Articulating "IT": The Special Olympics Track Meet '14

I'll ALWAYS remember the day.  It was January 18, 2011.  I was sitting in my office in Springfield, MO preparing to make the most exciting phone call of my professional career and also agonizing over what I would need to do once the call had concluded.

With confidence and enthusiasm, I placed the call and officially accepted the position of Principal at St. John Vianney High School in St. Louis! It was a pinnacle of  my career.  After an extensive six month nationwide search, Vianney selected me and I could not have been more elated to join the faculty/staff of the Golden Griffins.

The agonizing and excruciating part was to follow.  Having spent nearly a decade coaching and teaching at Springfield Catholic High School. After so many wonderful educators there helped me grow and progress and become the person and leader I was, I had to find the words to express my gratitude, my appreciation, and love for them. Saying "Yes" to Vianney was easy, but saying "Good-bye" to a community that had meant so much to me and my family would prove much more difficult.

Immediately upon my announcement the questions came rapidly, and were organized under the same theme, "Why?"

One would assume that having earned my doctoral degree from St. Louis University and having spent my classroom years teaching English that it would be easy for me to articulate this momentous career change. And yet I struggled to find the words.  They would not bounce off my tongue, my brain seemed scrambled and disconnected.  The best I could come up with was, "They have this thing," "It is a special place." "I felt welcome, like I was family."

I was so frustrated with myself.  This Springfield community deserved so much more!  A deeper explanation of why I was leaving. Certainly my heart felt much more for the place I was headed to and all I could say was "IT."
Wow! How articulate!  They must have thought I was a moron.  Many of them  looked at me with frustration. I know I saw disappointment in some of their eyes, confusion in others.

He said, "It" they whispered.

Three years later the feeling of "IT" still permeates my body!  Each day my love and affection for Vianney's "IT" grows stronger and stronger.  Even if my mouth and vocabulary still struggles to articulate exactly what "It" is.

Today was another (in a long list) of living moments where 'IT" was present at Vianney.  We hosted our 12th Annual Special Olympics Track Meet.  Our school went out of it's way to put on one of the most remarkable acts of selfless charity that I've ever witnessed.  More than 150 special-athletes stormed our campus and partnered with more than 150 of our Golden Griffin students and from the second they arrived, the magic happened.

As an outsider who came to Vianey three years ago I saw in the eyes of the Special Olympic athletes exactly what I had felt three years earlier.  They saw "IT."  For some, "IT" was in the form of a smile on the face of one of our Vianney students.  Others saw "IT" in the energy and enthusiasm of teachers, Charlie Walsh, Paul, Rhame, and Bob Trowbridge who have been running this track meet for years!  During some moments you actually had to wonder who were the students and who were the teachers as Charlie, Paul, and Bob beamed with pride, let out full-laughs, and shook hands and greeted every student that crossed their path.

Watching our students interact with the special-athletes was a priceless memory that would make any school administrator boast with pride and secretly shed a tear of joy.  Our students were AMAZING!  They were placed in difficult situations that would make most teenagers uncomfortable, frightened, and resistant.  If they were any of those things they never showed a crack in their armor.  For one day they welcomed the special-athletes to our campus and treated them like they were life-long classmates, like they were family.  In their words and their actions they expressed that today, EVERYBODY was a Golden Griffin!

And that's when it struck me. If you were an outsider and wanted to visit Vianney for one day to witness what "It" is, what makes our school so special and unlike any other, all you would have to do is arrive for our Special Olympic Track meet.  Here you would learn everything about our miraculous students, faculty, and staff.  Foolishly I used to think this event was about our visitors with special needs and the learning experience they would get while visiting. Little did I realize, this day was about so much more.  The real winners on this day were our students.  Their opportunity to witness and serve others.  Their opportunity to demonstrate to the community everything they have learned at Vianney.  They are practically unsupervised as they lead these special athletes through event after event, and each one of them terrifically displayed exactly what it means to be a Griffin.  Their attitudes of servant leadership, their displays of character, their friendliness, patience, charm, and respect for others proves they not only are learning here, but LIVING our mission.

In one day, a few hours, I was able to see , AGAIN, what my words still struggle to articulate. So since my words still escape me, here's a quote from author, Jon Gordon that articulates more about Vianney's faculty, staff, students and community far better than I ever could: "When YOUR work is about OTHERS and NOT about YOU it becomes a Movement."

