Award-winning principal gives credit to staff

	The Interview, a regular feature of The Catholic New World, is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

This week, Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin talks with Resurrection Catholic Academy Rose Mannion.

Rose Mannion has been rewarded for her 30 years of service to Catholic education with the National Catholic Education Association’s Distinguished Principal Award for the Midwest region. The award will be presented at the association’s annual conference April 17.

What might be most unusual about Mannion’s career is that she has spent all of it in the same neighborhood, first at St. Veronica, and then when St. Veronica merged with St. Francis Xavier in 1991, at Resurrection Academy, the name of the newly created school.

Resurrection also won the Cardinal Bernardin Teacher Achievement Award, for having its test scores exceed expectations. No matter how many accolades Mannion and her staff get, she says, they were just doing their jobs.



The Catholic New World: What was it like being a principal at the age of 26? Most people are just starting out then.

Rose Mannion: It was, I suppose, fairly awesome. But at that point in time—we’re talking 1971—life was different. The world was different. Families were different. I believe at the time I didn’t even have my first degree, but I had a very supportive group of people surrounding me in the parent communities and the faculty. It just was sort of a sink-or-swim situation, and you rise to the top because that’s what you need to do. Looking back now and looking at a 26-year-old person today, it reminds me of what a unique kind of thing it was.



TCNW: You’ve stayed basically in the same neighborhood, as close as you could to the same school, for 30 years. Why have you stayed here for your whole career, and what advantages do you see to having done that?

RM: It was very much and still is the ministerial aspect of it all.

Those first few years, you’re learning the ropes. You’re learning what it’s all about, you’re developing professionally, and so there’s a lot going on. I jokingly have said over the years that lots of people like to get out of ruts; I’d love to get into one, if even for a short time.

I suppose if, over the years, things had continued with a certain sameness, I might have been prompted to look in a different place or a different area to work, but it was never that. It was always, always different and challenging. Probably when I began to think about making a change, the consolidation came about, and so there was yet again another challenge. I did thrive on that challenge, although I was very sad at the same time because a lot of my professional and personal life revolved around St. Veronica.

The archdiocesan schools office said it would take five years until the new place was established; I said, “Oh no, I work much faster than that.” But it truly took five years and then some. I probably feel that just in the last two years, we’re our own totally new entity of Resurrection.

Then to think in terms of moving away now, as we all know, we’re into another crisis in Catholic school education. And so there are new challenges to face and to deal with. It hasn’t been boring. It hasn’t been filled with sameness. The people I’ve worked with over the years, the community, even the changes in the community have been stimulating and enriching for me and so I continue to desire to minister in this community.



TCNW: How has Catholic education changed? What’s better? Worse? Different?

RM: Educationally, there have been tremendous changes in instructional methods and pedagogical techniques and that kind of thing, but I’m finding myself more geared to responding from the aspect of the administrative component of the job.

I’ve always felt that I was very, very busy and working very hard. But looking back to 1975 at St. Veronica’s from 2001 at Resurrection, I was on vacation 25 years ago and didn’t know it. The jobs at the administrative level, especially in schools like ours and in many of the schools in Vicariate III, are extraordinarily challenging in what they don’t have. We don’t have the money, we don’t have the personnel.

I constantly marvel that we have done as well as we’ve done test-score-wise and all of that with what we don’t have. It truly sometimes seems to be nothing less than miraculous. On a more spiritual note, I really feel it’s a blessing that is being bestowed on us for the efforts that are being made.



TCNW: What are the best things you see about this school?

RM: Well, certainly, the faculty, the staff. I think that all helps to create an atmosphere, to create a spirit that’s generally positive, productive, pleasant. The children, I believe, are generally very happy, very comfortable. We joke on occasion about how comfortable they are. We sometimes have little ones walk right through the secretary’s office into my office and say, “Oh, there you are. I just wanted to ask you such-and-such.” We sort of jokingly say, “Only at Resurrection.” That might be sort of unusual, but if it works, then that’s a good thing, and that’s ultimately what you’re after. I do strive very hard to be available and to be visible.

As much as I am always spinning in one direction or another, one thing I don’t do a lot of is having to deal with a lot of serious discipline issues. Again, that’s attributable to the competence of the staff, but also, I believe to the overall atmosphere and expectations that are just known. Our children are coming in from different home situations, different community situations, and yet, they almost always measure up to the expectations that they know are in place for them when they come here. No one ever, ever visits the place without stopping in the office to comment on the students, and always, when we take them out to every type of place, we get compliments on the students.

Another big thing that we’re proud about, in addition to the test scores, is our preschool. After a couple of years of tremendous work—physical, paper, observation—we were nationally accredited, and this year we are up for reaccreditation and that’s going very well.

We began the year with a theme of celebration, as the 10th year of Resurrection, and it turned out the year had so many more things to celebrate as well.