Orchestrating Conflict: Case Studies in Catholic School Leadership. They are all return guests and represent different perspectives on the case study book. I sent them a chapter before the book was published and we had a conversation about […]

This week’s blog centers around my new book, Orchestrating Conflict: Case Studies in Catholic School Leadership. I hope to explain why I wrote it, why I think it’s valuable, and why I think you should read it. Over the past few years, I’ve seen friends in Catholic education endure some really difficult situations. As the […]

The late Thomas Sergiovanni once wrote that if we were to change the metaphor of schools from organization to community it would change how schools are run, how we motivate teachers and students, and it would change our understanding of leadership and authority. It’s worth recognizing that many of our Catholic schools claim to be […]

Here is a link to today’s Catholic School Matters Radio Hour. Two great Catholic school leaders join the podcast. The superintendent of the Partnership Schools in New York City, Kathleen Porter-Magee, joins the podcast to first, discuss her new articles(s) on “Catholic On the Inside.” We discuss how we shape school culture. Her articles have been the most read for […]

In the past few weeks, I’ve had a few school leaders share their disappointment in their school communities. They have felt attacked and abused. Having given so much effort into building community, they are perplexed at the vitriol which has emerged. Then a school leader shared with me that he was being let go from […]

This week’s Catholic School Matters Radio Hour features two great guests. Tim Bopp, the president of Holy Trinity High School in his 27th year, discusses the fascinating origin of his high school which responded to the Polish neighborhood in inner-city Chicago and was borne out of conflict in Catholic Chicago. The demographics of the school have changed radically […]

Last month, retired Seattle Archbishop Alexander Brunett passed away at the age of 86. You can read a Seattle Times article about him here. When I read Thanks for the Feedback last year, I took to heart the author’s idea that we need to listen for the message behind feedback—even if it seems untrue, unfair, and/or poorly delivered. The […]

My old friend Jim McIntyre joins today’s Catholic School Matters podcast to discuss our joint project, the Nashville Exchange. We discussed how we have grown as Catholic school educators and why we have developed the Nashville Exchange. Diocesan high school presidents/heads of school are on an island without networks of support and there is no […]

Over 20 years ago, I began teaching in a diocesan high school with Jim McIntyre. As our careers have taken us to different places, one thing that we’ve both noticed (Jim as a diocesan high school president, me as a superintendent) is that there doesn’t seem to be any conferences or professional development specifically designed […]