La Salle Academy
Conducted by the Brothers of the Christian Schools
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Febuary 2016
Dear Lasallian Family,
Shoes…He gave him his shoes.
The La Salle Academy English Lit teacher and Head Track Coach found out that one of his
students had no shoes for school, except for the worn-out sneakers that he had shoe-polished black that
summer. So the young teacher, who barely had two nickels to rub together himself … well – he
reached under his desk and gave him his own shoes and wore sneakers that day to school.
This happened this past Fall at La Salle Academy. How did I find out? The young man came
to me quietly one morning and, with tears welling up in his eyes, he told me the story, because he
thought that “…someone ought to know. But don’t tell anyone that it was me, or that I had put shoe
polish on my shoes, OK?” I hugged the boy and walked down the stairwell and I quietly cried for a
while. A long while.
This is my fourth President’s letter in my 18 months here and perhaps the most exciting one
since we started them. They get easier each time with all the good things happening, thanks so much to
your support and the dedicated work of the Brothers, teachers and tremendous staff here at La Salle. I
address it to you personally as a loyal member of the La Salle family. A family that has its roots in La
Salle since 1848. We continue to make our way again to the top of every academic, financial and
educational pyramid there is, never forgetting we are still the place and living legacy of St. John
Baptist de la Salle.
This September 2015 marked the beginning of my second full academic year at La Salle. My
New Year’s letter last year was full of vim and vigor, none of which has abated, not a whit. However,
added to the mix this year are some very fine deliverables, as well as the additional clarity, strategic
planning and focus to make things happen in a most productive way.
Allow me in the next few pages to take you through the details of the last year: our
successes, our plans, our challenges and our dreams. Each of you have been steady servants
and friends to this place, and you are owed this level of detail at the very least, and then some.
I was brought here to do a few finite and immediate things:
 to put La Salle in the black financially,
 to immediately address and raise the academic
rigor in every one of our classrooms,
(over, please)
1 1
44 East Second Street • New York, NY 10003-9269 • (212) 475-8940 • FAX (212) 529-3598
La Salle Academy
Conducted by the Brothers of the Christian Schools
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Febuary 2016
Dear Lasallian Family,
Shoes…He gave him his shoes.
The La Salle Academy English Lit teacher and Head Track Coach found out that one of his
students had no shoes for school, except for the worn-out sneakers that he had shoe-polished black that
summer. So the young teacher, who barely had two nickels to rub together himself … well – he
reached under his desk and gave him his own shoes and wore sneakers that day to school.
This happened this past Fall at La Salle Academy. How did I find out? The young man came
to me quietly one morning and, with tears welling up in his eyes, he told me the story, because he
thought that “…someone ought to know. But don’t tell anyone that it was me, or that I had put shoe
polish on my shoes, OK?” I hugged the boy and walked down the stairwell and I quietly cried for a
while. A long while.
This is my fourth President’s letter in my 18 months here and perhaps the most exciting one
since we started them. They get easier each time with all the good things happening, thanks so much to
your support and the dedicated work of the Brothers, teachers and tremendous staff here at La Salle. I
address it to you personally as a loyal member of the La Salle family. A family that has its roots in La
Salle since 1848. We continue to make our way again to the top of every academic, financial and
educational pyramid there is, never forgetting we are still the place and living legacy of St. John
Baptist de la Salle.
This September 2015 marked the beginning of my second full academic year at La Salle. My
New Year’s letter last year was full of vim and vigor, none of which has abated, not a whit. However,
added to the mix this year are some very fine deliverables, as well as the additional clarity, strategic
planning and focus to make things happen in a most productive way.
Allow me in the next few pages to take you through the details of the last year: our
successes, our plans, our challenges and our dreams. Each of you have been steady servants
and friends to this place, and you are owed this level of detail at the very least, and then some.
I was brought here to do a few finite and immediate things:
 to put La Salle in the black financially,
 to immediately address and raise the academic
rigor in every one of our classrooms,
(over, please)
44 East Second Street • New York, NY 10003-9269 • (212) 475-8940 • FAX (212) 529-3598
  to see to it that the future of La Salle has a strategic plan
and a succession plan that puts the next 168 years in a
peaceful place.
