Basketball game to be televised

Both men’s and womens’ basketball teams play tonight against St. Mary’s here at SJND. 5:30 start for men and 7:00 start for women. Both games will be televised tomorrow, Saturday Jan 16th, starting at 7:00PM on Comcast Hometown Network (Comcast Ch. 104). It will be rebroadcast on Sunday starting at 1:00PM. Both games will be available on Comcast On Demand starting next Wednesday night for Comcast users.

Winter update

I hope that all of you had a blessed and joyous Christmas holiday. As we settle into winter and return to school for our second semester, we have lots on the horizon.

Campus Ministry

Our Campus Ministry program continues its retreat program with both a Junior Retreat while our final Senior Kairos Retreat which will occur in March. Please hold these students in your thoughts and prayers as they spend time deepening their relationships with God, family and each other as classmates. We continue to run excellent retreats which enable our students to discover their faith in age-appropriate ways and I am proud of the work that our faculty and administrators put in to support a retreat program that involves students on all four grade levels.

Personnel change

Mr. Damian Duran, our Theology teacher and Associate Campus Minister, left SJND at the end of the year. We thank him for the service he has given to SJND over the past year and a half and we wish him the best in all his future endeavors.

Effective January 1, 2010, I am pleased to announce that Mr. Rene Sanchez will be our full-time Theology teacher and Associate Campus Minister, taking over all of Mr. Duran’s former teaching and Campus Ministry duties. Mr. Sanchez has anMA in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Theology at Boston College. His previous teaching experiences include ten years of teaching Theology at Moreau Catholic High School as well as teaching at Holy Names University. Currently, he is also a part-time Professor of Theology at the University of San Francisco, teaching one class. We are pleased to welcome Mr. Sanchez to SJND, who brings with him a wealth of experience in Catholic high schools as well as working with young people.

Catholic Schools Week

Catholic Schools Week, the annual celebration of Catholic schools and their contribution to their communities and the nation, is set for Jan. 31-February 6, 2010. For more than three decades, the nation’s Catholic schools have spent the last week of January recalling what makes Catholic education special. Catholic Schools Week celebrates education that goes beyond preparation for a secular life ─ it is education that prepares students for a Christian life. CSW also celebrates the high standards of excellence and the quality of the education available to all students in Catholic elementary and secondary schools across the U.S.

The 2010 theme is “Dividends for Life.” Marie Powell, executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted: “We realize that in most parts of the country a Catholic education is not without some cost. But I can’t think of a better investment in the future than to invest in the education of a child.”

SJND will celebrate Catholic Schools Week with activities that will highlight the Catholic nature of our school as well activities which will build community and strengthen our ties to each other as Catholic students and educators.

This year, activities include Catholic School Uniform day on Wednesday the 3^rd. Students are invited to celebrate and remember their Catholic elementary school by wearing their old Catholic elementary school uniform to school today. On Friday the 5^th, we host our annual “Old School” 3 on 3 basketball tournament during lunch time. Students are encouraged to form teams of three based on elementary school attendance. The mini-tournament will be held during lunch in the gym.

Athletics

Winter sports get into full swing in January. Our basketball and soccer teams begin league competition this week. Come out and support our student athletes as they compete in the Bay Shore Athletic League. On note, both our men’s and women’s basketball teams are returning after playoff seasons last year and are looking forward to repeating their success from last year. Check the school website for schedule information for all our teams. Go Pilots!

Happy new year!

It’s amazing to think that we have been in school for almost a month. The start of school this year eas especially smooth and calm. As an administrator, I feel like my job is always to wait for “the other shoe to drop.” I’m happy to report that is has not (yet!) All of our students along with our faculty and staff have been off to an energetic and enthuasistic start to the school year.

We have welcomed two new administrators this year, Ms. Cook as our Assistant Principal of Academics and Mr. Reed as our Dean of Students. Both of them have acclimated very well to the SJND community and culture and are doing great work with our students and teachers.

