C1+Narrative

C1 Narrativetoc

Narrative Introduction
Below you will find Draft 1.0 of the narrative that was created by the WCEA-WASC Core Team, temporarily formatted in this Wiki. All comments and edits should be included at the **bottom of the document** below the narrative. In order to allow for continuity of the document and clarity of revisions, all focus group members should write bulleted notes below the narrative.

Category C: Support for Student Spiritual Personal and Academic Growth

C1: Campus Ministry/Community Based Service Learning

To What Extent... Do students grow as persons of faith through appropriate and meaningful experiences of prayer, liturgy and community-based service learning?


 * __Focus Group Findings__

The Moreau Catholic High School community strives to inform, form, and transform students in their faith journeys in communion with the Church, particularly as they carry into the world the legacy and values of a Holy Cross Education. Moreau Catholic is a community committed to producing students who will not only be persons of faith but will integrate their faith experiences to become responsible citizens of our global community. The experiences of prayer, liturgical celebrations, immersions, and community service provide unique moments of faith development that have long lasting effects on students faiths.

Prayer
Each school morning begins with school-wide prayer, led on Mondays by the school’s principal with the remainder of the week’s prayers written and delivered by students of the Campus Ministry team. Prayer intentions during mass are generated by faculty, staff, students and alumni. In addition, all meetings and some classes begin with prayer as do many student leadership groups, clubs, and athletic teams prior to student activities and competitions. Every department within the school is given a Holy Cross votive candle that follows the year's theme and is used by many to begin meetings. Within the theology department and theology curriculum, there is a consistent focus on student centered, created, and led expressions of prayer. These prayers pay special attention to the liturgical seasons of the church, campus life activities, and Holy Cross charisms. Particular attention is paid to an effort to provide reflective space for prayer; many teachers utilize areas of their classrooms, access to outside spaces, including the new Marian Grotto, St. Andre Chapel, and St. Clement Church for reflective activities.

The schools four-year retreat program is intended to strengthen students’ own faith development particularly around the area of prayer. The Frosh Retreat and Sophomore Immersion Program are mandatory, while the Junior Retreat and Senior Kairos Retreat are optional and require a fee. The Frosh Retreat is off campus and includes all 9th grade teachers as participants. Parents volunteer as chaperones for the Sophomore Immersion trips. The Kairos progam began in the Fall of 2008 as a culminating spiritual retreat for 12th grade students. Kairos retreat #9 will be completed in November 2011. Approximately twenty-five percent of our juniors and thirty-three percent of our seniors attend their respective retreats. Although some scholarships are available for the upper division retreats, the need for more resources is deemed paramount for the overall vitality of the retreat program. Added resources will ensure the development process will foster a deepening awareness of the “gifts of the Spirit” open to all participants, which culminates in our intensive Kairos retreats. Starting with the Class of 2016, all retreat fees will be folded into their tuition moving forward providing the opportunity for all students to attend the junior and Kairos retreats.

According to the 2010 Holy Cross Mission Assessment survey results, 82% of students, 82% of faculty and staff, and 75% of community members indicated that Moreau Catholic “Always” or “Usually” engages the Spirit through prayer and reflection. Moreau Catholic recognizes that the entire school personnel are educators in the faith and in need of constant renewal of Gospel values. A 2011 Prayer Survey indicated that approximately 50% of teachers provide an opportunity for prayer in their classrooms across all departments. All faculty and staff attend an annual retreat prior to the beginning of the year and many participate in various aspects of the retreat program, including parents as volunteers and chaperones. The monthly Faith Formation speaker series provides time for reflection and discussion.

The school's Catholic faith and identity is formed within the manifold sacraments, symbols, languages, rituals and traditions of the Church. The school is sacramentally aware of the signature role of the clergy in the ministry and spiritual development of the entire school community and employs a part-time chaplain who is involved in all spiritual activities of the school. The school is fortunate to have a Holy Cross priest join the faculty in the Fall of 2011.

Individually, students are encouraged to reflect on their own spiritual journey through classroom activities, scripture study, participation in sacraments, and attendance at retreats. Beginning last year in the theology department, students create a “Spiritual Portfolio” that will house important spiritual and reflective exercises from every course taken within their four years of Theology courses. The graduating class of 2014 will be the first class to have collected evidence of their unique and communal spiritual journey from 9th grade to 12th grade.