We have a special "IT" in our Catholic, Marianist school.  An "IT" that has survived 54 years of tradition.  I'm fortunate to be part of "IT" and look forward to developing men of character and accomplishment for many more years to come.

^{MPE—the roadmap for life}

 ^“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” 

B. F. Skinner

Before there was GPS, there was MPE.
MPE was similar to GPS in that it provided instruction, guidance, and helped me make sure I got where I was going in life. It was different in that it is required no technology.  It did not come out with a new operating system every six months, and an operation manual was not required.

No, MPE—”My Parents’ Expectations”—focuses entirely on providing a foundation that will guarantee achievement in every area of a child’s life; these expectations include, but are not limited to, education.

Often, MPE statements are clichés that, once recycled into the lives of the young, become the tenets, along with those of their Catholic faith, that undergird their lives. Such was the case with me.

For example, ^“Can’t never could do anything,^” was my father’s MPE response every time my siblings or I whined—usually any time something was, or even gave the appearance that it might be, a little difficult.

^“Now, get busy” always concluded his Can’t declaration. Long before I understood the logic of the first part, the ^“get busy” directive was ingrained in me as habit.

 In this way, my father’s use of MPE developed independence ­and the ability to self-start in me. My father’s MPE was so powerful that Nike and Phil Knight recycled the cliché years later—with­out even bothering to gain his  permission—and adopted it as their “Just Do It” slogan.

Then, there was the “Do your best, work hard, and you can achieve anything you want” MPE mantra in our home. No one was excused from working hard or giving less than his or her very best effort at all times. From experience, my parents knew that adolescence was the training ground for life, so we had chores at home, part-time and summer jobs at an early age, and hordes of extracurricular activities in which to participate. My parents understood how easily society allows individuals to settle for the least that life has to offer; they had shunned the perfect opportunity to do so, and they pushed us to do the same.

My parents didn’t just teach this MPE; they lived it. My father has worked hard his entire life to provide for our family.  He is the definition of a “self-made” man.  Likewise my mother has followed her own MPE, sought her own development, and without ever attending college became the vice-president of a mortgage company.

They both are shining examples of hard work and model parents. At any point during their nearly 40 year marriage they could have easily justified providing the minimum for their children. Instead, my father spent many years working 50 or more hours each week, combining full and part-time jobs to make ends meet to provide for us. While doing so, he never missed a ballgame or other important event in any of our lives. He found the time, somehow, not only to carry us on amusement park trips and tell us stories about his youth, but also to share his dreams, which inspired us to dream, too. At home, my parents constantly read and played games with us, helped us with our homework, and made sure, though money was sometimes scarce, that we got those ^“little ex­tras^” we craved at least once in a while. Their MPE modeling taught us that no adversity in life had to define us if we didn't allow it to do so. We could choose our perspective and our reaction to other people^’s perspectives—we alone were responsible for the outcomes of our own lives, not anyone else.

Lastly, the MPE ^“Get an education^” refrain was so often repeated that I was well into school (1/2 way through my doctoral program) before I realized that the three words could be used separately in a sentence. Ahead of their time in their advocacy for higher edu­cation, my parents promoted college not as an option for me, but as the only op­tion. My parents stressed education as the road to all the opportunities that they wanted for us and that we would eventually want for ourselves. While my siblings and I all attained dif­ferent levels of formal education, each of us continues to grow and use education to achieve what we desire in life.

Only with age and the passing years have I truly realized the gift that my parents were to their children or the gifts that they gave to me in the form of MPE statements. Only in retrospect have I understood that MPE wasn't just about values, discipline, succeeding in life, and expectations; MPE was a gift of love—a love that cared enough to hold itself responsible for not only teaching life lessons, but holding me accountable when I gave excuses instead of my best. So as the school year quickly ends and you begin to think about next year’s classes and students, maybe you’ll also roll out some of your own MPE’s in your classroom next year too. For those students who haven’t been exposed to the MPE, it might make all the difference in the GPA’s.

