A new academic year welcomes new principals in two of the diocese’s Catholic schools, with Tina Anderson at Corpus Christi in Chambersburg and Christina Frizzell at St. Joseph in Hanover. Visits to both schools during the first week of classes unveiled principals eager to celebrate and showcase Catholic identity, nurturing environments and high standards.
Foundations at Corpus Christi
While most might not give second thought to the walls of their school, Tina Anderson has great appreciation for the concrete building blocks and stone-lined stairwells at Corpus Christi School. They offer a teachable moment about foundations.
“There’s nothing like the stacked bricks, blocks and stones of a Catholic school. They give us the visual of an upward climb from a sturdy foundation. We see how dependent we are upon those behind us and the path we’re setting for others going forward,” she said.
Anderson understands that she’s part of the continuum, even though this is her first year at Corpus Christi. A self-described “generational and institutional Catholic” who is a Catholic school graduate, parent and educator, Anderson grew up and attended schools in the Archdiocese of Washington. She was an elementary student at St. Peter’s in Waldorf, Md., attended the all-girls La Reine High School, run by the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters, and sent her children to St. Mary’s in Hagerstown and Visitation Academy in Frederick, working at the latter as a first-grade teacher and then in administration after starting out as a university professor.
She shares a “feel-felt-found” expression to show students and parents she’s been in their shoes.
“I can honestly say to them, ‘I know how you feel. I felt the same way, and here’s what I found…,’” she said. “It helps them see that while I might not know all the ins and outs specifically of Corpus Christi, we are catholic and Catholic – a lowercase c for our capital c Catholic family.”
Experience as a consultant for private schools is also part of the tool bag Anderson carries to ensure the foundational bricks remain firm and support new growth.
When Visitation Academy closed, meeting the fate of her high school alma mater, she worked for several years as an educational consultant to help tackle the issue of school closures.
“Visitation’s closing was life-changing because it wasn’t just my formation, it was where my children were formed and raised in the faith, so it was not just disorienting but re-orienting for me in the sense that it made me want to find out what was happening that our Catholic schools were closing,” Anderson said.
When she saw the principal position at Corpus Christi was available, she reached out with the intention of discerning whether the school would be interested in her consulting services.
God had other plans.
“It was completely the Holy Spirit guiding me here,” said Anderson, a member of St. Andrew Parish in Waynesboro. Her jump back into the Catholic school setting, she said, is “from a platform that brings ideas, concepts and working solutions.”
“On one hand, it’s almost like I never left; on the other hand, I’m grateful for the experience of working from a 30,000-foot view and having a different perspective of helping our schools grow and thrive.”
“I am here for the whole of this school community,” Anderson said, marveling at the many families who have generations of Corpus Christi graduates, the new families starting this year and the ethnically diverse families who celebrate their culture and their faith.
In the opening days of the school year, Anderson accompanied Father Alan Wolfe, pastor, and Father Benjamin Kwaghgba, OP, parochial vicar, as they blessed students and classrooms and offered prayers for a successful year. Anderson gave each student a booklet that can be stamped, passport-style, each time they attend Mass to illustrate their spiritual growth and closer connection to Jesus.
Anderson is a proponent of showcasing the Catholic identity of our schools.
“We are Catholic first – hard stop,” she said. “We need to do a better job of marketing ourselves at all times, specifically showing intentional prayer, service efforts and how we leave a footprint in the community. That’s the difference in Catholic education, and we must be unapologetic in showing it.”
Setting Standards at St. Joseph’s
For Christina Frizzell, holding students to high standards and showing them they’re loved as children of God is a recipe for success in Catholic education.
As the new principal at St. Joseph School in Hanover and a longtime teacher and volunteer in the Adams Deanery, she’s been sharing this recipe for decades, one shaped by a high school drama teacher and a college professor of literature who helped form her as a Catholic school educator.
“My drama teacher, Roberta Gore, paid attention to things. She knew her students and would always tell us how proud she was of us,” Frizzell said. “I’ve always tried to follow that paradigm, because not every child comes into school feeling loved and sometimes, they don’t associate themselves in a positive way. So, I’ve always taken the approach of telling them how proud I am for who they are and what they do, and I tell them exactly why.”
When Frizzell was attending the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore, literature professor Sister Margaret Mahoney, SSND, communicated her care for students, too, although in a demanding way.
“She was strict, there was no doubt about it. She held us to a high standard, and we wanted to do well,” Frizzell said. “She wanted the best for us and when we achieved it, we were proud of ourselves.”
“We owe it to our students to set a high standard,” said Frizzell. She was raised in Carroll County, Maryland, started teaching immediately after college graduation and enrolled all four of her children in Catholic school; the youngest is a junior at Delone Catholic in McSherrystown.
While her kids were in school, she taught night classes for the State Department of Education for 16 years. But she and her husband kept local ties to Catholic schools, volunteering at Vacation Bible School and in robotics classes, assisting with school fundraisers, serving as marching band boosters and operating concession stands.
“Volunteering allowed us to form relationships with parents and to learn about the community and the people in it,” she said.
In 2017, she was hired as an English teacher at St. Teresa of Calcutta School and later enrolled in the Diocese of Harrisburg’s Principals Academy to earn a master’s in education through Immaculata University. She’s currently working on her doctorate through the same program and will focus her dissertation on literacy in Catholic education.
“Reading, writing, listening, speaking – our ability to communicate is incredibly important,” Frizzell said. “Approaching writing from different modalities and making sure that we target every kind of learner is critical.”
“I absolutely love every part of teaching,” said Frizzell, who, as principal, still finds opportunities to be among students at recess, in the car line, at school Masses, or high fiving them as they pass in the hallway.
“I’m blessed to be able to serve St. Joseph School in this role. It’s an amazing opportunity to continue to support and allow Catholic education to grow within the diocese, especially in this area,” she said.
“This is an amazing school. There is cultural diversity to be celebrated here, and we have loving, dedicated teachers who want to do the best for the students,” Frizzell added. “Students today need to feel safe and loved, secure in their environment. Catholic schools provide that. There are people here to cherish them and see them as the gift from God they truly are. Everything follows from there.”
Learn about Catholic schools in the Diocese of Harrisburg at www.gocatholicschools.org.
(Photos by Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
