We are LaSalle!

Over the last few years, the Holy Family school board has been hearing positive feedback about our identity in the community while also hearing about the confusion around our name. While the brand and reputation of Catholic education on the west side of Cedar Rapids appears increasingly healthy, the names used to identify us have remained confusing to people. With that, our strategic planning process encouraged Holy Family to survey its families and staff this school year in order to gauge the levels of clarity around the school names we have used: Holy Family School System, LaSalle Middle School, and St. Jude Center. Two of these only enjoy strong recognition in the immediate community while one is readily known to just about everyone. 

This name recognition, along with the increasingly strong reputation of the LaSalle name lead to a second survey.  Following the initial feedback about name confusion, the board wanted to know if our staff and families would be in favor of a name change.  While the results were not consistent, they were nonetheless overwhelmingly in support of a name change for the system and for our elementary school.  The board voted unanimously at the April board meeting to change the name of Holy Family School System to LaSalle Catholic.  The two schools will be identified as LaSalle Catholic Middle School and LaSalle Catholic Elementary School.  School families were informed in a year-in-review newsletter in early June, and are seeing ongoing evidence of the changes on social media such as updated paint, floor mats, logos, and one fun surprise for the kids coming in the fall.

In addition to the LaSalle name being more brightly highlighted and celebrated, we also discerned a name that would support another target of our strategic plan: to magnify our Catholicity to ourselves and to others.  The name LaSalle Catholic celebrates and leverages our strong history and shapes our future.  As our new vision statement asserts, LaSalle Catholic will be Cedar Rapids’ distinguished educational community of excellence, recognized for developing socially and emotionally intelligent servant leaders and scholars striving to become saints!