Put the Big Rocks First

“Things that matter most should never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”--Goethe

At this very busy time of year, both personally and professionally, I thought a (repeat) reflection on the never-ending dimension of time would be very relevant. My message is not one that delves into the general holiday theme, but rather one that has ample application to the holiday season(Whatever season that may be--I've seen Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations in the same aisle of many stores, Easter can't be far behind). It happens not only at this time of year, but throughout the year—there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to accomplish all that we desire to. Time always has lapsed and continues to lapse for each of us from minute to minute, class period to class period, sunrise to sunset, throughout our lifetime. Do you ever feel stretched for time, like me? Do you leave loose ends at the end of the day? Wonder how you are going to get it all done? I have come to the realiza­tion that time constraints will always be present and that I will never get it all done. I know that we all strive to be the BEST people that we can be. In order to be our best, it is necessary that we take care of ourselves. So what can we do to manage all of our life activities, both professionally and personally? I have come to find comfort in one of Richard Carlson’s (1997) many strategies from his book titled, Don’tSweat the Small Stuff—And It’s All Small Stuff. His strategy (slightly tweaked) is as follows:

Learn to Live in the Present Moment

To a large degree, the measure of our peace of mind is determined by how much we are able to live in the present moment. Irrespective of what happened yesterday or last year and of what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is where you are—always. Without question, many of us have mastered the neurotic art of spending much of our lives worrying about a variety of things all at once. We allow past problems and future concerns to dominate our present moments, so much so that we end up anxious, frustrated, and hopeless. On the flip side, we also postpone our gratification, our stated priorities, and our happiness, often convincing ourselves that someday will be better than today. Unfortunately, the same mental dynamics that tell us to look toward the future will only repeat themselves so that someday will never actually arrive. John Lennon once said, “Life is what’s happening when we are busy making other plans.” When we are busy making other plans, our children are busy growing up(I can;t believe my Lexi is 5--going on 25!), the people we love are moving away, our bodies are get­ting out of shape, friends and family members are dying, and our dreams are slipping away. In short, we might miss out on life.

Many people live life as if it were a dress rehearsal for some later date. It isn’t. In fact, no one has a guarantee that they will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and it is the only time overwhich we have any control. When our attention is in the present mo­ment, we push fear from our minds. Fear is a concern over events that might happen in the future—the copying machine might break(actually-this seems to be a certainty  at Vianney), my planning time will be usurped, our students will not meet the benchmarks on the standardized test, and so on.

To combat fear, the best strategy is to learn to bring your attention back to the present. Mark Twain said, “I have been through some ter­rible times in my life, some of which actually happened.” I don’t think I can say it any better. Practice keeping your attention on the here and now. Your efforts will pay off in great dividends.

In addition to this strategy, I thought it was very timely  that I share with you an excerpt from Stephen Covey and colleagues’ (Covey, Merrill, & Merrill, 1996) work, First Things First. It is nothing earth-shattering, and perhaps it is nothing that you haven’t already heard, but it is worthy to bring once again to the fore-front of our minds. The story is called “Put the Big Rocks First.”

At a seminar, the presenter pulled out a wide-mouth gallon jar and placed it next to a pile of fist-sized rocks. After filling the jar to the top with rocks, he asked, “Is the jar full?”

The group replied, “Yes.”

He then got some gravel from under the table and added it to the jar. The speaker jiggled the jar until the gravel filled the spaces between the rocks. Again, he asked, “Is the jar full?”

“No!” shouted the group.

Finally, the speaker filled the jar to the brim with water and asked the group the point of this illustration. Someone replied that you could always fit more things into your life if you really worked at it.

“No,” countered the speaker. “The point is, if you didn’t put the big rocks in first, would you have never gotten them in?”

As you go through this year, think of the “big rocks” in your life as the things you can do to make this a happier and more productive year for yourself and others. What are your big rocks? Can you identifyand define them? List your big rocks, not only for this upcoming  holiday season, but also for the time to come.

Have a peaceful, blessed holiday season(s).

 Thanks for all that you do,

 Tim

The Power of Great Teachers

“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.” Garrison Keillor

I'm still amazed at how involved and engaged you all were during Spirit Week!  What a terrific testament to our family spirit that each of you saw spirit week as an opportunity to have some fun and build some relationships with students that will sustain learning throughout the semester and year. You are all amazing educators!

