Dan Carmody and Karl Danso of Cathedral H.S. Discuss Impactful $30MM Gift

Dan Carmody and Karl Danso of Cathedral High School in Boston passionately discuss their impactful work with the Cathedral students and a recent $30 million gift from an anonymous alumni donor.  

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome back to What's at Risk?I'm Mike. Christian Cathedral High School is
a Catholic urban and co educational collegepreparatory school committed to excellence and social justice
within an environment that encourages its scholarsto reach their full potential. Cathedral students

(00:26):
are expected to make lasting and powerfulimpacts in their local, national, and
global communities. Cathedral's mission since itsestablishment in nineteen twenty six is to deliver
a rigorous and holistic education that isavailable for all families, regardless of ability
to pay. Rooted in Catholic valuesthat include compassion, respect, and service,

(00:50):
the school embraces the rich diversity ofits community and fosters a culture of
inclusion, opportunity, acceptance, andempowerment good children well developers down did so.
Thegover, Dan Carmody, joined Cathedralas head of school in February twenty

(01:14):
twenty. Prior to joining Cathedral,Dan worked in Catholic education for thirteen years,
most recently as the Vice President forGlobal Mission and Identity at Boston College
High School. Dan earned his bachelor'sdegree from Elon University in human services and
his master's degree from Boston College incounseling. Psychology and served in the Peace

(01:36):
Corps in Paraguay. Carl Danzo bringswith him an extensive background in Catholic education,
serving as a teacher, coach,mentor, and most recently is vice
principal at Catholic Memorial. Prior tothat, he served as dean of students
at Saint John's College High School inthe Washington, DC area of great We're

(02:09):
here with Boston's Cathedral High School PresidentDan Carmody and Principal Carl Danso. How
you guys doing goodbye, Thanks forhaving us, Thanks thanks for joining us.
Maybe a good place to start isyou can both tell us a little
bit about your background and we'll takeit from there. Well, I'll try
not to bore you to death.I'll give you the fast forward version.

(02:30):
I grew up in Topsfield and Iwent to public school and went off to
college at Elon in North Carolina,a great part of my life. Made
my way to the Peace Corps inParaguay. For a long time told people
that was the best thing I've everdone in my life. I'm married with
two kids now, so it's movedto fourth place, but really transformative experience

(02:51):
for me, really found my pathto education in a kind of a wild,
twisty road, but ended up havinga great opportunity to work at a
Catholic Jesuit high school of BC Highand really had wonderful mentorship and leaders there
that kind of helped me get ona path to educational leadership somewhere where I
never really thought i'd be, andeventually made my way to Cathedral Carl How

(03:15):
about you. Yeah, I'm bornand raised in Boston, so I grew
up in Rossendale. I've gone toCatholic school literally my entire life. So
went to Sacred Heart in Rosendale andthen went to Catholic Memorial and that's I
think where I developed my desire passionfor education and teaching. I just had
these teachers that had invested a wholelot into me and cared about me so

(03:39):
much and wanted to just support me, saw something in me that I didn't
necessarily see and wanted to pay thatforward. So I ended up going to
Boston College studying education and then gotmy master's there as well before heading to
DC, teaching at a school calledSaint John's College High School. I did
that for about ten years before comingback. I got a chance to teach

(04:01):
and be the vice principal Catholic Memorialfor four years, and then I was
doing a program called the Lynch LeadershipAcademy, and that really instilled in me
a belief and is a desire tobe a principle and connected with Dan and
Cathedral and just humble, honored,blessed to be a part of this community

(04:24):
now. So just had a personalinterest. How do you distinguish between your
rules? Dan, You're the president, Carl you're the principal. How do
you split the duties up? Carldoes all the hard things and I do
all the things that make the headlines. Thanks for your honesty, Dad.
We're you know, we're a presidentprincipal model. And I think what you

(04:46):
find is in all honesty, Carlois really he's running the academic program and
stettying the culture and the tone inthe environment for our school. He really
is the in house leader and myrole is a little bit more external.
It's certainly particularly with our financial model, which I'm sure we'll have a chance
to talk about. I'm doing alot of fundraising and fundraising for our mission

(05:10):
to make what we do possible,a lot of work with external partnerships again
which impact our program and our studentexperience and certainly enrollment and marketing and communications,
and so I see the model asreally an awesome partnership. Carl and
I are spending significant parts of everyday together, but we also kind of
both know we have really important rolesto compliment each other, but we let

(05:33):
each other do their thing too.Carl, anything to add, No,
I don't think so. I thinkhe covered I mean, I think the
biggest thing I would add is hesays I do the hard work, but
it's really our teachers and our staffthey're doing all these incredible things. I
would definitely pass the buck to themin terms of what they're doing to make
sure that we can accomplish all thethings that we want to accomplish here.

