Catholic Schools Week Supplement

20 reasons to celebrate Catholic schools in the archdiocese

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1. Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis was one of 71 Catholic schools in the country and just three in Indiana to be named a 2014 School of Excellence by the Catholic Education Honor Roll—a recognition for schools that are “marked by the integration of Catholic identity throughout all aspects of their programs and excellence in academics.”

2. Jenny Lents of St. Louis School in Batesville is one of nine elementary school teachers in the country who has been chosen to receive the 2015 Distinguished Teacher Award from the National Catholic Educational Association.

3. In 2014 ratings by the Indiana Department of Education, 59 of the 67 Catholic schools in the archdiocese received either an “A” or “B” grade—and 21 schools improved their ratings since 2013.

4. At the Celebrating Catholic School Values Awards event in Indianapolis on Nov. 5, it was announced that a record $6.1 million had been raised in 2014 to help children in the archdiocese receive a Catholic education.

5. The girls’ volleyball team of Our Lady of Providence Jr./Sr. High School in Clarksville won their second straight Class 2A state championship.

6. Cathedral High School in Indianapolis won the Class 5A state championship in football, tying Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis with a record 12 state championships in the sport.

7. Patricia Mattingly of Providence High School was named the winner of the Class 2A Mental Attitude Award for girls’ volleyball, recognizing her mental attitude, scholarship, leadership and athletic ability.

8. Jared Thomas of Cathedral High School was honored for those same qualities when he was selected as the winner of the Class 5A Mental Attitude Award for football.

9. Rebekah Israel of Father Michael Shawe Memorial Jr./Sr. High School in Madison earned a first-place finish in the National Youth Engineering Challenge in September in West Lafayette, Ind.

10. In his 49th year of teaching at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, James Ratliff received national recognition for the fact that his students have won an annual national architectural design competition 10 times in the past 18 years.

11. During the past five years, enrollment in Catholic schools across the archdiocese has increased from slightly more than 22,000 students in 2009-10 to nearly 24,000 students in 2014-15.

12. Ninety-seven percent of Catholic high schools students in the archdiocese graduated.

13. Based upon his impact on his players and the community during his 37 years of coaching football at Father Thomas Scecina Memorial High School in Indianapolis, Ott Hurrle became the first Indiana coach to receive the national Power of Influence Award from the American Football Coaches Association and American Football Coaches Foundation.

14. Bill Hicks, longtime speech and debate teacher and coach at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, became only the third person since 1925 to earn the National Speech and Debate Association’s “Distinguished Service Plaque—Eleventh Honors.”

15. St. Thomas Aquinas School in Indianapolis won the Teamwork Champions Award in the elementary school competition of the Third Annual Indy VEX Robotics Championship in Indianapolis in November.

16. Ed Tinder, longtime executive director of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) for the archdiocese, received the 2014 National Catholic Youth Ministry Award, recognizing his efforts “to enforce the idea that CYO coaches are youth ministers while challenging them to teach and model Gospel values for their players.”

17. The St. Roch Junior Spell Bowl Team of Indianapolis earned their third straight state title in the Indiana Association of School Principals Spell Bowl State Championship. The team correctly spelled 69 of a possible 72 words.

18. A senior at Cardinal Ritter Jr./Sr. High School in Indianapolis, Sarah Bacon earned three national titles during the U.S. Junior National Diving Championships in August.

19. Roncalli High School’s board of directors is one of five boards from across the country that has been selected to receive the 2015 Outstanding Board Award from the National Catholic Educational Association.

20. More than 95 percent of Catholic high school graduates in the archdiocese went on to college.