The Financial Picture
We start here because this was the first order of business last year. The strained financial
story at La Salle Academy was the reason for the move to 6th street and this lack of resources was
the reason for the 25-year drop in our admissions pool. I spent the lion’s share of my first 12
months “righting this ship.” In fiscal 2014-2015, we were able to put La Salle in the black for the
first time in a very long time and were able to place close to a half-million dollars in an escrow
account for academic moves for the future. These monies allowed us, to quote Trustee Chair Val
Lehr, “to plan academically in peace for the first time in a long time.” This Fall, we doubled the
numbers of guidance officers and increased the faculty line to an additional three faculty
members.
These financial advances enabled us to:
* hire a full-time Director of Ministry.
* advance plan and fund dozens of extracurricular programs that never existed
before.
* increase funding to athletics considerably.
* pour significant money into our technology infrastructure at 6th street, which was
non-existent.
* give our faculty a 2.5% raise (plus an education lockstep tacked on to their
salary), and a set of additional workplace perks.
* continue to subsidize trips and programs in ADVANCE of the academic year.
* fund – for the first time ever - a superior marketing campaign for recruitment,
replete with unmatched, college-level materials, a full-page ad in The New York
Times, and an aggressive city-wide recruitment campaign with experts brought to
bear for La Salle (online, in the field and beyond).
The results are coming in and still being counted
This fiscal year 2015-2016, which we are half-way through, would appear to match our
“new normal” and then blow the new threshold to the heavens. VP of Institutional Advancement
and Communications, Ismini Scouras, was brought here in September 2014 for this exact reason,
and she has delivered. She and her crackerjack team (which now includes a full-time Director of
Grants and Foundations) has managed to triple the output from the year before she and I arrived at
La Salle (2014), doubled her own output from last year and do so in only half a year. We are
planning to put the overage again in the escrow account for a rainy day. We may end up
again with more than a half-million dollars over our development budget.
It must be noted that the financial need of the vast majority of our students remains
quite intense, and our bottom line will require that this level of fundraising remain intact to
backfill the Financial Aid needs that our boys come to school with. Period.
2 2
 to see to it that the future of La Salle has a strategic plan
and a succession plan that puts the next 168 years in a
peaceful place.
The Financial Picture
We start here because this was the first order of business last year. The strained financial
story at La Salle Academy was the reason for the move to 6th street and this lack of resources was
the reason for the 25-year drop in our admissions pool. I spent the lion’s share of my first 12
months “righting this ship.” In fiscal 2014-2015, we were able to put La Salle in the black for the
first time in a very long time and were able to place close to a half-million dollars in an escrow
account for academic moves for the future. These monies allowed us, to quote Trustee Chair Val
Lehr, “to plan academically in peace for the first time in a long time.” This Fall, we doubled the
numbers of guidance officers and increased the faculty line to an additional three faculty
members.
These financial advances enabled us to:
* hire a full-time Director of Ministry.
* advance plan and fund dozens of extracurricular programs that never existed
before.
* increase funding to athletics considerably.
* pour significant money into our technology infrastructure at 6th street, which was
non-existent.
* give our faculty a 2.5% raise (plus an education lockstep tacked on to their
salary), and a set of additional workplace perks.
* continue to subsidize trips and programs in ADVANCE of the academic year.
* fund – for the first time ever - a superior marketing campaign for recruitment,
replete with unmatched, college-level materials, a full-page ad in The New York
Times, and an aggressive city-wide recruitment campaign with experts brought to
bear for La Salle (online, in the field and beyond).
The results are coming in and still being counted
This fiscal year 2015-2016, which we are half-way through, would appear to match our
“new normal” and then blow the new threshold to the heavens. VP of Institutional Advancement
and Communications, Ismini Scouras, was brought here in September 2014 for this exact reason,
and she has delivered. She and her crackerjack team (which now includes a full-time Director of
Grants and Foundations) has managed to triple the output from the year before she and I arrived at
La Salle (2014), doubled her own output from last year and do so in only half a year. We are
planning to put the overage again in the escrow account for a rainy day. We may end up
again with more than a half-million dollars over our development budget.
It must be noted that the financial need of the vast majority of our students remains
quite intense, and our bottom line will require that this level of fundraising remain intact to
backfill the Financial Aid needs that our boys come to school with. Period.
 Mary Kenny, our VP of Finance and Operations, has managed our fiscal processes with a
deft hand, creating and maintaining sets of checks and balances that never existed before at
La Salle. She has instituted monthly financial reviews with our Trustees, to the penny,
and has created internal polices of budgetary and financial process that has us running like a
machine and being internally held to a level of accountability that we must demand and ensure for
the future.
