Assistant Principal

List of 4 news stories.

• March/April 2019

  3/5/2019
  Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, used to have signs on the walls in his school that said, “Failure is not an option.” In 2007, when the test scores weren’t high enough, he made the wrenching decision to close his school, but the question remained: If failure is not an option, what does one do when it appears?

   

  Recently I shared something with a friend that I hadn’t thought about in a while. It was a professional situation that changed the course of my career and pointed me in a different direction. At the time, I guess some people might have initially called it a failure but somehow I knew even then, that it was part of God’s plan for me and would actually turn out to be a pivotal moment in my career…. even a success.
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• January/February 2019

  12/17/2018
  Dear St. Francis family,

   

  Recently my family and I watched the movie August Rush again, which I highly recommend. It was a movie about dreams, beliefs and most importantly faith. I remember someone saying to me once that I was so fortunate to have strong faith, and I told them I thought that faith was not a noun but a verb. It’s not something you are given, but something you work at every day. I’m still working at it.

   

  This movie reminded me of that because even with all the faith in the world, you have nothing without works. The young orphan boy in the movie believed that his parents were still alive and that if they could “hear his music,” they would follow it and find him. He believed they had always loved and wanted him, even though many people told him otherwise. He set a plan into action and followed it even though it involved being destitute, homeless and alone in New York City.
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• Assistant Principal November-December 2018

  10/26/2018
  Dear St. Francis family,

   

  Over my twelve years as a school administrator, people have sometimes asked me where I get ideas for a regular newsletter. To be honest, I really don’t know. I have found that even if I attempt to plan out something to write about, something else always comes into my mind and takes over. I could be running, driving, cooking or whatever, and then the thought comes to me in its entirety, and the newsletter pretty much writes itself. All I have to do is get to a computer or find a sheet of paper, or my phone, and get it down. This month I kept recalling a newsletter I wrote in 2011, so I thought I would find it and post it again, as I think we all may need the message:

   

  “My husband Tom has worked as a special education aide at the Orchard Park Middle School for the past eleven years and he is a singer/songwriter as well. When things happen that impact him strongly, he almost always turns to song. Affected by the recent incidences of bullying and suicide throughout the country and especially locally, Tom felt compelled to write a song entitled “You Are Not Alone.”
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• Assistant Principal Sept/Oct 2018

  9/7/2018
  Dr. Mary Lou Stahl
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