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Yvonne Schwab, who recently was named among this year's 61 National Distinguished Principals by the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), says many people and many forces have come together to transform Saint James the Less School, the Catholic school she leads in Columbus, Ohio.

Progressing toward the October 2011 NAESP ceremony and an earlier competition in which the National Catholic Education Association honored her as a Distinguished Principal, Yvonne wrote various essays describing accomplishments at St. James the Less. One of those accomplishments has been a surge in Latino enrollment during the eight years of her leadership—from two students to 260 out of a current student population totaling 497.

Next week, the Catholic Church will celebrate the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is honored as Patroness of the Americas.

The Dec. 12 feast is a good opportunity for Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) to share our aspirations and activities in our work to welcome more Latino children into Catholic K-12 schools. ACE's Catholic School Advantage campaign includes collaborations with many partners across the United States, and we already have seen some stories that reflect the goals and hopes of this initiative.

The starting point for the endeavor was a report by the Notre Dame Task Force on the Participation of Latino Children and Families in Catholic Schools, issued on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2009. That report, To Nurture the Soul of a Nation: Latino Families, Catholic Schools, and Educational Opportunity, warned of an academic achievement gap besetting the Latino population and the need to bring more Latino students into Catholic schools where they could gain access to an excellent education.

We will use this week, starting today, to help an array of stakeholders and friends of Catholic education--the extended community of ACE and the Institute for Educational Initiatives—to get to know the Catholic School Advantage campaign better. Over the next several days, the ACE website will present a series of stories that represent snapshots of the campaign's perspectives and people.

A day-long discussion of ideas for improving K-12 education will feature an array of legal experts, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, at the Notre Dame Law School on Friday, Nov. 18.

The symposium, titled "Educational Innovation and the Law" and sponsored by the Law School, is the latest event in the Notre Dame Forum series collectively called "Reimagining School."

The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) and the Institute for Educational Initaitives (IEI) have been active in the planning of the Notre Dame Forum, which spans the 2011-2012 academic year. ACE and IEI faculty and staff are invited to attend the Nov. 18 discussions by two distinguished panels.