In education-minded Northfield, Minnesota, the Catholic grade school competes with small class sizes and a focus on student progress throughout the year, not just at report card time.
Small class sizes — 14, for example, in the combined seventh and eighth grade — are one attraction for families whose children attend St. Timothy in Maple Lake. They allow for flexibility in individualizing education to meet either the enrichment or remedial needs of each student, said the school's principal.
Thanks to growth through development of the area and a devout community's desire for Catholic influence in the daily lives of their children, the biggest need at St. Michael School in the northwestern corner of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is for more space.
Mary, Queen of Peace School is striving to make itself known. Another in a series that is taking the temperature of Catholic schools on the outer edges of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
It’s like a scene from a futuristic movie.
In a grade-school classroom, students work at “pods,” odd-shaped work stations that take on the look of islands, each with three peninsulas. Each peninsula hosts a large, glistening computer monitor, and pods share some of the newest technology available.
At Most Holy Reedemer in Montgomery, a higher percentage of students come from farm families than at most Catholic schools in the archdiocese.
“Kids will have a debate [about tractors],” said Mindy Reeder, at the time Most Holy Redeemer’s principal. “Are you a John Deere family or an International family?”
It was a busy Wednesday at the Catholic grade school on the outskirts of Buffalo, some 50 miles northwest of Minneapolis on Hwy. 55.
After Mass that started the day at St. Francis Xavier School, all 205 students in kindergarten-through-eighth-grade made their way outside to the Mary Garden next to the school. That’s where the parish’s pastor, Father Nate Meyers, blessed new Stations of the Cross for student prayer.
You won’t find your way to some Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis by looking at the side of the official Minnesota State Highway Map that shows just the metro area.
Pat Lofton, principal of St. Thomas More School in St. Paul, strongly believes that Catholic education enrollment needs to be more representative of society.
