Letter from Deacon Kevin McCardle

Dear SMPREP Families,

A warm welcome to the families bringing over 150 newly enrolled students to Saint Monica Preparatory this year. I hope you find the SMPREP community to be a warm and welcoming one, and I hope the education your students receive exceeds your expectations.

To the returning families, welcome back. Thank you for your continued trust in and support of our school community.

We have been busy over the summer. When students arrive for the new school year, there will be several significant upgrades and improvements to the physical plant.

The repairs to the main floor of the east wing of the upper school will be completed. It will be the newest that space has looked since the building opened in 1957. The classrooms have been refitted, the entryway has been remodeled, the faculty lounge was completely redone and the lockers along the main hallway have been replaced with benches – students hardly use lockers anymore, but they do look for places to sit down between classes. Plumbing was extended to the upper floor and sinks were installed in several classrooms to allow the science classes and labs that were in the Grand Pavilion last year to move to the east wing for the year ahead.
The turf is being replaced and the schoolyard will be resurfaced. These are major but not very glamorous projects. The turf replacement is scheduled to be completed before students return; the resurfacing of the schoolyard should be completed early in the school year. There is a small task force looking at other beautification projects around the exterior of the campus.
The gym floor was resurfaced and resealed. The new athletic logo graces the center floor.
Digital signage is replacing the small billboard on 7th and Washington, and replacing the upper school signage on Lincoln. This is a project that required special permitting from the city; it has been in the works for years.

There are two major projects still in the planning stages:

Sometime in the year ahead we will break ground on the auditorium project. The architectural plans have been submitted to the city for approval. That process is expected to take a few months to complete. Groundbreaking will follow shortly thereafter. We are looking for an alternative site for the spring musical.
Repair and reconstruction of the basement of the east wing will get underway. We have been hampered in the process by our insurance company, but the logjam seems to have been broken. If there are no additional impediments, we should be back in the basement for the start of the 2025-26 school year.

I also want to take this opportunity to share my gratitude and my future plans.

In May of 2018, Monsignor asked if I would step in for one year as the interim president of the schools. The position had opened up unexpectedly, and I was in the process of retiring from UCLA. I agreed to step in for a year. That was six years ago. In that time we have been through a pandemic, a merger of the elementary and high schools, an enhanced effort to live out more fully our Catholic faith, an expansion of our experiential education program, a new partnership with Core Prep middle-school athletic programs, planning for the renovation of the auditorium, and a flood that took out two floors of the main upper-school building. While often challenging, these past six years have been enormously rewarding. It is now time for me to move on. In early June I let Monsignor and the School Board know that the 2024-25 school year will be my last as president. The Board will begin a search process for a new president soon and will keep you all informed as the search progresses.

Let me close with a word of thanks. When the school trip to Kenya got canceled (which Ms. Young and I were scheduled to chaperone), I went instead on an 8-day Ignatian silent retreat. It was a beautiful time of silence and prayer, a time to reflect quietly on the year just past and to plan with hope for the year ahead. Each day while on retreat I would reflect on a different gospel passage to see where God was speaking to me. I liken the method of prayer to visualizing a scene and then inserting yourself into it in some role. You and the students played a part in one such visualization.

As many of the returning families know, I was diagnosed with and treated for cancer this past February. The surgery was a complete success; no further treatment was suggested. The gospel passage I reflected on as I contemplated that was Mark 2:1-12. A group of people carry their paralyzed friend to see Jesus. Unable to get through the front door because of the crowds, they take their friend onto the roof, tear a hole in the roof, and lower him into the room with Jesus. The gospel says that Jesus was “moved by their faith” (emphasis added). Jesus forgave the man his sins and then healed him of his paralysis.

I make no claims of any miracle in what happened to me, but your prayers and the prayers of the students lifted me up and lowered me through the roof to an encounter with Jesus. One of my more amusing visualizations involved the students in the lower grades (think TK through third) carrying my stretcher, being encouraged and instructed by their teachers. The children did not drop me, though they struggled mightily.

I cannot thank you all enough for your prayers.

There is much work remaining on all of the initiatives mentioned above plus several more, and I remain fully dedicated to the task at hand for the year ahead. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Peace,

Kevin McCardle