I am most excited about the program of professional development that Ms. Cook has put together for our faculty this year, a program of learning that is connected to each other, responsive to student and school needs and imbued with the use of technology within the curriculum. It’s also a program that wil foster collaboration among student as well as teachers.

On the technology front, we continue to move ahead with plans for out student 1:1 laptop program which we hope to adopt during the 2011-12 school year. We have decided upon PC netbooks as the platform of choice for our program. If you have not had a chance to see a netbook, do a quick internet serach for this product and find out about it. It’s a smaller version of a typical laptop that comes in at a fraction of the price of a laptop (a typical netbook ranges anywhere from $200-$500) but has almost all the functionality, speed and power of a laptop. We think it’s going to be a great solutuion for our students. We will work hard over the next two years to prepare our teachers as well as our technoogy infrastructure and resources for the introduction of this program two years from now.

SJND Theatre

We just finished our spring musical, Damn Yankees. What a fine show it was. Over the past two years, I have had the pleasure of seeing our students and teachers put on shows of not only a high quality but also do these shows in a joy-filled and spirited way. We are fortunate to have the great teachers on staff who devote countless hours to working on various aspects of this show, including Joyce Henderson (drama), Didi Kubicek (musical), Jennifer Dlugosh (musical), Chris Micheli (costumes) , Paula Cekola (music) and Mark Ritter (sets).

At the center of all of these shows, of course, is our students and in particular the Class of 2009, which has produced a large number of talented individuals who have acted, sung, built and produces such fine shows over the past four years. Ms. Dlugosh put together a video that honors the past four years of theatre here at SJND and I’m happy to share it with you below.

SJND in the community

We’re proud of the many things SJND students do in our community. Our Christian Service Program each year asks student to perform 80 hours of community service before graduation. More importantly than the hours is the fact that our school community regularly participates in events to help worthy causes in Alameda as well as the greater Alameda County.

Annually, we participate in the Pennies for Patients drive for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This year, one penny drive coincided with our school’s spirit week. I’m happy to announce that we raised over $2800 this year for this important cause.

During the holiday season, we regularly participate in a food drive for the Alameda County Community Food Bank. This year, not only did we raise nearly $1000 for this organization but we also donated 430 pounds of food to the food bank. Combined, these efforts will provide more than 3,300 meals to deserving children, adults and families in our community.

Championship basketball returns to SJND

Congratulations to our basketball teams for very successful seasons. Our women’s basketball team finished their season with a 21-8 record and made it to the semi-final round of the North Coast Section (NCS) playoffs, the deepest they have went into the playoffs in nearly a dozen years. Our men’s team is the 2009 North Coast Section Division V Champion, the 10th Section Championship in the school’s history and second most of all-time. With this championship, SJND is the first school to win a title in three divisions (I, IV and V). The Boys team opened up play in the NorCal Championships against Woodside Priory on March 10th with an exciting win. They won again on March 12th in a semi-final match up against Redding Christian.

Our Men’s Basketball team won the Northern California Championship this past Saturday with a thrilling 42-40 over Branson School. I hope you have had the chance to read the newspaper accounts of this game. It was indeed one for the ages!

We now advance to the State Championship game to be held this Friday at 1:30PM at Arco Arena in Sacramento. As it so happens, we have a school holiday this Friday for St. Joseph day. We will have a student rooters bus going to the game as well as many faculty and staff whom I know will travel to the game. We are now attempting to secure our fourth state championship in men’s basketball. Our last state championship was in 2004 when we won the championship in Division IV. Prior to that, of course, were the school’s back to back state championships in Division I in 1991 and 1992.

For more about our victory over Branson see these articles in the Oakland Tribune:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/ci_11918868

http://www.insidebayarea.com/high-school-sports/ci_11917033

And this article from the San Francisco Chronicle profiling Coach Don Lippi and his son Dominic:

A YouTube video of game highlights is below.

