Seattle Archdiocese

The staff of St. Madeleine Sophie School in Bellevue stands last week in front of the modular buildings still being prepared for the inaugural school year. From left to right are, front: Brian Fulmer, Ashley Conrad and Karen Pasqualetto. Back: Principal Dan Sherman, Abby Nestvold, Kassie Ledwon, office administrator Holly Cole, and Leanna Schmitt. The three modular buildings will house six classrooms. More modulars will be brought in during the summer of 2007 as the school grows.

By Terry McGuire

BELLEVUE
For most of the past year, promoting the new St. Madeleine Sophie School has been like “selling air,” says Principal Dan Sherman. A concept was in place, but where were the buildings?

“But as soon as we broke ground and the dust started flying – especially since these (modular classroom buildings) started coming in -- the phone’s really been ringing off the hook,” the veteran principal said.

The new school, which opened Tuesday, is starting small, with three modular classroom buildings, 41 students, six teachers, and six grades: Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, a sixth grade and a blended classroom of grades 1-3 made up mostly of second graders. About half of the students are people of color – reflecting the parish’s diversity.

Within five years the school should have a standard size enrollment of 220, Sherman said. The parish of 1,425 households also has the land to build a three-story school with gym for 400 to 500 students if the need is there.

And Sherman believes it is.

“I’m pretty convinced that we’re going to be unfortunately turning people away here before too long, once they start seeing what’s happening.”

The new school in Bellevue’s Factoria/Newport area reflects the population growth in east King County. It also reflects the parish’s desire to serve its own children after recognizing that young families were leaving St. Madeleine Sophie for neighboring parishes with schools, Sherman said.

Average age for a head of household in the parish is close to 52 – compared to 38 in the same part of King County, Sherman said. When the parish finance council determined St. Madeleine’s was losing more than $100,000 in ordinary income due to the migration, “that was kind of the last piece that pushed us over the hump,” he said.

Unlike other some other start-up-schools -- where the principal is hired after things are under way -- Sherman has spent a full year preparing for the new school. It has enabled him to pick his staff and help set direction.

How to start a school

Establishing a new school starts with making sure the phones are working, jokes St. Madeleine Sophie Principal Dan Sherman.
But the process starts long before that. He said other steps include:
* Convening an “exploration group” to make the GO or NO-GO decision.
* Forming a task force to determine feasibility.
* Establishing a planning committee. Its responsibilities include drafting a mission statement, by-laws and constitution; securing a commitment of funds; determining transportation needs; coming up with a list of the potential administrator and teachers and drafting a salary schedule; working with the city on site development; and applying for state approval for the school.
* Establishing a school commission.
* Encourage friends and colleagues around the country to send their prayers.
* Remember to laugh. A lot!
“I use (business author) Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great’ kind of business analogy,” Sherman said. “You get the right people on the bus, good things are going to happen. You might not know every direction you want to go (because) some things still have to evolve and develop…but you surround yourself with the right kind of people.”

Brian Fulmer, who will teach sixth grade and who most recently substituted for three years at Assumption School in Bellingham, said he was attracted to the position by the opportunity to try innovative things in the new school. “When I interviewed with Dan…he said he wanted to be doing things that would get national recognition, and I thought, ‘That’s the place I want to be.’”

The boyish-looking Sherman, 50, principal of St. John School in Seattle for 15 years (his native parish) and executive director of the Washington Federation of Independent Schools for the five years prior to taking the St. Madeleine position, said he wants to make the new school even more inclusive than the typical Catholic school by enrolling parish students at both ends of the spectrum: from special needs to gifted students.

Historically, Catholic schools have done a “fantastic job with the middle 80 percent” but have been unable to serve the others because of limited resources, he said. “At St. John’s, we were taking some kids that other Catholic schools weren’t taking and I think we were pretty successful with some of those kids.”

Because this is the tech-savvy Eastside, Sherman said he also hired a faculty with a bent toward including technology in the classroom.

Sherman said he is indebted to the support of St. Madeleine Sophie pastor Father James Picton, who recruited him and had also worked with him when the two were at St. John Parish.

The new school will follow the “full-cost tuition model,” where families able to afford the $6,500 tuition will be asked to pay that amount instead of a lowered “arbitrary rate” that some schools establish to make tuition more affordable to all. Parishioners who can’t afford full tuition will have other payment plans – along with tuition assistance if needed.

“We guarantee that if you’re a member of this parish and you want to be a part of this school, we will sit down with you and negotiate tuition,” Sherman said.

Class size at the new school won’t go beyond 24 students. And teachers’ salaries are at the level of their public school counterparts in the area, Sherman said.

Kassie Ledwon, who’ll teach the pre-kindergarten class with colleague Ashley Conrad, has many reasons for wanting to see the new school succeed. Her son will be a kindergartener there, and she’s been a parishioner for ten years and will be glad to see an end to the parishioner migration to other schools.

“Now we have the ability to serve the whole community, instead of only having the church,” she said.

Parents Greg and Leslie Harlow, whose daughter, Anna, was the first to register in the new school, said they decided to stay in the parish after learning several years ago that a task force had been formed to explore the possibility.

“That was kind of the hook that kept us there,” said Greg Harlow, now a member of the school commission.