10/13/23 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Pumpkin Patch!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

A couple of weeks ago I had the honor of speaking to 100 principals and assistant principals of the Diocese of Columbus at our two-day retreat. The theme of the retreat was a contemplation on the story of the Road to Emmaus. I was assigned the topic of “My Journey in Catholic Schools.”

I began by asking this question. “How many of you told your parents when you were a kid that when you grew up you wanted to be a principal?” Of course, no one raised their hand. Aspiring to be a school administrator is on no one’s bucket list of careers.

Had I asked the question about becoming a teacher, I would probably have gotten some positive responses. I know for many educators two things draw them into wanting to work in a classroom: a teacher who inspired them along the way, and a successful career as a student. We liked school and so we decided that we wanted to stay within its walls as grown-ups.

So how did we make the leap from teaching to administering teachers and students and staff and parents? Most of the people in my retreat most probably have similar stories to my own. I greatly enjoyed my life as a high school English and Latin teacher and director of plays at Bishop Watterson High School. During my ten years there as a teacher I continued to teach but took up some extra duties along the way. I was the director of the service program, and moderator of the student council. Someone suggested to somebody who contacted the personnel director for the Diocese that I might make a good principal. I was asked to go on a few interviews. I was offered a job as principal of Tuscarawas Central Catholic High School up in New Philadelphia. It was for less money than I was making as a teacher at Watterson and meant I had to move. I turned it down. I told the Diocese that if a small elementary school like St. Timothy ever opened up I would be interested. Less than three weeks later, the St. Timothy principal announced her retirement. I became its principal in 1989 and have been doing the same job, more or less, since then.

Management in any field has its good and bad points. The good is that you get to make decisions. The bad is that you get to make decisions. Like a referee on a ball field, you make dozens if not hundreds of calls a day. Like a referee people only tend to sit up and take notice when you make a bad one.

All bosses, like me, have bosses. Father Dooley is my boss. Superintendent of the Catholic Diocese of Columbus, Dr. Adam Dufault, is my boss. Bishop Earl Fernandes is my boss. Pope Francis is also my boss. So, not only are you scrutinized by teachers, students, staff, and parents but those above you will let you know of those bad decisions (To this day, Pope Francis has not had to see me about anything I have done!).

So far, the job sounds kind of negative. But it’s really not. Although no one aspires to be a school principal, all my colleagues who run schools would tell you that helping to shape a school to be the best educational place it can be is very fulfilling. In the case of Catholic schools, we are further tasked to make our schools a place of faith as well as learning. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you have helped others to recognize that Christ dwells among us and that we should be Christ to others.

Father Dooley, in his first pastorship at Our Lady of Peace often says to me, “I just want to be a priest.” Instead, he has to deal with many decisions and problems too. He is a fantastic pastor, one of the best I have known, but there are days that I know he would like nothing more than to serve God by saying Mass, praying with and for people and ministering to his parishioners. But a leaky roof or a budgetary crisis often gets in the way.

So it is the same for me. I love starting my day at morning prayer. I relish the days where I just get to visit classrooms and chitchat with students, parents and staff and teach my Latin classes. But then comes that email or phone call or student sent to my office, and I put on my referee cap and make that call and some people think it’s a good call while others think it’s the worst call ever. And then I move on and so it has continued, for me for 36 years.



None of the principals with whom I started in the Diocese of Columbus in 1989 are still around as principals. Many have retired. Some have passed, others have gone on to other careers and pursuits. I keep practicing in hopes that one day I will get good at this job. It’s a far cry from what I said I wanted to be when I was ten: a marine biologist, but I don’t regret being in a school instead of studying a school of fish!

Jim Silcott