In addition, students have the opportunity to participate on campus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, celebrated with many of our local parish priests, during the Advent and Lenten seasons. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is also an integral component of the senior Kairos retreat experience.

Students are constantly reminded that prayer is our response to God’s gift of grace which requires daily and seasonal practice.

Liturgy
Liturgy, in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is where the faithful express the presence of Christ in their lives and the true nature of the Church.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In communion with the liturgical calendar, members of the Moreau Catholic community celebrate mass regularly. The beatification of Blessed Basil Moreau in 2007 and canonization of Saint Andre Bessette in 2010 are special feast days of celebration. The school chaplain presides over school liturgies and assists in planning. The school often has other clergy, including clergy who are alumni, visit to support liturgical celebrations, feast days and important school celebrations. Morning Liturgy is offered every Wednesday, and is attended by various faculty, staff, students, and greater community members. In addition, liturgy is used by other student groups to help connect members and grow as a community of faith.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All Liturgies are community celebrations that are facilitated and coordinated by the Campus Ministry Leadership team, which consists of the chaplain, Director faith & formation, Campus Minister, Liturgical Choir Director and Campus Ministry students. Campus Ministry students, as part of the year-long Campus Ministry Leadership Class, take a primary role in all aspects of liturgical celebrations providing leadership incorporating testimony, video productions, music, dance, and prayer, under the direction of the Campus Ministry Director. Many students are active participants in our masses, either as liturgical musicians, acolytes, dancers and giving student testimonials. Liturgies maintain our core Catholic identity and incorporate traditions of all Moreau Catholic students and honor the diverse talents of the student body.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For schoolwide Masses, attendance is mandatory in order to celebrate as a whole faith community. Mass attire is expected for all students, faculty and staff, in short, the entire MCHS community. All teachers prepare their classes with an appropriate “tone-setting,” before they attend Mass, which includes reflective music and an opportunity to center and quiet one’s self. Through MCTV, the school has sought to inform and reinforce positive Mass decorum for all students. Feedback from the community is constantly sought to improve the liturgical experience for all.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Liturgy is an integral component of Moreau’s retreat program, selected sports teams and various summer leadership opportunities. Liturgy is celebrated on the frosh, junior and senior retreats. The Varsity Football team has mass before every home football game and liturgy is part of the Cross Country team retreat. Over summer, students who participate in the Holy Cross Immersion Program, Holy Cross Student Leadership and Philippines Immersion Program engage in liturgical celebrations.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Community-based Service Learning
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreau Catholic echoes St. Paul’s relations of the faithful to be “all things to all people” (1 Cor. 9:22) especially those in need.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As part of its graduation requirement, Moreau Catholic High School students complete 80 hours of community service under the auspices of the Christian/Community Service Program (CCS) with 20 hours worked in service to the environment and 20 hours working in solidarity with the poor. The verification of CCS hours are facilitated by the Assistant Principals utilizing both paper forms and online submission through SweatMonkey.org (transitioning to Noble Hour in 2011-12). The goal is to challenge students to focus on their local communities by volunteering in response to the needs which are present there. Students volunteer to work with non-profit agencies. At the end of their four years of volunteering, each student will have had the opportunity to experience a variety of services. They develop an understanding and appreciation of their own lives and learn the necessity of giving back to those in need.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Often, many students go above and beyond the 80 hour requirement. In 2004-05, the school instituted the “Club 200” program to recognize senior students accumulating over 200 service hours. In this way students are becoming transformed by living out the ESLRs of “contributing meaningfully to social, religious, political, environmental and cultural organizations,” (3.4) and, “exercising justice, compassion, and integrity as citizens of the global community” (3.3). At the annual Academic Assembly, two students are recognized by their former Catholic Elementary School for their ongoing volunteer hours at their Parish School. By each commencement, the graduating class has amassed thousands of hours devoted to transforming our world.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Within the scope of the curricular program there is evidence of service learning where course content is integrated with meaningful community service. At the ninth grade level, English teachers lead students through the I-Search Project. This project is a first person narrative in which students conduct research around a student-chosen service project. At the tenth grade level, the sophomore immersion program includes a day-long service learning project at St. Anthony’s Foundation in San Francisco or St. Vincent de Paul in Oakland. Issues of poverty, addiction, Church outreach programs and communal responsibility and connection to Gospel values are among its significant elements. This immersion model is also made available for faculty, alumni, current students, and parents to participate in the variety of school’s week long summer immersion and service programs.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student clubs have also espoused the service learning model by integrating community service into their existence as student organizations. Currently seven student clubs are designated as primarily service-oriented clubs, with other clubs utilizing their events to raise money for those in need.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seeing the need for more integration of service learning across departments, the school invested in a Challenged Based Learning Coordinator for the 2010-11 school year, continuing through 2011-12. Challenge based learning is a student-led process of inquiry and problem solving in a real-world context culminating with students doing actual service that puts their solutions to work. The school has leveraged principles of challenge-based learning to tackle the issue of paper consumption at the school that led to the implementation of a paper recycling program and copy management software that has helped to control paper use across the campus in 2008. In addition, students have collaborated cross-departmentally to address the issue of food deserts in both their math and theology courses, incorporating research and service in community garden projects to spur student's own responses to access to nutritious food choices in low socioeconomic neighborhoods.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The focus on service to the community has been embraced at all levels. Beginning with the faculty and staff over the last two year towards providing service in the form of painting and repair to Our Lady of the Rosary School in 2010 and the Dominican Sisters community in 2011. The wider school community rallied around the enhancement of a school library and resources during the Annual Father Moreau Day celebration and through the school's first Read-a-Thon. For students, the school's celebration of Father Moreau Day has now integrated a service component. || <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Evidence__


