Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live; a place where Saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace. Here the love of Christ shall end divisions. All are welcome, all are welcome, All are welcome in this place.

I am blessed to be the educational leader at St. Gerard School, Lima, Ohio for the past seven years. We are a Redemptorist school with the mission of Educating Minds, Hearts, and Hands. I recently attended a school leadership meeting at the Our Lady of Consolation, National Shrine in Carey, Ohio.

 

This was our first time together gathering in person as a leadership community since the Covid19 pandemic began. We started our time together with a beautiful Mass. The Mass began with the opening song, “All Are Welcome.” As I joined in praising Jesus in song, it led to reflection on our Redemptorist School and caused me to think about how the lyrics to this popular hymn truly encompasses our school and the families that we serve.

St. Gerard School educates students in grades pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade. Our current demographics reflect a student population of 45% Catholic students, and approximately 57% of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch.

Over the past several years, our enrollment has increased dramatically. When I started my journey at St. Gerard, our enrollment was at an all-time low (117 total students). Our pastor, administration, teachers and staff knew we needed to do something to attract new families and retain our current families.

Building relationships and welcoming EVERYONE seemed to be the key to our growth and success. We did not need any fancy marketing tools to make this happen… it has happened by our families spreading “The Good News” that we are inclusive and want to help all children and families grow closer to Jesus, while providing them a quality education at the same time.

What happened next was amazing! Families were not only joining the school but were also joining the parish and were getting their children baptized. With this being said our current enrollment is up to 196 students in grades pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

 

With this growth, I am not ashamed to say we experienced growing pains as does any school or institution who experiences rapid growth. We were serving a new population than what had been previously served. It became evident that we needed staff training to help meet the needs of our new families, so we did it!

As you can imagine, the next big problem was space! The staff, the finance council, and the school and parish administration worked diligently for a few years to explore our options for building and funding a project. This was not an easy task as you might have imagined but because of our relationships that we have and the support we have from our wonderful parish, we were able to proceed.

I am pleased to announce that this year we have been blessed to open a brand-new wing! We have eight additional classrooms that currently house our pre-kindergarten through fourth grade classrooms. This has allowed us to have all of our grade levels in one location, on one campus. We couldn’t have done this without the support of our school and parish community.

 

Due to Covid19, we have not yet been able to have an open house to show off this wonderful addition, but we are hopeful that we can do that in the near future. This addition will allow us to return to the sense of family that our students, staff, and families know and love. We are truly blessed and look forward to serving our parish community for many years to come, “Educating Minds, Hearts, and Hands.”

Natalie A. Schoonover, School Principal (Courtesy of Baltimore Beacon.)