St. Agnes welcomes new principal

Saint Agnes Cathedral School in Rockville Centre welcomed a new leader last month. Principal Cecilia St. John has an extensive background in Catholic school education.

After graduating from Molloy College with a bachelor’s degree in history and elementary education in 1987, she began teaching at Saint Anastasia School in Douglaston, Queens. There she taught grades four, six, seven and eight.

“I always knew education would be what I was doing with my life,” St. John said. “I love the classroom setting, but I never knew I would be principal.”

After Saint Anastasia, she returned to school at Adelphi to study for a master’s in secondary education and social studies, grades seven to 12, while raising her children. She returned to teaching in 1999 at Saint Thomas the Apostle School in West Hempstead.

After more than 20 years of teaching in a middle school setting, St. John returned to Adelphi for a second master’s in school administration, finishing at the top of her class in 2009. She then became principal of Saint Dominic’s in Oyster Bay, where she remained for seven years.

Toward the end of her tenure at Saint Dominic’s, she decided it was time for a change. St. Agnes had an outstanding reputation, but she was unsure whether she could live up to it. “I heard it was very well run, and the two principals prior really dedicated themselves,” she recalled. “It’s a high-performing school, so putting my name in the pile was one thing I took very seriously.”

After a month on the job, St. John’s concerns evaporated. “It’s been a little slice of heaven,” she said happily. “So far, so good.”

The experience, however, has had its challenges. Coming from St. Dominic’s, which has 300 students, to one of the largest Catholic schools in the country, with over 700 students, getting to know everyone has been her first priority. “I’ve met just about every major group — the school board, the mothers’ club, the fathers’ club, the whole pastoral team,” she said. “Everyone’s been so helpful and wonderful.”

Amazed at the sense of community at Saint Agnes, St. John said she looks forward to getting to know all of the students’ names. “Thinking it’s so big and you’re just a number and a name is just not true,” she insisted. “Even thought it’s a large number of students, it’s very personal.”

Going forward, she will be looking to continue Saint Agnes’s reputation as a high-performing Catholic school. “I’ve spent my whole entire career in the Catholic school environment, and I appreciate faith-based education and a sense of community,” she emphasized. “I want to continue the mission of the school and the path the administrators set for it.”

But she’ll have to do that while still figuring out some of the technical bits. “I still haven’t quite managed the phones,” she joked.