Welcome from the CEO/Principal

This year’s student leaders have chosen the phrase “Don’t Just Talk About It; BE About It” as their rallying cry.  In different ways, it has been the ambition of Archbishop Carroll High School for over sixty years: to move beyond listening passively to the ideals of our faith in Sunday mass and to make them living, motivating forces in our students’ lives, in our city, and in our world.   

In the 1950’s, Carroll opened with the motto “Pro Deo, Pro Patria” and a post-war ambition to prove that Catholics could be effective civil servants at a time when no one thought a Catholic could become President.  It was also racially integrated four years before Brown v. Board, one of the first high schools in the area to take this bold step toward justice.

We are no less ambitious today.  In a time of increasing economic disparity in our city, amid a climate of rancorous political discourse, we recruit an academically, economically and socially diverse student body and create a climate where all are expected to support each other toward the goals of college admission and faithful, loving, joy-filled lives.  We combine rigorous critical thinking, nurture, and a zeal for justice in just some of the following ways:

• Implementing the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.  Last year’s students received satisfactory or college-credit-worthy scores at twice the rate of some D.C. charter schools.
• Admitting students with diagnosed learning difficulties and providing them with additional supports, without additional costs to families or segregated classes.
• Running one of the largest school food drives in the nation, providing several weeks of food for 200 families and stocking shelves at half a dozen different food pantries.
• Welcoming students and families from over twenty different countries, including students who have come from France, Jordan, Vietnam and Ivory Coast in the last year.
• Openly, and with wide community support, providing diversity scholarships for white, Latino and Asian students.
• Launching a new student-facilitated retreat program.

We admitted our largest freshman class in five years this fall, who come to us from over forty feeder schools, and the energy at Carroll is as fresh as they are.  I am humbled and excited to take on the leadership of our community at this time.  I encourage families, prospective students, alumni and our generous benefactors to come see for themselves what it means now to know, love and serve God by knowing, loving and serving God’s creation and each other at one of the most storied high schools in Washington.