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For Stephanie Becker, no step on her journey as a Catholic educator has been alone. As she has worked to become the Academic Dean for Mt. Carmel-Holy Rosary School, a Catholic school that is a part of the Partnership Schools Network in New York City, she has found that each stop on her way has been supported by those who inspired Steph to a fuller and more joyful participation in the mission of Catholic education.

For Danielle Gonzales, a graduate of the eighth cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, education has always been personal. Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Danielle worked diligently to make the most of her education. She realized from an early age that education would be the key to achieving the changes she desired, both on an individual and national level. Danielle did not attend the most well-resourced schools in the country for primary and secondary school, but she made the most of the resources available to her and earned college scholarships and went on to earn a college degree. 

We seek to create a unique communion of joy among students, their families, and our faculty and staff, in the context of a pre-eminent pre-K through 12^th grade Catholic college-preparatory school. We want to prepare our students for a lifetime of happiness by inculcating in them three foundational virtues: faith, prudence, and magnanimity.  

So proclaims the mission statement posted on the website for Holy Spirit Preparatory School in Atlanta, Georgia. Like most ACE Teaching Fellows in their second year of ACE’s M.Ed. Program, Kyle Pietrantonio found himself in deep discernment about what God was calling him to do next. Law school perhaps? Maybe he was being called to pursue public policy? As he studied for the LSAT and completed law school applications, Kyle couldn’t shake what seemed, at that moment in his life, an even deeper desire: to remain in the classroom, where he could continue to hone the art of teaching.

As 2016 draws to a close, we look back on the past year and our 16 biggest stories and blog posts. 

Picture this: Michael Faggella-Luby, a first-year ACE teacher juggling the multiple demands of teaching high school chemistry and English, opens the door to his ninth grade English class. There, among the crowd of students, is Thomas—a tall and wiry freshman brimming with energy. Unlike his classmates, who are seated in the rows of desks, Thomas—shoeless and shirt tails untucked—has shimmied up the support pole of the classroom. Michael’s gaze follows the pole upwards, to meet Thomas’s confident grin: “Hi, Mr. F!” Michael’s immediate reaction: a silent thought to himself, “There’s a lot going on here.” Those who know Michael now might be struck by the prescience of that silent observation. After all, Michael’s adventures with Thomas in the late 1990s in Jacksonville, Florida, formed the seeds of what has become Michael’s life-long career as a scholar of Special Education.