For Donna Lee Healy, the only thing new about St. Paul School, Burlington, is her position as the new principal.
Otherwise, it’s a place with which she is very familiar. She has been a lifelong member of St. Paul Parish (now part of St. Katharine Drexel Parish), she attended the parish religious education program while growing up, and it’s the school where she and her husband, Mike, chose to send their children. Daughter, Rebecca, a graduate, will begin her sophomore year at Trenton Catholic Academy, Hamilton, while son, Michael, is in eighth grade.
Though she held a certificate in Spanish Studies from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, (1983) and bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) in English and Spanish from Rider College, Lawrenceville, (1985), Healy chuckled when she told of her initial introduction to the education field at St. Paul School.
She and her husband were registering Rebecca for kindergarten when Mercy Sister Peter Damian, principal, came right out and asked how they might use their talents as school volunteers.
“Right away Mike said that I was fluent in Spanish and asked Sister Peter if she needed a Spanish teacher,” Healy recalled. From there, she became the volunteer Spanish teacher for primary grade students.
Then, in 2003 she became a long-term substitute teacher in the language arts department for the middle school grades as the fourth grade teacher and the Spanish teacher for grades K-8.
All the while, Healy was working toward enhancing her own professional development by attaining a number of certificates – a principal and supervisor, elementary education, middle grades (language arts), high school English, Best Treatment for ADHD and Processing Disorders, then receiving a master’s degree in administration and leadership from Georgian Court University, Lakewood, in 2008. Healy’s career at St.
Paul School advanced when she was named vice principal in September, 2007. She was named principal at the end of last year following Sister Peter Damian’s retirement.
There were two recent activities at St. Paul School that Healy touted.
One was the high school fair she introduced last year for sixth and seventh graders and the other was an Academic Excellence Ice Cream Social that she and Father Michael Dunn, pastor of St. Katharine Drexel Parish, hosted for honor roll students in grades six to eight and their families.
The students participated in a “Jeopardy” contest, and then “Father Mike and I scooped ice cream for the kids,” said Healy.
One idea Healy has in mind for the new academic year, which will boast an enrollment of 330 students, includes enhancing the child-care program which is offered after school from 3 to 6 p.m. A new program director will be hired and new activities – arts and crafts, a showing of a monthly movie and expanded use of the school’s state-of-the-art computer lab – will be added as well as a service component in which student council members will coordinate various service projects for their peers.
Acknowledging the retirement of Sister Peter Damian, who served as principal for 34 years, and the school’s 50th anniversary last year, Healy said that it’s important to her “that we honor the traditions of the past, but it’s also important that as a community, we grow into the future.”
“A Catholic school is especially a place where children and adults can discover their God-given talents and learn how to use those talents to make a difference in the world,” she said.
“It’s a place where people can become what God intended them to be.”
