Catholic middle school opens its doors

WAUCONDA – More than 130 students, six full-time teachers and three part-time teachers entered the doors of Frassati Catholic Academy in Wauconda on Aug. 23 for the first day of school.

It was a monumental step not only because it was the opening of a new school, but because it was the opening of the first Catholic middle school in Lake County and in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” Cherie Maday said just days before Frassati opened. “I cannot believe this is happening at the Archdiocese. It’s just the first of its kind. One, we’ve never had a middle school; two, they’re taking the awareness of science and math.”

Maday is a veteran teacher, having taught at Transfiguration School – the Catholic grade school in which Frassati is housed – for the past 10 years and at public schools for years prior.

But the opportunity to teach at Frassati has been a blessing, Maday said, and she has been amazed at the teaching staff that has been hired.

“I have never seen a staff so geared in my entire life, and I taught 10 years in Transfig ... .” Maday said. “It’s just the people. It’s who they are. It’s all about the children. It’s all about the middle school and addressing the needs of the whole child at that age.”

Students at Frassati will enjoy a technology-based education that focuses on math and science and integrates the use of the Internet every day, Principal Diane Vida said.

By now, each student has received a MacBook for personal use within the school building – a bonus to attending an academy with technology as its forefront.

But, as a Catholic school, religion will be integrated into everything the students learn, Vida said.

“We are on a mission,” Vida said. “We are here to be disciples of Christ and follow through the footsteps of Pier Giorgio Frassati and the Beatitudes.”

As Vida went through screenings to find instructors for the academy, faith and academics were on the forefront of her mind.

“That was probably the most important part of my screenings ... was to find the best and brightest and most faithful people, who practice their faith as well as ... use the latest information and use the newest ways of obtaining information [to] teach students there’s a whole new way of learning,” Vida said.

One of those instructors is first-year teacher Dan Watt, a former meteorologist who said he was looking forward to helping students find focus in life, while noting his background would benefit their studies.

“There are lots of educators who have been educators for a long time,” Watt said. “I’m bringing the real world experience, especially in science, to the classroom.”

“We could not life-skills-wise have anyone more qualified,” Maday said about Watt.

As students poured through the doors Aug. 23, Vida greeted them at the door with a big smile.

True to their Catholic faith, the students recited the Hail Mary prayer after saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Father Ron Lewinski, pastor at St. Mary of the Annunciation in Mundelein and president of Frassati, spoke with each classroom.

“You’re the powers of a new school, so put your heart and minds into everything,” Lewinski told students. “ ... We have to reach for the heights.”

By second period, the students and teachers seemed to be settled into their classrooms, Vida said.

“It went so smooth today, you’d have thought the building was here a hundred years and the teachers had been working together forever,” Vida said.