Reflections on teaching

I had the pleasure last night of reuniting with a former student of mine whom I taught when I taught English at St. Ignatius in San Francisco. She was a student in my sophomore English class the first year I began teaching in 1993. As a teacher, we tend to remember that first year very vividly, largely because the first year of teaching is typically a year of minor tragedies and major errors interspersed with some small victories. Mine was no different.

In any case, this former student of mine is now and English teacher at Albany High School here in the East Bay and she mentioned to me during the course of our conversation that she was inspired by our English class to love literature and that the class was the first time she felt that she could be good at studying English. She is now in her fourth year of teaching, moderating the school Yearbook and doing very well for herself, clearly happy at her job.

As an administrator, it’s not often that students come back to tell you that they were inspired by your work disciplining them or changing a school rule for them. Often times, the work of an administrator is tranparent to the vast majority of students. That’s why I always say that the magic of a school happens not in my office but in the classrooms. Occasionally, like last night, I still get some feedback about the times when I taught in the classroom and I treasure those moments immensely. Knowing that one’s work had a psitive impact on the lives of real people is a priceless reward that few jobs allow one to have. As a principal, I have faith in the fact that our work here at school in our offices has a positive impact on our teachers and allows them to continue their good work with our students. However, a conversation like last night reminds me of the power of teaching – it affects lives.

Happy new year 2009

I hope that you and your family had a joyous and restful Christmas time.

As we enter the new year, I have had a chance to reflect back on the progress our school has made this past year. I am proud of many accomplishments here at SJND. I wanted to highlight two of them.

After a full semester, our Student Independent Reading Program (SIR) has been successful at encouraging students and teachers to become lifelong readers. The feedback I have received from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. To prepare for SIR, the library purchased 300 new fiction books this year. Circulation of books in our library has increased by 308% over last year, with a total of 641 books circulated this past semester. Our students are reading more and enjoying what they read, since they are able to select their SIR book on their own. Clearly, this program is successful at getting our students to read more as well as to enjoy what they read more.

The 2008-09 Annual Fund campaign, “Investing in Tomorrow’s Leaders,” kicked off in September with a goal of $290,000. With the help of many in our community, the school has raised $140,085 in Annual Fund gifts, thus far. 100% of our own faculty and staff have pledged Annual Fund gifts to the school, for a total of $7,386, a tremendous show of support on behalf of our own school, telling a strong story to our alumni, parents and friends about the importance of this fundraising initiative.

New admissions video

SJND has put together a new admissions video that highlights the school three major components: academics, cocurricular opportunities and spiritual development. It’s a great way to get a close up look at what our school is all about.

SJND commercial to hit airwaves

The SJND Admissions Department is excited to announce the debut of SJND’s first TV commercial to be featured on the local CBS and CW network affiliates here in the Bay Area. The premiere of this 30 second spot marks the first showcase of our students and faculty to the general public on such a large stage. This commercial will give the broader Bay Area community an opportunity to discover what SJND has to offer.

You can watch it here:

Beginning Monday, November 17, our commercial will be seen throughout the day on KPIX and CW as early as the 5AM morning news and as late as the prime time lineups for both networks. Be sure to watch and tell a friend. Next week’s broadcast schedule is:

KPIX
Date Time
11/17/08 08:56:00A
11/17/08 09:57:56A
11/18/08 05:26:00A
11/18/08 08:23:00A
11/18/08 09:45:00A
11/19/08 05:26:00A
11/19/08 08:58:55A
11/19/08 09:52:30A
11/20/08 09:15:30A
11/20/08 09:57:56A
11/21/08 05:38:00A
11/21/08 09:20:00A
11/23/08 05:28:26A

CW
Date Time
11/17/08 06:28:00
11/17/08 10:20:00P
11/17/08 11:58:00P
11/18/08 05:58:00A
11/18/08 03:10:00P
11/19/08 05:58:00A
11/19/08 10:35:00A
11/19/08 10:20:00P
11/20/08 05:58:00A
11/20/08 10:28:00A
11/20/08 03:25:00P
11/20/08 07:10:00P
11/21/08 02:05:00P
11/21/08 02:35:00P
11/21/08 10:20:00P