(05:53):
Cathedral has been around for a whilein the Boston area. Obviously, maybe
just for our listeners in sites,can you talk a little bit about the
history and culture of Cathedral High School? Yeah, I mean we're approaching one
hundred years and so nineteen twenty sixwe were founded, and so it's been
a great long run. And Ithink the most important thing that I can

(06:15):
always say about our history is,you know, like many Catholic schools,
especially in the City of Boston.We were founded for the sons and daughters
of mostly Irish immigrants. But wealways from back in the very early days,
it seemed that our mission has carriedthrough to today and it was providing
a strong Catholic education for all families, a place where everyone felt welcomed,
place where your family circumstances or whereyou've come from or where you are didn't

(06:41):
prohibit your ability to get a strongeducation. And you fast forward it ninety
eight years and while a lot haschanged and the demographic that we serve has
certainly changed over time a lot ofcases with the City of Boston, our
mission has not changed. And thatmission is again just providing a strong Catholic

(07:02):
education a lot of times for familieswho would otherwise just not have access and
removing some of the barriers the family'sface. And it's what we've been doing
for a long time and what wehope to continue to do for a long
time. And Carl, can youweigh in a little bit on the instructional
vision for the school. Yeah,it's something that's really exciting for us.

(07:23):
Right now. We're actually building thatinstructional vision. So we have an idea
of what we view as excellent teaching. But rather than this being something that
me as the principal at the top, saying here's exactly what we're going to
do and here's what the vision is, it's something that's built from the ground
up. And so we're currently workingwith our faculty right now going through a

(07:46):
process where we're collaboratively creating our instructionalvision, so we know, hey,
this is what we expect in classroomswhen we go into each other's rooms,
this is what we expect to see. These are the expectations that we have.
So it's been a lot of fun. It's a lot of work to
build right now, but I thinkthat's the way to make this sustainable and

(08:07):
make sure that it's living every dayas opposed to it'd be really easy for
me to type up an instructional visionright and say this is what needs to
happen in all the classrooms. Butif I do that, is it authentic
and are we actually living that out? And so it's been great to work
with folks for them to share theirinsights, which really gets us a lot

(08:28):
further than me just sitting in aroom by myself typing on my computer.
It's been a lot of fun andour hope is to have that finished up
by the end of the year.And we sort of have these pillars and
say, this is what cathedral standsfor, and this is what we view
as excellent instruction. Yeah, arethe students involved in that process? All
the students are involved in in someways, right. I think it's more

(08:50):
of the development of the actual corebeliefs and indicators are done through the teachers.
But one of the things we consideras we're working is like, as
we have this vision, what isit that scholars are doing in class?
What is it that teachers are doingin class? And so there's input in
that way and also just pulling wheredo we see our scholars having success and

(09:16):
how do we recreate that success ifthat makes any sense. Yeah, So
it's not necessarily like formal, Hey, we're sitting down doing roundtable talks with
them, but the scholars are essentiallyat the center of all this work that
we're doing. Over the last twentyyears. I think I read you have
one hundred percent graduation rate and onehundred percent college acceptance, Right, what's
there to improve on? That's prettyincredible stats. Yeah, I mean,

(09:39):
the stats are amazing. We're proudof them. We're proud that we get
all of our seniors to the finishline. And sometimes it takes an awful
lot of resiliency and guts and determinationon their part. And you know,
I think Carl said, at best, we have a pretty awesome supporting cast
here of teachers and faculty and staffwho get our students there and then have
developed great relationship ships with local collegesand universities. And I think they understand

(10:03):
our students and our mission, andI think people want to be a part
of it. And so you know, seeing our students get accepted to college
and then going on and succeeding incollege, it's one thing to get accepted,
it's another thing to get there andthrive. And we think that's what's
happening with our students. But whatI'd say, I think part of the
formula of our school, or thehistory or even though like the magic that
happens now is I think for solong at our school, we were a

(10:26):
school known for community and care andcommitment and love and safety and you know,
embracing all of our students and ahuge part of our history that we
never want to change. That shouldalways be the foundation. But I think
when Carl talks about his instructional visionand what we're doing with our students now,
I think really adding significant layers ofacademic rigor and saying it's not just

