Principal's Welcome to 2023-2024

Principal's Welcome 2023-24 School Year

Principal Jim deputy welcomes CCC families to school year and highlights changes to campus, policies and procedures, as well as our theme for the school year: Gratitude.

Show Transcript

Well hello CCC community. On behalf of the faculty, the staff, the administration, our coaches and all those that make it work here Clearwater Central Catholic High School, I want to welcome you to the 2023 - 2024 school year. Here we are in the first week of school and I've got to tell you, it's been awesome – just wonderful – to see the student body being able to interact, see each other, and catch up. I was watching the faculty, and I've been in classrooms this week, and there's nothing like just seeing that activity and that wealth of exchange just taking place. So back in the school halls and back in the classrooms, this year we we are starting off with a theme and we want to focus on this year a level of gratitude. Our faculty this summer was able to take home a book and talk about Evolving with Gratitude and one of our exercises at the beginning of the year was not just taking a look at what's been done or what needs to be but more importantly having a gratitude of what has been done. We are so blessed here at Clearwater Central Catholic High School and sometimes we've just got to pause and realize, really embrace that. We're looking forward to a great year, we're looking forward to (I hope it's on your calendar!) a wonderful back-to-school night, scheduled on August 30th. This is a night that everybody looks forward to. It's a way for you to come to the school, meet your child's teachers, really have a good face-to-face interaction, and really talk about what will be the goals for the year, but more importantly what drives the passion and the curriculum for the teachers in those classrooms. And truly that's what it's about, we know that it's not just about content the classroom, it is really about social-emotional learning: there were five major areas that we talked about that are part of a holistic learning environment. We believe that the classroom is a great opportunity for the teachers to focus on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and more importantly responsible decision-making. When we can infuse those focus, core values into what we are doing in the classroom, we truly are making kids ready for the next level.
We're looking forward to another great year of celebrating our core values. The only thing you might have seen change this year is it that we are going to move those in an order that really focuses on something we believe is important. We feel that Living Faith, Inspiring Excellence, Valuing Service, and Embodying Respect – and when you look at the acronym, when those are in alignment – we learn how to L-I-V-E. So we want to live together, we want to work with your students this year, we know we've got a great thing happening here, it's a great time to be a Marauder – but make sure you know our core values. I do want to bring special attention to our mission statement: at our last accreditation meeting we had–our last accreditation visit–we had a very concentrated effort focused on really taking a look at our mission statement, and does it truly represent all that we need it to represent? Well I'm sure there's going to be a video coming along shortly where Dr. Venturella explains some of the changes that were made to our mission statement. They're critical, and we want our entire parent community, student body, and the community as a whole to make sure they know what our mission here is at Clearwater Central Catholic High School. It's something great to be a part of.
Once again, we look forward to you coming to Back to School Night on August 30th and as we prepare for quite a few things, I wanted to bring you up-to-date on some of the things that we were busy doing this summer. So let's start with one of the most important ones, and that's school safety school. Safety is a huge piece of who we are, and last year we spent a great deal of time working with the sheriff's department focusing on a site assessment plan and looking at this school from top to bottom. Everything that we could be doing, that we should be doing, and validating the things that are being done. Ultimately we feel that they have given us the ingredients to put together a three-year strategic plan that's really going to enhance our security efforts and make sure that we're doing everything possible to align ourselves in communication with local law enforcement, but more importantly to make sure that our students are safe – and our faculty and staff. So with that, I can tell you that some things will look a little different this year: we will be looking at things like our movement drills, you know the active assailant drills, lockdown drills, and most importantly any drill that's going to put us in a position of being ready for what comes our way. In addition to some of these enhancements on this campus, let me give you an example: we spent and we are working with a company right now that is going to be doing an update of all of our security cameras on campus. We're going to have almost 60 state-of-the-art security cameras on campus right now, that are going to be aligned to making sure that we have the necessary tools for surveillance on this campus, but most importantly, that in the event something should happen, our local law enforcement can tap right into our resources and they have eyes on the ground remotely. So we feel that, along with our drill preparation, and just an overall awareness, we look forward to the Sheriff's Office coming in this year to speak to our students. We're also going to have them coming just in two weeks to meet with our faculty, once again to stress the importance of being ready most importantly, just being ready. 
So parents, what do we want in this school year? We want you to be prepared, we want you to be able to focus on what you know to be a reality at this school, and that starts with the student handbook. Please read the student handbook! There have been updates in there, we're doing everything we can to update the handbook and really let people know what to expect, especially with regards to procedures, policies, and expectations – and the best way to that is make sure you please read your handbook. The handbook has been updated, there are areas in there that every parent needs to know to make sure that they have a very successful year for their child. Make sure you're up-to-date with the pickup and drop-off policy, make sure you know what the uniform policy is. There are enhancements there that we need to make a smoother-running school and just an overall operation once again. I don't want anybody to ever be afraid to pick up a phone and call the school. Emails are great, but sometimes it's nice to talk to somebody on the end of the phone and we want to make sure that we're fully available to you. Please get informed and stay connected. 
So let me get onto some great news – the kids look fantastic! I will tell you I've been at the school for 23 years – this is my 24th year– and I can assure you, I've never had a student body walk up to me and students just saying "I love my school uniform." Well I will tell you, the new additions – and I appreciate all the hands that went into making that happen – to really get with the times, and really update that uniform to make it comfortable and practical with regard to a level of enforcement. And I just want to say to you thank you, you went out there and and participated and made the necessary adjustments, but I will tell you from this end the students look fantastic. A happy student is a happy parent, so I appreciate you with that important change in uniform. 
Another thing that why I want to highlight is student pick up and drop off. I've been out there this week and waving to you and saying hello and seeing parents follow through and I am really proud of our new freshman parents you've gotten on the ball right from the beginning. I want to stress the importance, though, of making sure that parents are using the pickup and drop-off parent area. We're finding too often the parents are starting to drop off and pick up kids in the student parking lot. Some of this was our own doing: the fact that the gate was open too early at the end of the day. Part of our security enhancements is the student gates will not open until five minutes before the end of the day. Parents should not be pulling into that parking lot, and parking in spots. We have to be always aware of who's on our campus, and when a parent comes in, almost an hour early and is parked in our student parking lot, it's almost a violation of our security protocols, so we've got to get people out of that habit. 
Technology is here, it's here to stay, and we are learning to utilize it in a better way to provide efficient and effective communication. We realize even in these covid years, that the most effective means of communication was not always in-person. We plan to use this type of a format more often this year to provide ongoing videos to parents from key directors in all areas, whether it be Personal Growth, parent service hours, Athletics. We feel that sometimes we're in such information overload, that sometimes it's just nice to have something like a video that I can go back to and watch it again and make sure get a clarification of what is expected of me. So this is just the first video that we're going to be sending out and that's more of a welcome, but I know on behalf of Dr. Venturella and myself, I know that we want to ensure critical communication, and this is a format that we're going to try to utilize more often this year to get up-to-date information. We just need you to watch it, and the nice thing about it is you can watch it on your own time. We realized not everybody's available to be in person for general meeting, so I looked at those numbers and attendance we realized that – believe it or not – some of our strongest viewings of material had been on this format right here so we will utilize that more this year. Communications are a critical component here in the school, I want to tell you we have a top-notch staff when it comes to our Advancement side of the house. And they are advancing so many things from Capital Improvements, to ongoing communication, and highlights of what happens on a weekly basis with the newsletter. If you are not getting the Weekly Newsletter, you need to call the school and get in touch with someone right away and say "Get me connected!" That newsletter should provide updates with regards to what's happening, calendar, events, you name it, there's no reason to not be informed of what's going on in the school. And if you want to offer suggestions, please feel free to forward those, but we always need to be in a position to be able to enhance our communication efforts. So thank you for that. 
I just want to say on behalf of Dr. Venturella and myself, the principal, Mr. James Deputy, welcome. We are so glad that you chose CCC and that feel this is the right place for you. Thank you again.

