EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Michelle Katen To the SFCS Community, Our families and supporters made an incredible statement about the importance of retaining and recruiting the best teachers for our classrooms. For two consecutive years, the Sioux Falls Catholic Schools annual giving increased by 50% with an additional $500,000 being raised to directly impact salaries. Congratulations are in order! This is an incredible accomplishment for two reasons. First, our teachers and staff knew they were a priority for the 2016-17 school year when they received an unprecedented 8½% salary increase along with a bonus from the increased enrollment. Maintaining that increase means committing to the annual fundraising of $500,000 and our families have not backed down. The second reason that this is so incredible is the manner in which it was done. This was a grass roots effort by many! Over 500 families (most of whom are already paying tuition) contributed to this initiative to make this a reality for our teachers. We are still working to grow endowments for teachers’ salaries to relieve the annual fundraising requirement... and the goals are lofty. I ask that you continue to prayerfully consider how you might contribute to the efforts to support Sioux Falls Catholic Schools greatest assets, our staff… the people who make our mission come to life each day in our schools. A heartfelt thank you to those who are already helping make a difference. You are a part of the continuing legacy of our community. Please contact me at the SFCS Foundation Office at 575-3362 if you’d like to get involved.
Connecting with Fr. Krzyzopolski We are so blessed in our community to have the wonderful support of our pastors and associate pastors. They come into our schools regularly, celebrate mass and other sacraments with us, and provide guidance through the SFCS Board. We also have a number of priests who, although now retired, still remain very connected to us.
because he was a priest whose schooling was paid for by others. “I don’t know why we expect our teachers to be paid less just because they teach in Catholic schools when we ask them to do things above and beyond their public school counterparts,” says Fr. Al. “We need to pay them a just wage. And so far we have not done a great job in that area.”
Fr. Al Krzyzopolski recently turned 93 years old and has been pastor at several local parishes. You’ll still find him filling in at parishes when needed, but in his spare time loves to follow the Knights sports activities. He even went to Rapid City this spring to cheer on the Knights boys and girls’ basketball teams at the State Tournament. “I’m still so interested in O’Gorman. I am interested in sports in general – that’s one of my hobbies in my old age. One gets acquainted with the players and their families and you almost become part of their basketball family. It’s nice to join them and cheer for the team.”
At various meetings with potential donors for the Staff Salary Initiative, Fr. Al always spoke about the need to do more for our teachers. “Their devotion to the students and the system as a whole is an even greater contribution because of the many years they spend at the school. Some teachers have worked 20-30+ years and have given so much, not just cash, but their hearts and their energies, which is a tremendous contribution.” As an extension of his gratitude, Fr. Al recently established an endowment with the Sioux Falls Catholic Schools to benefit teacher salaries. “If I’m going to get up and talk to people about why they should be giving, I need to do it myself. I must practice what I preach.”
As a former teacher at O’Gorman decades ago, Fr. Al was paid basically nothing to teach, but says he felt like that was one way he could pay back the Catholic education he received growing up. But Fr. Al feels that his was a different situation
We truly appreciate your support of our schools, our students and our teachers, Fr. Al, and are so grateful that you are part of our SFCS family!