Many of you know I had a brief stint as a preschool teacher prior to securing a High School English teaching posting. I loved teaching small children, but the truth is I didn't have the stamina to do it day in and day out. I also probably lacked the patience and definitely the creativity to sustain a quality learning environment for those kids for too long.

At first, I mistakenly thought that my high school students did not want to please me as much as my preschoolers did. I was appalled by their apparent insouciance in terms of my regard for them. Certainly, I surmised, my preschoolers needed me much more than these young adolescents. As you are well aware, nothing could have been further from the truth. The more time I spent with my high school students, the more obvious it became that these young adults craved my attention, my guidance, and my approval.

Our Griffins feel the same about you! They need you! They rely on you for instruction, compassion, and consistency. Although it may not always be readily apparent, your students like it when you take control. Your students know that good teachers control their classrooms, and they understand and appreciate the boundaries you set. High school students thrive in an atmosphere where the teacher stresses self-discipline and communicates with parents regarding progress in this critical area. They respect teachers who discipline students in a firm yet respectful manner that does not sacrifice a student’s dignity. Effective teachers establish a set of clear, though limited, expectations with consequences that are consistently and fairly meted out. Teachers who are well organized tend to have the most disciplined classes. The structure of the classroom prevents a lot of off-task behavior, and students know what to expect from day to day.

Being fair and consistent requires courage on the part of teachers, but students will admire those teachers who stand up for what is right and speak out when they observe unfairness. The curriculum you must cover in your various subject areas is vast and even daunting. However, the values you teach your students may be even more important. Students expect you to have beliefs and opinions not only about your subject matter but also about what is right and what is wrong. Sadly, much of what our students learn from textbooks at this age may be forgotten over time. The life lessons you teach them, however, will last a lifetime! 

Thanks for expertly imparting unto our students what I consider to be an exceptional and comprehensive curriculum. Thank you also for teaching them relevant lessons about life. You are their role model; you may doubt this at times, but even during these moments of doubt, remember this truth. Our young men are watching us and learning from us within the walls of our classrooms and beyond. Therefore, be firm, be fair, be consistent, and use good judgment. 

Teach your students what you know, but also who you are. Everywhere I go, I find myself extolling the many virtues of the Vianney faculty and staff; thank you all for making this such an easy and sincere act in which to engage! Your passion for education and your commitment to our students is inspiring.  You are my role models!

Homecoming: A time to celebrate!

We are the Black and Gold of Vianney 

We are the Golden Griffins of Vianney High

Half lion, half eagle so the Griffin can roar
So the Griffin can soar above the lightening and thunder
We will win, win, win, yeah Vianney.
Oh hear the din din din and our clamor and cheer
We want the world to be told about the Black and the Gold of
Old Vianney, Vianney, Vianney. Hey!

Spirit Week! Homecoming!  A week like no other week in the school year!
Are you ready? Have you prepared your outfits for Lumberjack Day, Tacky Tourist Day, or Flotation Device Day?  Have you prepared your stomachs for Syberg's Chicken Tenders, Jack in the Box Tacos, Ice Cream and BBQ?  Can you hear the chanting of our students at the pep rally?  Will they be able to defeat the faculty this year in tug of war?

You have to admit, even as adults, there's something VERY special about homecoming!  And as our students prepare for goofy costumes, as our teachers prepare to harness some of the excitement during class time so learning can take place, it's time to reflect and celebrate!

At St. John Vianney High School we have MUCH to celebrate this time of year!

Just look around....

Athletics:
At 2-1 our football program is scoring points at an unprecedented rate!  Fans are packing the stadium! Students are adorned in Black and Gold and parents and alumni are cheering until their voices are hoarse! When the Billikens visit The Heeb this week there will be an intimidating atmosphere that they have not encountered in many years!
Soccer continues to establish a culture of excellence.  The Griffins are undefeated and just claimed the CBC Tournament last week by defeating MCC rivals Sluh & Desmet and tying CBC.  The soccer Griffins are currently ranked #2 in the area polls and look to compete deep in to the post season.
The Swimmers & Divers continue to make a splash in the pool.  Many school records have already been challenged or broken this year.  Lead by sophomore Nick Alexander the Aqua Griffins will be real contenders in the state rankings this year.
Cross-country remains solid, getting better with each race.  They will compete again this week after already claiming the Marianist Cup earlier in the season. And don't forget about the success we had last spring.  Baseball advanced deep in to the state playoffs and we were able to claim state titles in golf and volleyball!
Matt Mueller became the first Griffin to win the State Golf Individual title and Volleyball claimed their 17th state championship!