(10:48):
enough to provide the love and thecare and the safety of the environment,
it's how are we preparing our studentsto thrive academically in college? And I
think that's just a really important partof the vision we have for the school.
Now, do you follow your studentsafter they graduate as they get into
and go through the college experience atall? Well, the truthful answer that
Mike is not as much as wewant to. But what we did do

(11:09):
I believe we did it with theclass of twenty sixteen. We did do
a study and it took a while. We had to almost like track people
down, and the question was howmany of those students have graduated from college
in four to six years? Andwe were at like a remarkable eighty six
percent. And so we've started thatprocess. I know our board and our
leadership think it's really important that wecontinue that so we can see if there

(11:31):
are any gaps that we need tobe aware of and see if there's any
ways we can kind of further supportour students. It's kind of like once
you're part of the Cathedra family,like we don't want you to leave,
so how can we continue to seehow you're doing and support you. Yeah,
that's great. I think that eightysix percent college graduation, right,
maybe even more impressive than the othertwo stats, to be honest, because
a lot of schools, you know, virtually al schools the track their admission

(11:56):
rate to colleges, but very fewfollow and see how many those students actually
graduating. Yeah, what's the makeupof your student body from the area around
the school? I sume boys,girls. You know, what's the sort
of demographics of the student body.Yeah, we're seven through twelfth grade co
ed. We're about three hundred andforty students. We think there's probably a

(12:18):
little room to grow there, althougha few years ago we were two hundred
and seventy five students. So we'rehappy with our trajectory. Enrollment wise,
we're probably about fifty to fifty boysand girls. We might have a few
more girls. I forget the exactnumber on that. And we're about ninety
eight percent black and brown students predominantlycoming from the city and the surrounding neighborhoods

(12:41):
of Boston. Not exclusive to that, but you're seeing most of our kids
coming from a lot of the surroundingneighborhoods right here in the city. The
only thing I would add is,anecdotally, we have a number of scholars
that are starting to come to usfrom the suburbs looking for them or more
diverse experience. So they're high schoolthere. Local public high school might not
might not be full of folks thatlook like them, and they find a

(13:03):
lot of comfort in coming to aplace where people look like them. Are
they all Catholic? Probably not.Right now, we're probably around fifty percent
of our students are Catholic, andMike, you probably know, and if
you dig deep, it's probably alittle bit less than that. That's actually,
you know, what they call practicingCatholics. But what I do think

(13:24):
is what we really focus on interms of our Catholic identity is Catholic values,
and that's what we really base ourschool on. And so its care,
it's compassion, it's trust, it'slove, it's how we treat each
other, and so that's what reallyI think guides are school from a Catholic
identity perspective. We'll take a quickbreak from our interview about Cathedral High School

(13:50):
in Boston to review some findings fromthe National Catholic Educational Association twenty twenty four
annual survey of Catholic element and secondaryschools. The national enrollment for all grades
stands at one point seven million,with preschool students making up just a little
over ten percent of the total enrollment. Although the national enrollment declined since twenty

(14:15):
thirteen school year has been a fourteenpoint two percent loss of student population,
enrollment in more recent years has stabilized. The total number of Catholic schools in
the United States is five thousand,nine hundred and five. Catholic schools are
increasingly reflecting a commitment to inclusivity,responding to the growing diversity within their communities.

(14:39):
By accommodating the rising enrollment of Hispanicstudents, addressing the needs of students
living with disabilities, and embracing studentsfrom various faith backgrounds, These schools are
actively working towards creating a more welcomingand supportive educational environment. The increasing trend

(15:00):
of non Catholic student enrollment and Catholicschools, which currently stands at twenty one
percent, is a significant development withvarying implications for these institutions. Finally,
parental choice programs expanded in twenty statesin twenty twenty three, offering families the
ability to choose Catholic schools, whichis pivotal for those in states like Ohio,

(15:24):
Florida, Indiana, and Arizona whereover half of the students utilize them.
And now back to our talk withDan and Carl. Now, you
made the news recently with anonymous donationof thirty million dollars, which is pretty
impressive. How did that come about? Where did it come from? Tell
us a little bit about that.Yeah, it's how do I sum up

(15:46):
the most generous act I've ever seenin my whole life? And I in
a few sentences here, I guessthe short version is Cathedral only about nine
percent of our revenue comes from tuition. It goes back to our mission of
trying to eliminate financial barriers, andthrough our board of trustees, some amazing
film, through partners and supporters,we've always been able to raise money on

