May 22, 2012

Click here to see the tribute video to Mrs. Suedkamp and retiring staff.

Dear San Felipe de Neri Families,

This letter cannot convey my love of San Felipe de Neri School community. But, I would like to share some memories with you that have always touched my heart and invigorated my professional life. I arrived back in 1998 from Taos, New Mexico after having taught middle school for many years and met Sister Carmel the former principal. She had become ill and had to leave our blessed school. I became the first lay female principal at San Felipe since it opened in 1881. I used to tell people I was the new model, happily married with two great children.

I actually arrived and went to the Halloween Carnival as my first event on the school grounds. Such a safe family gathering! I set off all the alarms on Monday when I arrived for school for the first time and I had a difficult time explaining to the security company that I was the new principal with no knowledge of the codes of the school.

My Mom and Dad arrived unexpectedly to see how I was doing and then my Dad promptly helped me to paint the back wall of the stage area, in his Mickey Mouse silk underwear, no one knew except Bernard. He did not want to get paint on his new slacks. My mother was horrified! We completed the wall!

We received the first generous gift to our school and I bought the new library shelves and the parents and I assembled the blue play set outside on the playground. None of us had even done it before! Two professionally trained engineers actually put the slide together incorrectly, admitted it and then carefully constructed it the proper way. We all laughed! Such a communal learning opportunity!

My husband often came to trim the trees, being an old forester! He wanted them all symmetrical!

I found some children had never been read to before entering our Kindergarten so I began the Pre-K Program and eventually wrote the Pre-K Grant and during the ensuing years the school received enormous financial benefits and an educational setting that provided readiness skills for all four year olds. I loved watching them learn to play together!

The teachers and I began a process of reflection of our on-going data in order to better prepare our strategic plans and best practices for your children. We won the Baldrige Pinion Recognition. It was a difficult process to inaugurate at our school! One of my favorite memories will be of our dedicated, hard working employees. Many often joined me on work weekends, some have tutored children after school for years, and others continued to nurture their special children long after they left our school. I will always remember their humor, their sense of age level appropriate lessons, and their love that they exude all around them. I have been blessed to work with such fine staff!

I am not a fan of working many fundraisers, perhaps due to all my years in Girl Scouts, but the carnival, turkey bingo and the parish fiestas really showed what supportive parents we have for our blessed school. Year after year, parents assisted teachers with the annual parties and the wild crazy dances I started a long time ago. Thank you parents and grandparents for all of your hard work and willingness to volunteer with many of our activities.

I have cherished watching children reading at Morning Prayer and at our weekly masses. I have been to about 14 First Holy Communion celebrations and will remember the rose petal dresses and the very elegant boys' suits and their halo like attitudes on the reception of this sacrament. If we will continue to have a holy church filled with knowledgeable, faith filled people, they must become active participants in the church family when they are very young. Sacramental preparation is so important!

One extraordinary pastoral moment happened at one of our masses. Father Tom was celebrating the mass and the children were asked who we were praying to… One little one said, "God" and then he pointed to Father Tom and we all chuckled. Out of the mouths of little ones… These are the gifts in our lives that are our whole responsibility, socially, emotionally, and spiritually!

When I arrived I never dreamed I would be a facilities manager also, I had this foolish notion I would be a Catholic faith and educational leader. I have redone gym bathrooms, gutted and abated the middle school, added new lines for the internal communication system, erected the second yellow canopied play set from the Pre-K Grant gift, saved enough money to lay down the new turf out front and acquire the new portable classroom building, replaced kitchen appliances, and so many other things. It was all completed for the benefit of your children. Some great challenges for me!

Our Memory Days display the importance we place on the family and the education of your children. Utilizing Sycamore, our new software program, we have reached higher levels of communication than we had anticipated. We achieved one of my goals too and that is to have every class be at or above grade level on the ITBS. Hurrah!

I have loved being a small part of this Catholic community. I know our Lord will continue to watch over and guide our community with the new leader that will come in the fall. Welcome this individual as you have done for me. This person will also have your best interests at heart.

May our Lord bless you and your children and shine His light upon you forever.

Respectively,

Mrs. Nancy Suedkamp