Admissions and Recruitment
Admissions and Recruitment was an early priority last year. But this Academic Year 2015-
16, it began to have a laser focus. This September, I began to call myself “The Chief Recruiter in
Charge.” I personally began to recruit boys, literally, in their own living rooms …good, classic,
hard-working boys, ones whose lives would be immeasurably changed by La Salle. Anthony
Chin, Director of Admissions, has had an explosive last two years. He has toiled in anonymity for
over ten years and without any resources, guideposts or leadership. With the new marketing
materials in hand, and an aggressive team of consultants - online experts and mailing experts –
and with a significant advertisement budget, Anthony was then able to leverage his tremendous
pool of relationships in the field to prove himself the best in the business.
This September’s freshmen class was, again, over capacity, as we overshot our 2014
numbers and had to turn boys away due to space constraints. This class, in addition, was a
superior academic class than from in recent years, with their cumulative grade point average from
elementary moved up to a B/B-plus, up from a B-minus/C-plus from 2013.
The Fall 2016 crop of boys for La Salle promises to be, again, even more extraordinary
than last year. In October, we hosted over 600 families at La Salle for our Open House, which was
200 more than last year. This application year (which closed last month) saw La Salle DOUBLE
its number of applications from the previous year. Furthermore, the numbers of boys that placed
us first on the entrance exam increased more than 50% and the number that placed us
second increased 100%. For the first time in a generation, and with a focus on working class and
middle class families in Brooklyn and Queens, we received chunks of applications from Bay
Ridge, Bayside, Park Slope, Staten Island and the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, and
Chelsea. This will allow for the planned diversification of our student body, with boys hailing
from all ethnicities, boroughs, socio-economic backgrounds and neighborhoods. We are looking
to take over 125 boys (possibly 150). This is in stark comparison to our present, graduating senior
class, which is just over 70 students.
Academics still comes First
This is where the rubber meets the road. Academic rigor and the pursuit of a renewed
excellence in our classrooms were the primary goals given to me by the Trustees when I landed at
La Salle. Finally, this past summer, we were able to dig into this, and aggressively. Working
(over, please)
3 3
Mary Kenny, our VP of Finance and Operations, has managed our fiscal processes with a
deft hand, creating and maintaining sets of checks and balances that never existed before at
La Salle. She has instituted monthly financial reviews with our Trustees, to the penny,
and has created internal polices of budgetary and financial process that has us running like a
machine and being internally held to a level of accountability that we must demand and ensure for
the future.
Admissions and Recruitment
Admissions and Recruitment was an early priority last year. But this Academic Year 2015-
16, it began to have a laser focus. This September, I began to call myself “The Chief Recruiter in
Charge.” I personally began to recruit boys, literally, in their own living rooms …good, classic,
hard-working boys, ones whose lives would be immeasurably changed by La Salle. Anthony
Chin, Director of Admissions, has had an explosive last two years. He has toiled in anonymity for
over ten years and without any resources, guideposts or leadership. With the new marketing
materials in hand, and an aggressive team of consultants - online experts and mailing experts –
and with a significant advertisement budget, Anthony was then able to leverage his tremendous
pool of relationships in the field to prove himself the best in the business.
This September’s freshmen class was, again, over capacity, as we overshot our 2014
numbers and had to turn boys away due to space constraints. This class, in addition, was a
superior academic class than from in recent years, with their cumulative grade point average from
elementary moved up to a B/B-plus, up from a B-minus/C-plus from 2013.
The Fall 2016 crop of boys for La Salle promises to be, again, even more extraordinary
than last year. In October, we hosted over 600 families at La Salle for our Open House, which was
200 more than last year. This application year (which closed last month) saw La Salle DOUBLE
its number of applications from the previous year. Furthermore, the numbers of boys that placed
us first on the entrance exam increased more than 50% and the number that placed us
second increased 100%. For the first time in a generation, and with a focus on working class and
middle class families in Brooklyn and Queens, we received chunks of applications from Bay
Ridge, Bayside, Park Slope, Staten Island and the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, and
Chelsea. This will allow for the planned diversification of our student body, with boys hailing
from all ethnicities, boroughs, socio-economic backgrounds and neighborhoods. We are looking
to take over 125 boys (possibly 150). This is in stark comparison to our present, graduating senior
class, which is just over 70 students.
Academics still comes First
This is where the rubber meets the road. Academic rigor and the pursuit of a renewed
excellence in our classrooms were the primary goals given to me by the Trustees when I landed at
La Salle. Finally, this past summer, we were able to dig into this, and aggressively. Working
(over, please)
inside a vacuum, and with renewed resources, we started a Faculty and Staff Assessment Process.
