The ACE Post

Like many students at the University of Notre Dame, acronyms have been a big part of my educational experience. 

As for many newly-minted ACErs on placement night when they find out where they will be teaching for the next two years, our pictures on the cardboard trifolds next to the label “ACE Biloxi” elicited a flood of surprise and giddiness and questions.  

Biloxi? 
Are they sure?? 
Am I even saying it correctly?!

Procedures, procedures, procedures! As new teachers, we hear this word repeated over and over. 

“Make sure you have procedures ready to go for day 1!” 

“What are your procedures for recess, lunch, Mass, lining up, transitioning to the carpet, transitioning to the desks, rotating between centers, turning assignments in, walking through the hallway, packing up at the end of the day, cleaning up at the end of the week?”

“Ms. Eby, you’ve never had Tajín?” 

     “You just HAVE to try Wingstop!”     

          “Do you have Starbucks in New Hampshire?”

During my first year with ACE at Our Lady of Guadalupe in East Los Angeles, my middle school students were continually shocked, and rather amused, by my ignorance of the places, foods, and traditions they found commonplace in LA.

I grew up in New Hampshire, where I shoveled snow, celebrated maple syrup season, and ice skated on frozen lakes in February. New Hampshire was as unfamiliar to my students as LA was to me.

I was initially unsure about how we were going to relate given our different cultural upbringings, but I ultimately decided to lean into these differences so that my students could teach me about their experiences, and I could share my own.

One of the most incredible journeys of my short but wild teaching career began on a day when only half of my class showed up.

Spring is a season of new beginnings and fresh starts. As we move further along in the school year, many educators—recent graduates, teaching veterans, and those relocating to other cities—are beginning to consider their plans for the next academic year.

On behalf of those aspiring applicants, we reached out to three Catholic school leaders—Matthew DeBoer, Tony Harris, and Martine Romero—to get their thoughts on what they look for when reviewing a resume and interviewing a potential new team member. Here are three areas you’ll want to emphasize on your resume when applying for a position at a Catholic school.

Everyone loves some friendly competition—especially in the ACE community house in Corpus Christi, Texas, when three community members coached two competing teams during the middle school basketball season.

As we enter the last week of March, many of us are following our brackets and the NCAA basketball tournament. Back at Notre Dame, groups of students are putting together their lineups for the largest 5-on-5 outdoor basketball tournament in the world, Bookstore Basketball. Here in the Dallas ACE community, however, our first-year teachers are anxiously awaiting preparation for the premier basketball tournament of the year: the ACE Summer Community Basketball tournament.

“Wow. I wish I could do ACE." I distinctly remember being surprised by this thought during my junior year at Notre Dame. Since my freshman year, I was drawn to ACE. I had attended nearly every ACE event without thinking I would ever apply. I was an avid supporter and cheerleader who carried the ACE-decorated water bottle, magnets, and posters, but I was also an accounting student on track for a career in finance. At the time I couldn’t imagine a way to reconcile these two forces.

“Can we have a piece of paper?”

Students often ask this question of teachers, and it can lead in a number of different directions. For Eve Wenger’s third-grade students at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Oklahoma City, the question ended up taking them further than she ever could have imagined.

Cooking has been a source of joy throughout my life. While cooking feels like a daunting task to many, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home where I learned my way around the kitchen. At an early age, I picked up the fundamentals of cooking from my dad, and we still enjoy cooking together when I am home. When I learned that community dinners would be an essential part of the ACE experience, I saw this as another stepping stone on my path toward culinary greatness. Teaching middle school math and science would just be my day job (just kidding, Sister Gail).

“What should I do with my life?”

I've faced this question at two particular moments in the last few years. The first time I approached this question was during the semester that I spent studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland. One day, on a train ride to a town in the west of Ireland, I got an email that set off little alarm bells in my brain: “Apply for the ACE Internship & Early Admission!” I deleted the email immediately. My sister had been a member of ACE 21 and I had seen just how challenging the ACE experience was for her. Why would I voluntarily choose to go through two years of challenge and stress?

“A small wonder where minds soar and hearts touch.”

Just before you reach Saint Laurentius School's vibrant blue and yellow school door, these words greet you on a sign outside the school. A local school in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Saint Laurentius's 125-year history continues to fuel a changing and evolving geographical area with tradition, community, and faith-filled education.

Each year, ACE teachers gather in Mable Falls, Texas, for our annual December Retreat. December Retreat serves as a weekend of rest, reunion, prayer, and celebration. This year’s December Retreat theme, “Disciples with Hope to Bring”, draws from the Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross.

"AHHHH, A-C-E, ACE!"

The volleyball players on the court shout and roar, the substitute players repeat with equal gusto, and finally the crowd in the stands echo the cheer one last time. Another perfect serve, another ace, another point for the St. Augustine Wolves!