Academics:
This is definitely an area I'm extremely proud of.  We should all be celebrating that Vianney is a Top 50 Catholic School for Academics.  This summer more accolades were attributed to our faculty and students when Vianney became only the 10th school in the country to be named a Model School for Brain Based Education by the Gurian Institute.
Vianney students are excelling at unprecedented rates.  Our ACT scores remain higher than state and national averages, 99% of our graduates attended college this fall, Anthony Schrader and Jack Lyons were recnely named National Merit Semi-finalists.
Our 4x4 schedule is innovative and provides a terrific framework to educate young men.  The faculty at Vianney is second to none in the state of Missouri.  77% have Master's degrees or higher and their commitment to our students is inspiring!
Later this year our chess Team will try to claim their third NATIONAL Championship!  Our curriculum has grown exponentially over the last two years: 12 new courses, 4 new dual-enrollment courses, partnerships with Drury University and Kansas State!  Our freshmen love their Forensics science course!  We are living proof that school can be fun, practical, and rigorous all at the same time.

Spiritually:
What separates our school from all the others is our spirituality.  We should celebrate all the many things that Vianney does to LIVE our Faith.  Many schools pray before school or have monthly masses, but we do a lot of living Faith Formation. From praying the Angelus, Daily Communion Services, participating in the Living Rosary, and wearing outward symbols of our Marianist Faith, Vianney is a special, sacred place.  This past weekend ALL of our coaches participated in a "Play Like a Champion" Retreat to continue their faith development.  And each athletic program has Athletic Apostles now!  At Vianney we LIVE our Faith!

Those are just a few of my thoughts this week!  It will be electrifying to welcome back our Alumni on Friday Night!  Collectively they will share many stories and celebrate the education they had at Vianney.  Between the football and the food, the fight songs and the pep rallies, I hope you'll also take a few moments this week to celebrate the MANY things that make Vianney Special!

Igniting the Flame: Lessons from a Dancing Man

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.” ― William W. Purkey

I have to admit that in my mid-thirties I'm probably STILL much more adolescent in behavior that a seasoned high school principal should be.  Many times it may even appear that I am resistant to enter the world of adulthood.  Should anyone need a letter of recommendation regarding my resistance or my self-endorsement of my adolescent behaviors my wife Lesley is now accepting calls and emails.


Since I'm cleansing my conscious of my adolescent behavior and openly disclaiming my faults and tendencies I should also mention my love (dependence) of technology and my a fixation on TedTalks and Youtube.  I find there's an endless world of videos that say and demonstrate things far more articulate than I could EVER dream.

Which leads me to the video, "Dancing Man Gives a Leadership Lesson" I invite you to watch the video and perhaps comment on what you learned from "The Dancing Man."  Or respond to the Question of the Day at the bottom.

Lessons I learned/Questions I have....

I wonder how many people have enough passion for anything in life to do what the Dancing Man does: Think about it.  It really does take guts and perhaps a little insanity to make yourself completely vulnerable and to display it to the world.  Perhaps we don't all need to take our shirts off and dance in the middle of a crowd, but shouldn't there be something that we are so passionate about that we do "get up and dance?"  As educators, what is that internal flame that causes us to get up and engage students day to day?  Is your faith life strong enough that you would openly share a reflection? What about your family and friends? Do they know how much you care for them and love them?  How frequently do you truly display your affections?

Maybe we need more "Crazy Nuts" in the world: The narrator of the video suggests that the 1st follower is more important than the crazy nut.  I'm not sure I agree.  In fact, I would contend that there aren't enough crazy nuts in the world. In every school in America there are dynamic, engaging, EXCELLENT teachers encouraging our students to reach unimaginable goals, motivating students to exceed beyond what they even believe is possible! These educators are always on the top of their game. They prep for hours to master their craft.  They are always seeking professional development opportunities that will raise student achievement.  They never settle for good enough when they know GREAT is attainable. Unfortunately, even though they possess the power to dramatically change the face of education, they too often stay in the shadows. Perhaps afraid to step in to the light and challenge the status quo of education.  Is it isolation that scares them?  Fear of the unknown or acceptance/rejection by their peers?  Whatever their hesitation we as administrators need to find the antidote and cure them.  We need their ideas, we need their innovation and creativity, we need our halls infused with their passion!  We need someone to start the spark!