Beginning this September, every faculty member at La Salle is being observed six times per
academic year, including twice by me. Rubrics for faculty assessment and professional
development are being developed by our Trustees Subcommittee on the same, led by Trustees
Candace Hammonds, whose Dad went to La Salle, Vice Chair Sal LaRocca (’82), Brother Ralph
Darmento FSC, Antwan Allen (’97) and others. All faculty members must engage in a process to
get their Master’s Degree and also their certification in their fields of teaching. Beginning in
September 2016, La Salle has earmarked funds for our faculty to get advanced degrees and
professional development. This is how we will recruit, retain and develop our La Salle faculty to
be the best in the city. For the first time, every Department Chair has created a school-wide,
discipline-level academic project for every student that is embedded in their curricula.
So, for the first time in a LONG while, this year we are having a school-wide Science
Fair, History Fair, Poetry Contest, a Math athletes Competition, and a ministry/religion class
project. This gets added onto the school-wide Art Expo that Fine Arts Chair, Trustee and Faculty
member Ann Straub has been running at La Salle for generations. We also added FOUR academic
resource centers for help after school, every day, including a Writing Center, Math Center,
Science Center and Tech Resource Center. These provide steady homework, project and remedial
help that is discipline-specific.
I have to say it… “Now we are cooking.”
Expanding their interests with Specialty Programs
Just in case you thought otherwise, we have grown and added to our fledgling programs
that we initiated last year. These programs are now our flagships– La Salle in the City (our
action-based, curriculum-based program where students now visit over 40 locales) and La
SalleWORKS (our apprenticeship program for upperclassmen that has been expanded to 90- plus
opportunities) have become cornerstones of our recruitment and our academic life at La Salle. We
have added La Salle@2:30, which was the planful explosion of our after-school activities this
Fall, to over 30 programs, up from only eight the year before. We added activities like our
Federal Reserve Challenge Team, a Debate Team, a Student Ambassador Team, our Ministry
Team, a Green/Sustainability Team and dozen others. And in September 2016, we are proud to
announce -- with great, great, fanfare we are bringing back the storied La Salle Band! Because, at
La Salle, we know that learning does not end “at the bell” and that we must attack our boys’
multiple intelligences where they are, and with a nuanced and steady hand.
Partnerships for Today and Tomorrow
This year, I made it a personal priority to grow and expand our outside partnerships, and
La Salle has benefited tremendously. A bit of explanation …
 STEM Partners: With the dual ‘action’ of Cooper Union and Microsoft, La Salle has
blasted its way to the top of the heap in STEM programming in NYC. Thanks to our
partnership with Microsoft, beginning this past September, every frosh at La Salle gets a
top-of-the-line Surface Pro Tablet, and the tablet work is deeply embedded in the
4 4
inside a vacuum, and with renewed resources, we started a Faculty and Staff Assessment Process.
Beginning this September, every faculty member at La Salle is being observed six times per
academic year, including twice by me. Rubrics for faculty assessment and professional
development are being developed by our Trustees Subcommittee on the same, led by Trustees
Candace Hammonds, whose Dad went to La Salle, Vice Chair Sal LaRocca (’82), Brother Ralph
Darmento FSC, Antwan Allen (’97) and others. All faculty members must engage in a process to
get their Master’s Degree and also their certification in their fields of teaching. Beginning in
September 2016, La Salle has earmarked funds for our faculty to get advanced degrees and
professional development. This is how we will recruit, retain and develop our La Salle faculty to
be the best in the city. For the first time, every Department Chair has created a school-wide,
discipline-level academic project for every student that is embedded in their curricula.
So, for the first time in a LONG while, this year we are having a school-wide Science
Fair, History Fair, Poetry Contest, a Math athletes Competition, and a ministry/religion class
project. This gets added onto the school-wide Art Expo that Fine Arts Chair, Trustee and Faculty
member Ann Straub has been running at La Salle for generations. We also added FOUR academic
resource centers for help after school, every day, including a Writing Center, Math Center,
Science Center and Tech Resource Center. These provide steady homework, project and remedial
help that is discipline-specific.
I have to say it… “Now we are cooking.”
