St. Francis Central Coast Catholic High School
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about
president's message
As a Catholic community, our shared vision here at St. Francis of a divine presence in the universe establishes for us a basis of hope. That, above all else, should be the watermark by which a Catholic setting authenticates itself. Certainly, as an educational institution, we’re about grades and test scores and academic performance. As a high school, we’re about the healthy development of teens, a place that undertakes the serious task of keeping our youth safe and fully empowered to make wise choices. And as a family, a Catholic school is to be highlighted by the joyous and fun celebrations and activities that mark a caring community.
It is our faith, however, that must propel us forward. Above all else, we are to be about the framing of meaning to human life within a context of a vibrant and active belief in God. It is our shared Christian confidence in a risen Christ that establishes for us the basis on which we can, at once, be limited by our humanity and be infinite in our hope. We can know the evil that punctuates this earthly life from time-to-time, yet be buoyed by the equally firm knowledge of a God who loves us and sustains us and promises to us an eternal life of bliss. Such knowledge is ever-present if we but look; but it can be fully awakened and appreciated by an institution that sees itself as pivotal in the nurturing of that awareness in God’s children of their blessedness as the most beloved of all His creations.
A contemporary Catholic school is no small undertaking. We will continue to measure ourselves, as we should, by test scores and the like; by the involvement of our students in the array of activities of the school; by the degree to which our students display a natural growth into healthy young adulthoods. But above all else, we must be a place of hope that sends forth young people armed with that hope.
- Keith B. Mathews