We need more "dancing":  Let's be clear.  I'm NOT condoning dancing!  I'm NOT a dancer and refuse to engage in most actual dancing.  By dancing I mean we need more fulfilling moments in life.  Too often we wake-up, go through our routines, and 10-15 hours later  fall asleep to only repeat the monotonous process again the next day.  Think about your BEST moments as a child, a student, a teacher, a person.  What moments truly stick out?  For me it's the ones that brought me to tears.  Either from laughing so hard with my peers or from crying over a devastating loss. When my emotions are triggered, that's when lasting memories are made.  My favorite teachers always knew how to trigger the nuerotoxins in our brains and get us engaged.  My most memorable childhood athletic moments stem from fun and laughter.  And moments in life that shaped who I am often centered around a loss of a loved one and the absence of the JOY they brought in to my life on a daily basis.

The late Jim Valvano has a terrific quote that resonates with me.

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.”
As educators we need to seek, lead, and participate in moments of emotion. Life is too short and too important to let anything else fill up our time.

Question of the Day: Will you be the follower who ignites the positive change you want to see in the Vianney? In your community? In your life?  

Or will you be the crazy nut?  And is there anything wrong with that?

Have a GREAT weekend! 

What Makes a Good School!

"What makes a good school has very little to do with how rich or poor the students are or the type of curriculum that’s taught. It has very little to do with special programs, expansive playing fields, huge endowments, snappy uniforms, celebrity alumni, or whether the school is wired to the Internet. What makes a good school, whether it’s public or private, religious or nonreligious, charter or noncharter, is a feeling. A feeling shared by the entire staff that their particular school is special. The feeling that their school really belongs to them" (Manna, 1999).

I LOVE that quote! I have ALWAYS loved it! I first saw it when I was a clueless undergrad student at Missouri State, it resurfaced in my Masters program at Drury, and I'm fairly certain I referenced it frequently in my doctoral work at Saint Louis University. And while I absolutely love that quote, I often wish I could add just one thing to it. To possess a good school, a great school, a school of excellence, one MUST have GREAT teachers. It's the one variable that ALL the GREAT schools have in common.

Go ahead, look it up if you must. Marzano, Whitakker, Hayes-Jacobs, Tomlinson, they all have the data and the stats to back up my argument. While the above quote doesn't reference teachers, I ALWAYS think of Vianney's faculty and staff when I read it. To work at Vianney is SPECIAL! It's REAL! It's AUTHENTIC! One of the Five Characteristics of Marianist Education that drive our decisions at Vianney is "Family spirit." Family spirit is NOT a catch phrase, a fancy slogan, or a marketing scheme. Family Spirit at Vianney is a living thing and it has been created, nurtured, and maintained by the amazing faculty and staff that have come before me and who currently reside at 1311 S. Kirkwood Rd.

While cleaning out some files at home I came across an article titled “What Makes a Good Teacher?” (Traina, 1999). The author sought to identify characteristics that are consistently cited by students and parents as those exhibited by their very best teachers. They are as follows:

Command of subject matter. Effective teachers know their subject matter inside and out. In addition, they convey a love of, and passion for, their subject matter.

Caring deeply about each student and about that student’s accomplishment and growth. Effective teachers take time to consider each student as an individual and a unique learner. They take the time and make the effort to get to know about each student, inquiring of their interests, family, and so forth.

Distinctive character. Effective teachers add a special flavor and zeal to their instruction that creates a memorable impression on their students. Whether it is an eccentric sense of humor or a tragedy overcome, such teachers stand out in the minds of their students.

At Vianney we are obviously staffed by teachers with distinctive character (see the photo above for evidence) who care deeply about each and every one of their students. It is equally apparent that Vianney teachers possess a superior command of their respective content areas. As a result, your students will remember you long after they leave us.

The talented, gifted, and caring faculty and staff at Vianney are one more reason why "It's a GREAT Day to be a Griffin!"