Kyle Rickbeil says he is setting off on another adventure as he takes the helm this school year as principal of St. Joseph Catholic School in West St. Paul.

“When I was teaching, I really loved the classroom. I loved teaching about the faith,” said Rickbeil, 42, one of nine new heads of Catholic elementary and high schools who are participating this year in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ onboarding process.

As his 18-year career in Catholic schools continued, Rickbeil’s interest grew to include all aspects of education, from scheduling staff to disciplining students to helping train others on new technology. “Anything related to other parts of the building was really interesting,” he said. “It’s an adventure.”

At St. Joseph, Rickbeil will lead more than 400 prekindergarten to eighth grade students, faculty and staff. He won’t be alone in his adventure.

Following the Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education implemented in 2019 and fleshed out over the last four years, Rickbeil and the other nine new heads of school will meet once a month for the Archdiocesan New Leaders Academy. They will exchange ideas and challenges and dive into topics led by experts that apply to their jobs, such as working effectively with their pastors, business administrators, school advisory councils and others, said Gayle Stoffel, associate director of Catholic school leadership in the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education.

The new leaders also have peer mentors they meet with monthly and can call upon as needed, Stoffel said.

“We know that oftentimes leadership can feel isolating,” Stoffel said. “To know that there’s someone on the other end of the phone who understands what they are going through and can provide support and ideas about best practices helps to not only retain leaders, but it also helps to build unity within the system and mission alignment across the system of schools.”

The need for training and continued support was a key strategy for the Roadmap.

“We knew that leadership had to be a priority, because the rest of the Roadmap couldn’t come to fruition without great leaders who stayed in their positions to continue to contribute to the mission of Catholic education,” Stoffel said.

The same issue — talent management — is important in all sectors of employment, Stoffel said.

“When there have been strategic efforts, when there have been intentional efforts for onboarding and support in the early days of someone going into a position, the retention is higher, the engagement is higher,” she said. “They are able to leverage their gifts and talents, and the hope of them staying long-term increases.”

Those efforts and more already are bearing fruit, Stoffel said. For example, school leadership turnover has been cut in half since 2017, from almost 22% annually to less than 12% for the 2023-2024 academic year, Stoffel said. The average national school leadership turnover is about 20% annually, she said.

Additional strategic efforts, including working with pastors and principals, honing the hiring process for new leaders, building a pipeline of leaders through the Institute for  Catholic School Leadership — a joint venture of the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education and The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul — and working on the culture of each school is helping all involved “to reflect the mission of Catholic education and be a bright light in the culture today,” Stoffel said.

In early August, the new leaders took part in two days of workshops outlining the archdiocese’s mission and vision for Catholic education and best practices for those ends. It was an opportunity for them to “understand the system at large, the resources that are available to them and connect with other new leaders in the field,” Stoffel said.

For a second straight year, Catholic elementary and high school leaders will be honored at a Catholic school leadership banquet in October. At the secular level, the gathering falls during National School Leadership Month, but it also is the month of the Most Holy Rosary, which connects with Our Lady, the patroness of the archdiocese’s Catholic school system.

“We come together for a Mass, for a banquet, and then the second part of the evening is leadership recognition” by honoring those who retired the year before, and years of service in increments of five, including five, 10, 15, 20, 25 and higher, Stoffel said.

Rickbeil, who the last six years has been middle school director at Providence Academy in Plymouth and before that taught religion and was in administration at a Catholic elementary school in Ellicott City, Maryland, said he likes what he has seen so far onboarding as a principal.

“A lot of it is knowing what’s to come in the year ahead,” he said. “And the support that is available in the archdiocese. It’s helpful to be with others.”

Mentoring school leaders: ‘I’m so excited to do it’

Ann Coone devoted more than 30 years of her professional life to teaching and leading in Catholic schools and parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Although she officially retired this month, she isn’t done yet.

Coone, 65, is one of three mentors for new principals this year in Catholic elementary schools, part of the onboarding process developed by the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education, through its Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education. The other mentors are Maggie Dawson, principal of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Brooklyn Park, and Mike McGinty, head of school at Our Lady of Grace in Edina.

Coone was principal at Holy Family Academy in St. Louis Park and the principal at St. Raphael Catholic School in Crystal before retiring as principal of Epiphany Catholic School in Coon Rapids. She felt called early in life to bring Christ to children, Coone said.

“It was a real awakening and a call for the protection and education of our children’s souls,” she said. “And the reality that we need to work together to get them to heaven.”

An Epiphany parishioner, Coone said she had her own “reversion” to the Catholic faith as a young woman. The more her heart opened to Christ, the more she found herself asking, “Is anybody teaching the children? Is anybody telling the children?”

Coone said she spent her first 10 years as a principal focused on the activities at her school, “like a mother with her children.” As she gained experience, she found opportunities to share ideas or suggestions at archdiocesan meetings and other venues. But she never considered herself “a mover and a shaker,” Coone said. “It’s more when I hear the Lord call me to step up for the children.”

Mentoring fits well with her style, Coone said, adding “I’m so excited to do it. The stronger the principal is in the faith, the more in love with the Church, the greater their sense of responsibility, of leading children to heaven, and the job becomes so much simpler.”

Strong academics and solid test scores are important, Coone said, “but it only happens if Christ comes first.”