Year in Review
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FROM THE HEADMISTRESS
Dear Friends,
Faith is the Foundation
By all accounts, the 2019-2020 school year was an extraordinary one, not just at Notre Dame Preparatory School, but in communities across the world. The first seven months of school saw many wonderful accomplishments, activities, and celebrations, and our theme for the year—Faith is the Foundation—proved deeply relevant. The COVID-19 pandemic in the spring forced us all to pivot from our daily routines into new, and sometimes unexpected, ways of doing things. Academics and spirituality became virtual in delivery, and service relied on grassroots execution. During this time, faith sustained us. Later in the spring, Notre Dame Preparatory School, like many schools across the country, launched painful, but necessary, conversations about racism in our world, including here at NDP, and worked to develop action plans to address injustice.
Sister Patricia McCarron, SSND, Ph.D. Headmistress
Faith brought us together at a time when social distancing kept us apart. Our faith in God and God’s eternal love nourished the roots of Notre Dame Prep as we rose to the challenge of educating young women to transform the world. The School Sisters of Notre Dame laid out this charge in 1873, when our school was founded, and since then, NDP has provided transformative education that meets the needs of the times. In this Year in Review, I am honored to share with you the many successes of our students, faculty/staff and other community members, and how, in large and small ways, our faith foundation strengthened us, provided support, opened our hearts and minds, enabled celebration, and fostered love throughout the Notre Dame Prep community.
the culmination of the vision, generosity, support, creativity, and hard work of many individuals. With its medical suite, classrooms for the Bette Ellis O’Conor Humanities Program, fabrication lab, art studios, cyber computer center, design studios, and more, the Jane Kroh Satterfield Innovation Wing enhances STEAM opportunities for our students at Notre Dame Preparatory School. With the Wing’s opening, we
ACADEMICS Central to our mission is the commitment to excellent
were able to reconfigure existing spaces, including creating a science prep room and new dance studio, and plan for the expansion of the health suite and learning resource center.
academics which enable our students to reach the fullness
In the last school quarter, COVID-19 required NDP to
of their God-given potential, succeed in college and beyond,
transition to a virtual campus. In true NDP spirit, our talented
and affect positive change in the world. After a successful
faculty and students greeted the challenge with openness
first semester, the second half of the year began with a
and eagerness. I am grateful to the faculty for the energy
celebration of a major milestone for NDP: the opening of the
and love they put into this instruction. I am grateful to the
Jane Kroh Satterfield Innovation Wing in January 2020. This
students and their families for their patience, commitment,
beautiful new space, named after dedicated alumna, former
and hard work amidst the many changes posed by the
trustee, and volunteer leader Jane Kroh Satterfield ’60, was
pandemic.
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