Expanding their interests with Specialty Programs
Just in case you thought otherwise, we have grown and added to our fledgling programs
that we initiated last year. These programs are now our flagships– La Salle in the City (our
action-based, curriculum-based program where students now visit over 40 locales) and La
SalleWORKS (our apprenticeship program for upperclassmen that has been expanded to 90- plus
opportunities) have become cornerstones of our recruitment and our academic life at La Salle. We
have added La Salle@2:30, which was the planful explosion of our after-school activities this
Fall, to over 30 programs, up from only eight the year before. We added activities like our
Federal Reserve Challenge Team, a Debate Team, a Student Ambassador Team, our Ministry
Team, a Green/Sustainability Team and dozen others. And in September 2016, we are proud to
announce -- with great, great, fanfare we are bringing back the storied La Salle Band! Because, at
La Salle, we know that learning does not end “at the bell” and that we must attack our boys’
multiple intelligences where they are, and with a nuanced and steady hand.
Partnerships for Today and Tomorrow
This year, I made it a personal priority to grow and expand our outside partnerships, and
La Salle has benefited tremendously. A bit of explanation …
 STEM Partners: With the dual ‘action’ of Cooper Union and Microsoft, La Salle has
blasted its way to the top of the heap in STEM programming in NYC. Thanks to our
partnership with Microsoft, beginning this past September, every frosh at La Salle gets a
top-of-the-line Surface Pro Tablet, and the tablet work is deeply embedded in the
 pedagogy in each classroom (having hired a curriculum expert in this field to drive the
faculty acumen). We have, literally, the tiger by the tail with our Cooper Union
Partnership. We continue to have five scholarship seats in its prestigious Summer STEM
program. Cooper has developed a twice-weekly, after-school curriculum for a dozen of
our juniors. And in February we will launch “La Salle STEM Saturdays,” in which a
dozen freshmen will engage in an intensive 15-Saturday program that will focus on
robotics and architectural engineering technology, and again, more “inventing.” To be
blunt, there is NOTHING like this partnership, anywhere, in NYC, for high school
students. The plan is to add four additional programs to the partnership by September
2016.
 St. John’s University: St. John’s is becoming a great partner with La Salle. This year,
SJU opened its Graduate School of Business across the street from La Salle, on Astor
Place. This February, we will be announcing a Business Curriculum Partnership with
SJU, which will expand our Entrepreneurial/Business offerings and after-school
programming in this area. Stay tuned!
 Our Lasallian College Partners: Also in the Spring of 2016, we will be announcing and
launching two new initiatives with BOTH our Lasallian college partners in the
northeast, Manhattan College and La Salle University in Philadelphia. The
programming will focus, respectively, on faculty professional development and STEM
(Manhattan College) and literature, debate and reading programming (La Salle
University). Again, stay tuned.
 St. Joseph High School: We have launched a curriculum and programmatic,
aggressive partnership with St. Joseph HS, a storied all-girls Catholic high school in
downtown Brooklyn run by the Josephites. We are blessed to work so closely with
such an outstanding high school … details will be formally announced in Fall of 2016.
The Plan
Over the next few years, we have to engage in a series of good, complex sets of thinking on
multiple planes. The good problem that we have now is space – we continue to be increasingly over-
capacity at our present, temporary home at St. George Academy. We are planning to squeeze in a
total of 125 freshmen (25 over our present capacity) somewhere at the location for Fall 2016, but we
are presently exploring several short-term plans to “spell” us for interim space. This one- to three-
year cushion will allow us some breathing room to decide where our next, full-time home will be.
There are eight years left on both leases – that with St. George and the lease for our tenants at 44 2nd
Street. Might we look to come back home early? Can we? Might we look at other real estate plans in
the years to come? I think we must.
Our next real estate steps must dovetail with strategic planning about the infusion of girls into
our school population. Should the girls come when we have a handle on our “new/old” space? Why
spend money to retrofit a building that is not ours for girls when we currently don’t have space for
the BOYS who are clamoring to attend La Salle?
And all of this – this new, future, planful narrative of La Salle – should be safely vetted and
(over, please)
5 5
pedagogy in each classroom (having hired a curriculum expert in this field to drive the
faculty acumen). We have, literally, the tiger by the tail with our Cooper Union
Partnership. We continue to have five scholarship seats in its prestigious Summer STEM
program. Cooper has developed a twice-weekly, after-school curriculum for a dozen of
our juniors. And in February we will launch “La Salle STEM Saturdays,” in which a
dozen freshmen will engage in an intensive 15-Saturday program that will focus on
robotics and architectural engineering technology, and again, more “inventing.” To be
blunt, there is NOTHING like this partnership, anywhere, in NYC, for high school
students. The plan is to add four additional programs to the partnership by September
2016.
