Father Scott leads team reset at St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus school

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

With enrollment “soft” and principal Patty Balmer having stepped down after five years for family reasons, St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus Regional Catholic School is taking a new direction in this its 140th year.

In a YouTube video, St. Mary’s Catholic Church Pastor Scott VanDerveer asked rhetorically, “Who is going to be the next principal? You might be surprised to know I actually am up for the job.”

In a follow-up conversation last week with The Chronicle, Father Scott explained that he will lead a team of community members who will run the school.

They have “three distinct goals — boosting enrollment, creating a positive behavior modification plan and a first-rate classroom experience.”

Middle school numbers down

“Enrollment has become very bottom-heavy,” Father Scott told The Chronicle.

The Noah’s Ark Preschool has more than 100 students over eight classrooms, and anticipates a waiting list. “We’ve expanded two classes and we are hiring more teachers and aides,” he says.

“We’re solid in the elementary school,” with an average of 8 to 20 students per class in grades K-5.

“What has been softening for several years is the middle school” — tracking at between 8 and 10 students per class, with just five 8th graders as of last week.

The goal, Father Scott says, is to have at least 10 students per grade.

“It’s one of the reasons we are doing such a robust reboot of our programming. We are proud of every program we offer, but the middle school is a real testament. It elongates their childhood while at the same time offering a tremendous opportunity for leadership.”

Middle schoolers at SMSA aren’t as subject to the influence of high schoolers, said Fr. Scott. They are also active “angels,” role models for the younger students.

While five isn’t ideally enough students for critical mass, Father Scott says, the generally smaller classes provide “an incredible teacher student ratio,” with a teaching staff that includes “literally a rocket scientist,” doctors and PhDs.

“Anyone can look at enrollment as a sign of institutional health. Our emphasis in improving the middle school is for the sake of critical mass of students, but we are willing to lose money on the middle school because we believe in it.

“No matter how low the enrollment, all teachers are returning and all subjects will be taught at grade level.”

Annual tuition is $5,600 for Middle School, $5,400 grades K-5, and $210 weekly for Noah’s Ark Preschool.

“A large number of our students receive financial aid,” Father Scott notes. About 40 percent of the students are not Catholic, he adds, “a sign of inclusivity.” The church is the school’s sponsor.

‘Glens Falls as classroom’

“We see this as a perfect time to experiment with a new form of education that is almost a test kitchen, a brand new school that still leans on our 140 years of experience,” Father Scott said.

Drawing from what is known as “project based learning,” they are adding what they call “product based learning.”

For example, Father Scott says: “Making Glens Falls our classroom for a middle school cross-curricular unit on the Hudson River” — incorporating science and hands-on science testing, social and industrial history, researching the Hudson River art movement and more.

They’re expanding “STEM” — focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — not only to STEAM, which added Arts, but to STREAM, with Religion, “or Reading,” emphasizing religious texts.

A new intergenerational volunteer group will help revive the library that was lost for lack of funds, he said.

They’re adding a team sports program. Fr. Scott said some families leave for public school for lack of it. Former SMSA parent Angela Cugini-Girard is the new athletic director. Students in grades 4 to 8 can now join soccer in the fall, basketball in winter, track in spring.

They are looking at other initiatives to increase enrollment, such as “Kerry cousins,” an a la carte offering for home-school families. It invites them to participate in SMSA sports and physical education; drama, band and chorus; or higher-level language and academic classes, as well as after-school care, “still on their own homeschool terms.”

A new Catholic discipline plan

Father Scott says, “When you think of Catholic School you think of very strict discipline, but what had happened over the years is the desire to be nurturing gave us a reputation of not approaching discipline any differently than public school. We never had behavior problems, but some parents were feeling the need for more predictability in the outcomes for student choices.”

The plan: “To apply current standards for behavior in the context of a Catholic curriculum,” he says. “It expects the best of students. In the Catholic Christian anthropology, we are all made in God’s image, and yet we are flawed from before we were born, and that leads us to make bad choices every day.” He said on a practical level, they’ll lay out “predictable outcomes” for defined actions.

Marion Slater at the helm

Everyday school operations will be overseen by Marion Slater, a long-time professor at Albany’s College of St. Rose who lives in Queensbury and is a St. Mary’s parishioner. “She has advanced degrees from Columbia and Catholic University, 20 years in the classroom and 30 years of experience. She said she sees this as the capstone contribution of her career,” said Father Scott.

On the leadership team: Retired former SMSA Principal Kate Fowler, 1972 SMSA grad and retired teacher Mary Tully, former Saratoga Catholic and Corinth High School teacher Patti Siano, and former SMSA development director Sally Behan, Glens Falls businesswoman Elizabeth Miller, school board president Kathy McNulty, St. Mary’s Business-Operations Manager Gary Patton and St. Mary’s Pastoral Associate Melissa Wilkinson.

“I was born for this,” Father Scott, said in his video. He is “a veteran Catholic School teacher” in high school and middle school, with a Master’s in education from Boston College. “I even drove a school bus, with a commercial license.”

The goal is “a new model that takes the best of the old and best of the new — a classic Catholic education in a small, intimate environment, while at the same time, the kind of educational innovation that makes this such an exciting place to be.”

“We have been around for 140 years,” he said, “and we are just getting started.”

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