Please click the below video to watch a video from Principal Jim Deputy welcoming all our families to a new school year. Some highlights of his comments includes:

The annual theme for our school year is GRATITUDE.
Reminder: Back-to-School Night is AUGUST 30th. Please save the date!
Some of the content discussed at BTSN includes not just subject-area curriculum, but social-emotional learning – the holistic learning environment we provide for students, in five main areas
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Skills
- Responsible Decision-making
We've re-ordered our school's core values to make the acronym L-I-V-E
- Living Faith
- Inspiring Excellence
- Valuing Service
- Embodying Respect
School Safety
- We've worked with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office this year on a thorough site assessment
- Developed a 3-year strategic plan to enhance campus security and align with local law enforcement
- More thorough assailant and lockdown drills
- Updating security cameras across campus enhancing surveillance capabilities and accessibility by law enforcement in case of emergencies
- Faculty preparedness
Student Handbook has been updated for this school year – please read it!
- Pick up & drop off procedures, including NOT using the student parking lot for this (in alignment with our updated security measures, the lot will not be accessible before dismissal)
- Uniform policy – the students look fantastic in the new uniforms! They're a significant improvement in terms of student comfort and enforcement practicality
Using technology (like this video!) to enhance our school communications this year
If you are not receiving the weekly newsletter, School News, every Friday – please contact the school to get connected!

Have a great year, Marauders! Thank you!