 St. John’s University: St. John’s is becoming a great partner with La Salle. This year,
SJU opened its Graduate School of Business across the street from La Salle, on Astor
Place. This February, we will be announcing a Business Curriculum Partnership with
SJU, which will expand our Entrepreneurial/Business offerings and after-school
programming in this area. Stay tuned!
 Our Lasallian College Partners: Also in the Spring of 2016, we will be announcing and
launching two new initiatives with BOTH our Lasallian college partners in the
northeast, Manhattan College and La Salle University in Philadelphia. The
programming will focus, respectively, on faculty professional development and STEM
(Manhattan College) and literature, debate and reading programming (La Salle
University). Again, stay tuned.
 St. Joseph High School: We have launched a curriculum and programmatic,
aggressive partnership with St. Joseph HS, a storied all-girls Catholic high school in
downtown Brooklyn run by the Josephites. We are blessed to work so closely with
such an outstanding high school … details will be formally announced in Fall of 2016.
The Plan
Over the next few years, we have to engage in a series of good, complex sets of thinking on
multiple planes. The good problem that we have now is space – we continue to be increasingly over-
capacity at our present, temporary home at St. George Academy. We are planning to squeeze in a
total of 125 freshmen (25 over our present capacity) somewhere at the location for Fall 2016, but we
are presently exploring several short-term plans to “spell” us for interim space. This one- to three-
year cushion will allow us some breathing room to decide where our next, full-time home will be.
There are eight years left on both leases – that with St. George and the lease for our tenants at 44 2nd
Street. Might we look to come back home early? Can we? Might we look at other real estate plans in
the years to come? I think we must.
Our next real estate steps must dovetail with strategic planning about the infusion of girls into
our school population. Should the girls come when we have a handle on our “new/old” space? Why
spend money to retrofit a building that is not ours for girls when we currently don’t have space for
the BOYS who are clamoring to attend La Salle?
And all of this – this new, future, planful narrative of La Salle – should be safely vetted and
(over, please)
secured before we engage our next great capital campaign. Inside the next year to eighteen
months, we will launch a major fundraising effort to raise “never-again money.” La Salle needs an
endowment for scholarships and beyond, so that never again will our future be uncertain due to
financial restraints or concerns. Never again will we have to question whether we need to
abandon our social justice mission for financial reasons … so that every boy (boys like you all
once were) who deserves to go to La Salle gets here, regardless of his means.
So that, well, like my Track Coach, we can give them ALL shoes - shoes to walk the walk,
to walk in the footsteps of those who have come before them, to walk in the footprints and be the
living, breathing legacy of St. John Baptist de la Salle. So that none of them, ever again, will be
without the shot, the chance, to walk with us.
I ask you, each of you, to keep walking with me. The road has been, and continues to be,
that which is less travelled. There is leadership, there is a mindfulness and exuberance to this
place. But we must keep walking, keep moving, keep our mission and our pathways intact.
See you all on the road to La Salle, and since Sister Mary Veronica made me memorize
this in the seventh grade, allow me to pull up Robert Frost’s words in this context, that in “taking
the road less traveled by, THAT has made all the difference.”
Live Jesus in our hearts forever.
Warmest personal regards,
Dr. Catherine Guerriero, President
6 6
secured before we engage our next great capital campaign. Inside the next year to eighteen
months, we will launch a major fundraising effort to raise “never-again money.” La Salle needs an
endowment for scholarships and beyond, so that never again will our future be uncertain due to
financial restraints or concerns. Never again will we have to question whether we need to
abandon our social justice mission for financial reasons … so that every boy (boys like you all
once were) who deserves to go to La Salle gets here, regardless of his means.
So that, well, like my Track Coach, we can give them ALL shoes - shoes to walk the walk,
to walk in the footsteps of those who have come before them, to walk in the footprints and be the
living, breathing legacy of St. John Baptist de la Salle. So that none of them, ever again, will be
without the shot, the chance, to walk with us.
I ask you, each of you, to keep walking with me. The road has been, and continues to be,
that which is less travelled. There is leadership, there is a mindfulness and exuberance to this
place. But we must keep walking, keep moving, keep our mission and our pathways intact.
See you all on the road to La Salle, and since Sister Mary Veronica made me memorize
this in the seventh grade, allow me to pull up Robert Frost’s words in this context, that in “taking
the road less traveled by, THAT has made all the difference.”
Live Jesus in our hearts forever.
Warmest personal regards,
Dr. Catherine Guerriero, President