A few weeks ago, The Cedar Rapids Metro Task Force Leadership Team announced that the Xavier Catholic Schools will, in fact, begin the process of systemization. In that same communication, they shared that LaSalle Catholic Middle School and Regis Middle School will consolidate into a singular middle school.
Although many Catholic schools across the country have systemized and consolidated for the last fifty years, the process we will undertake here is unique due to the fact that we are consolidating in order to enhance the effectiveness of our Catholic school ministry rather than as a reaction to declining enrollment as seen in most other cases. As our enrollment continues to grow, and our ministry continues to improve, we will be forming a single school board and school system for all of the current Xavier Catholic Schools, and we will later create one middle school from the two that currently exist in Cedar Rapids. St. Joseph in Marion will remain a K-8 building. No layoffs are expected to result from these steps. In fact, if enrollment continues its current direction, it may be a safe assumption that we will increase our staffing in order to continue improving how we serve the children entrusted to us. Unlike other consolidations and systemizations, offerings for students ought to expand rather than shrink. This includes spiritual opportunities to better feed children’s souls, academic differentiation to maximize students’ intellectual potential, and extracurricular offerings that enrich the whole child.
As with any growth process, we will need to endure some growing pains and elements of the unknown, but with a shared focus on what matters most, we can create something better than what we currently enjoy. This communal effort will be critical in a particular way at the new middle school. That school is unlikely to exist in the next year or two, so we do have some time to pray and discern that culture, and I encourage readers to do so. That approach will help us to participate in the Holy Spirit’s work to create a new culture at a new school; a culture that is neither Lancer nor Royal but something even better, while working to maintain traditions from each location that have been a fixture of their existence
I was living four hours north of here when LaSalle High School and Regis High School combined to create Xavier High School. Certainly there were concerns for everyone involved in that process, and I think the results are difficult to deny. Even better, we now have that experience from 25 years ago to inform how we can combine middle schools.
Thank you in advance for your prayerful support, for your input, and for your patience as Xavier Catholic Schools journey forward together in this exciting new adventure.