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">CMT Student authored prayer book (School-wide morning prayer)
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student Prayer Projects


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Soph Culminating Service
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kairos Binders
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Upper Division Retreat Rosters


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Holy Cross Mission Assessment (HCMA)


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Faculty/Staff meetings agendas
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Annual visits by Holy Cross Brothers to discuss vocations
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">E-Portfolio


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wednesday Morning Liturgy
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">CMLT
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Liturgy Binder
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Holy Cross Immersion
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Phiippines Immersion
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Football Team pre-game Home Masses


 * CCS Packet
 * Club 200 Award Winners
 * Academic Assembly Script
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Financial records of money raised for service projects


 * Sweat Monkey


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I-Search Project
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sophomore Immersion
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Challenge Based Learning Coordinator Job Description
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Saint Anthony's & St. Vincent de Paul guidelines
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Faculty Retreat Day Service Project Programs
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Read-a-Thon
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Food Desert Field Trip/Community Garden Project
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Father Moreau Day Program
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bible As Lit Service project (Infancy Narrative Children's Book) ||

**Focus Group Comments**
Please insert any comments or edits to the narrative in this space. These comments will be integrated into future versions of the narrative.


 * [PRAYER SECTION]**

Paragraph Two:
 * Include reference to our Holy Cross Yearly votive candles that follow the year’s theme
 * Include mention of how our prayer intentions during morning prayer and/or Mass are generated by alumni, faculty/staff/students

Paragraph Three:
 * Highlight our growing KAIROS program and mention when it was started, how many KAIROS retreats since, and how many do we offer per year?
 * Mention how we’re building up the program so that starting with the Class of 2016, all MCHS students will attend KAIROS
 * All FROSH teachers attend the Frosh Retreat.

Paragraph Four:
 * “Many participate in the retreat programs” --- add exact numbers of parent volunteers/chaperones for retreats if data is available
 * Across all departments, around 50% of those surveyed feel prayer is offered in their classrooms (See “Prayer Survey” PDF uploaded in C.1 evidence section for further clarity.)
 * Across all departments, over 70% of those surveyed felt there is an opportunity to offer prayer in their classroom (See “Prayer Survey” PDF uploaded in C.1 evidence section for further clarity.)


 * [LITURGY SECTION]**

Paragraph 1:
 * Where it states “Alumni visit and attend Mass,” please include the addition to the sentence “alumni clergy often preside over Mass”

Paragraph 2: Paragraph 3:
 * Where it states “attend Mass every Wednesday” (optional attendance for Wednesday) please include the addition to the sentence that Mass is ”formative" and we attend "monthly"
 * Include Mass attire is expected of all students and faculty/staff . . . the entire MCHS community
 * Include many athletic teams have a retreat with liturgy at some point through their season


 * [COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICE LEARNING SECTION]**

All looks well so far. ..