(16:10):
an annual basis to support our mission. But it was about a couple of
years ago one of our graduates cameto us, a few of the board
members, myself, and said,hey, look, I've been supporting the
school. I'm not going to behere forever. When we think about how
the school's going to grow, howwe sustain our mission, what programs do
we need to add, how dowe need to take care of teachers,
attract and retain top quality teaching.How much money do we need to put

(16:33):
in our endowment to sustain that forthe next hundred years. And we crunched
all the numbers and it was adaunting sixty million dollars to really secure our
future in perpetuity. And he said, okay, sixty million dollars. And
he said, I'll do half,but you've got to go get the other
half. So I'll match dollar fordollar up to thirty million dollars. And

(16:55):
so again, he's a graduate inthe fifties. He's anonymous, but really
candidly, a lot of folks knowwho he is. He just for him.
It's all about the school, it'sall about the mission, it's all
about the students. And he's doingthis. If you were sitting in between
Carl and I right now, he'dsay to you, Look, Cathedral is

(17:17):
a place that I went to asa kid. I needed a chance,
I needed an opportunity. I needfolks to support me. I was willing
to work hard and it opened doorsof opportunities. And he said, and
that's exactly what it's doing now.It's what I wanted to do for one
hundred years. So I'm all in, that's amazing. What are you going
to do with all that money,Carl, No, I mean I think,

(17:37):
like Dan said, right, somuch of that goes back into the
mission to make sure that our scholarscan afford to come to school here.
Our scholars are folks that have beenhistorically disenfranchised, folks that there's a lot
of barriers between them and a rigorouseducation, and we want to make sure
that they can afford that. SoI'd love to say, you know,

(17:59):
we're in a football field next tonext to the school and those sorts of
things, but it really is goingback into serving the mission and making sure
that we can sustain that. Yeah, that's great. And Dan, I
was going to tell you that yourjob is going to be pretty easy if
you get that thirty million, Butif you have to double it. I
guess you got to keep working atit. Well, yeah, you know
what it actually is. We've beenreally again just blessed with incredible people who

(18:23):
believe in our students, and soof the thirty million that we need to
raise, we are well well onour way and you know, I know
we'll get there with the help ofmany. But I think the one message
that it's actually really important for meto say for folks is it actually doesn't
mean we're done. It means we'resustainable and we will last in a particular

(18:44):
this environment where we've seen too manyCatholic schools close. We're good for the
future. We're going to be aroundfor a long long time. But on
an annual basis, we'll still havehuge gaps to meet for our students and
we're committed to continuing to meet them. So for any contributor to Cathedral,
don't think we're done because of thiscampaign. We're still coming after you strong.
I figured you'd want to make thatpoint loud over and over again when

(19:07):
we do this. How's how's studentlife there? What's the environment life for
students? Extracurricular activity, sports,you know, leadership development, those types
of things that sometimes called the softerskills, but I'm not sure they are
soft. What's that like? No, it's It's been a really good experience
for me. You know, whenI first came to Cathedral, the first

(19:30):
time I met students this school year, so I came before I was hired
last year. I took a coupleof visits and got a chance to meet
some of the team and have somelunch with some scholars. But my first
time sitting with them this year wasat one of their internships. So we
have a number of internships over thesummer, and I got a chance to

(19:51):
go to Fidelity where a number ofour scholars were working over the summer and
presenting what they had done over thesummer, and it was just I was
blown away by the work that theyhad done and their presentation skills and all
the things that make our scholars soimpressive. And I think that's one of
the bedrocks of the Cathedral experience interms of like the culture is we want

(20:15):
to expose them to much as muchas possible, and that's why with some
great partnerships like Fidelity and some ofthe other places where we have interns internships,
they get to go off and experiencethose things. But otherwise, you
know, they might not have anopportunity like that if it weren't for Cathedral
and like I said, our partners. But day to day it's a fun

(20:37):
place to be. We have classesgoing on, lots of good learning.
Obviously, We've also this year's beenreally good, but challenging at times because
we implemented a new schedule, andwith that new schedule, we've created time
for extracurriculars. We have a communitytime period that happens once a week,
and some of our scholars work jobsafter school and might not be able to

(21:00):
participate in a typical high school experience, So we want to make sure that
they have opportunities to play chess andhang out with their teachers and hang out
with their friends at some point duringthe day that isn't necessarily academically focused.
How about sports, Yeah, Imean we have a pretty first especially for
a small school, you know inthe city. We have a pretty robust
athletic program. We're super fortunate ourathletic director Derek Beasley. You know,

