“We’re ecstatic,” said Jason Slattery, Cedarcrest principal. “This has been something the school has desired for 15 years.
Marty Frauenheim, archdiocesan superintendent of Catholic schools, said a decree went out May 16 from Archbishop John Nienstedt declaring “that they were now recognized, not just as a school in the Catholic tradition, but they come into the fold as a private Catholic school in the archdiocese.”
Slattery said Cedarcrest is grateful to Archbishop Nienstedt, Father Peter Laird, archdiocesan vicar general, and Frauenheim for all the work they did to help bring this process to fruition.
“We had to spend some time demonstrating not only our institutional viability, but, perhaps even more so, our fidelity,” Slattery said. “The bishop is right in ensuring there is a process in place that clearly demonstrates how an institution has those qualities.”
Frauenheim said school leaders were willing to do whatever was being asked to move toward the goal.
Slattery said the process to obtain Catholic identity included:
» Demonstrating that the school met the standards for Catholic identity.
» Demonstrating that faculty and staff lived those standards in a clear and manifest way.
» Making sure that the school’s policies and procedures were in line with the archdiocese.
» Demonstrating how the school works with local parishes, pastors and faith communities in the northwest metro to serve a need.
Frauenheim said she met with school representatives to talk about the criteria.
“We’ve had a lot of meetings as some of those governance issues had to be put in place,” she said. A few things couldn’t be completed until the school was named Catholic, such as going through the Protection of Children and Youth Initiative training process, she added. However, Cedarcrest Academy was willing to do that as soon as it was available to them.
Although Cedarcrest Academy currently leases space from two Protestant churches in Maple Grove for 175 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, Slattery expects that situation to change in the near future.
“We have approximately 40 acres of buildable land on Bass Lake Road, which we’ve owned since 2004, and our intention is to move forward with a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade campus,” he said. “We’ve been holding off on construction until we could clarify this question of the Catholic title. I can’t give a definitive schedule, but I am hoping we will move forward with the public capital campaign in fall 2011.”
Cedarcrest Academy will celebrate its new status during a Mass at 10:30 a.m. Friday, May 27, at 6950 W. Fish Lake Road, Maple Grove.
“We’ll have Mass here in the chapel and an outdoor procession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a crowning at the end,” he said.
For more about Cedarcrest Academy, visit the website http://www.cedarcrest.org or call Kristen Basgall at (763) 494-5387.