(21:23):
no one cares about supports our studentsmore. Former patriot, former state trooper,
he is just an amazing guy who'sbuilt a wonderful program. You know,
if he was here, he'd tellyou it's we're really we're building leaders,
We're building young men and women.We're building kids who are scholars,
who are ready to go out intothe world. And then oh, yeah,

(21:44):
they're sports. And so I willsay many folks know, but our
women's basketball program's amazing, back toback state champions and again, small little
school with students who have been througha lot and persevere through a lot,
and then they get out in thecourt and they're part of a community and
a family, and they thrive andthey represent us amazingly. And I know

(22:07):
our basketball coach would always want topoint out they're all in the honor roll,
but we're you know, one ofthe restrictions we had we had an
amazing gym in the city right hereon campus that our board was so supportive
and constructing, and part of thatwas a message to the South End community,
Hey, cathedrals here, cathedrals here, to stay in cathedrals here,
to be part of the community.But other than that, for other sports,

(22:27):
we're using different fields in and aroundthe city. So on the one
hand, it's awesome for our students, they're navigating the city. I mean,
they navigate it better than I do. On the other hand, we
don't. We're not blessed with therich facilities, you know, right here
on our campus. But last yearalone, I think it was volleyball,
track, softball, and football allmade great playoff runs. So it's a

(22:48):
pretty robust program. So there's beena lot of new a lot of items
in the news about mental health,mental health, post COVID, mental health
across the spectrum of our population withyoung people and students. How do you
guys feel that's addressed at Cathedral andwhat are your thoughts around that. I
think there's always more that we cando. But one of the things that's

(23:11):
been promising to me is the approachthat our scholars have with a lot of
it. When I was growing up, I think there was a lot of
stigmas around mental health, and I'veseen that change over the years where there's
been folks that are more comfortable tosay, you know, it's I'm not
okay, and that's okay. We'reblessed to have Margaret Kay who's our school

(23:33):
social worker, and she has awellness center that scholars feel really comfortable going
to so whether it's a conflict withanother peer or a teacher, or maybe
they just need a little extra support, they feel comfortable to go in there
and have conversations. And that's inaddition to our guidance department. Right,
so we're we're really fortunate, butI think there's always more we can do,

(23:56):
right. I think there's more programmingand something things that we're trying to
partner with our families to see whatare the needs of the community and how
can we continue to support them.I just want to add one quick thing
to that. Maybe it's happening inlots of other schools. I don't know,
but there's not a day that goesby a cathedral where a student doesn't
come into our building in the morningwearing a sweatshirt that says mental health matters.

(24:18):
And I think it's first of all, I just love the sweatshirt,
but it's Carlson. I think it'sbringing in an awareness and acceptance amongst the
student body, like hey, thisis okay. And then you know,
us layering on the resources to supportstudents and as part of our campaign,
it's actually an area of our schoolor trying to grow. So it's not
going away, and it's an awesomeresponsibility that we have to try and work

(24:41):
with students and their families through thedifferent challenges that they may have. Yeah,
and you mentioned the word community andlast question, do you encourage the
students to get back to the communityand be involved in the community. Yeah,
that's a great question. You know. I think when you're talking a
you know, an independent Catholic schooland giving back, I think people so
often go to, you know,financially giving and certainly it's amazing if every

(25:06):
single person in your feels like there'sa tiny little token of pain at forward,
no matter what your circumstances are.So sure we encourage that. But
I'll give you an example, Mike. We had our Athletic Hall of Fame
and our first ever academic Hall ofFame induction ceremony just last night, and
we had eight different inductees and theytold their stories. Every single story was

(25:27):
different, but a common thread ofcathedral opened a door for them that would
have otherwise been closed, regardless ofwhere they came from or what their circumstances
were, and they all offered togive back in some way. Some of
it's financial and we need it,but we had an inductee into the Athletic
Hall of Fame and said, Ijust want to come back and I want
to volunteer coach. We had aninductee into the Academic Hall of Fame and

(25:49):
said, I want to be partof what you're doing and mentoring young scholars.
How can I be around the schoolmore? And so I think it's
part of you take a little pieceof Cathedral with you, and then when
the time is ready and right foryou to give back the doors wide open.
Well, we've been speaking with DanCarmody and Carl Danzo of Cathedral High

(26:11):
School. Guys, thank you somuch. Really appreciate your insights and I
wish you all the best in thisnext step for the high school, which
seems to be a pretty meaningful one. Thanks for helping us bread our mission,
Mike, We appreciate it. Well, that's all for this week.
I'm Mike Christian inviting you to joinus again next week on What's at Risk.

(26:32):
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(26:52):
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