Shuttle Principal Kathy Hicks Divides Her Time Between All Saints, Our Lady Fatima Schools And Teaches Algebra Too

Kathy Hicks, principal A fter a midday car accident seven years ago while driving from one school to the other, Principal Kathy Hicks told paramedics she didn’t want to go for a doctor’s examination.

Her back and neck hurt a bit, but as she told them: “I can’t go; I don’t have time for that.”

Seven years later, time is still precious. Hicks’ days begin at 7 a.m. and often stretch into the late night, but she still makes time to hug her students, scoot them toward their bus or teach algebra to eighth-graders three times a week.

As principal of both All Saints School and Our Lady of Fatima on the South Hill, she presides over buildings three miles apart.

Every day about noon, Hicks packs her briefcase and drives from the primary school, All Saints, to the middle school, Our Lady of Fatima.

She also doubles as a delivery person between the two schools, but that load lessened a bit when the schools installed fax machines.

Since Hicks commuted daily from one building to the other, staff and teachers would often bid her good-bye with a “by the way, could you deliver this over there?”

Such requests sometimes require four or five trips to her car, or enlisting children to help carry her work with her, said Teresa Verd, vice principal at All Saints.

But Hicks doesn’t mind playing delivery person, or whatever role is needed. After all, she’s been doing the daily jaunt for seven years, ever since she left a full-time teaching career at Gonzaga Prep, where she taught math and biology, to become principal of the schools.

In those years, the dark-haired woman with the espresso-colored eyes has adopted a mentoring program for new teachers, enlisted a battalion of volunteers and helped win Northwest Accreditation for the school.

That accreditation indicates that the school has high educational standards and long-term goals.

Her accomplishments have led teachers and staff to nominate Hicks for the annual Distinguished Principal for the Northwest Region.

Even in the midst of last week’s ice storm she remained at the helm. While the school closed, Hicks stayed busy.

“I organized a phone tree,” Hicks said “so that parents would know what was going on.”

On Monday, students at both schools returned to their classrooms.

“A lot of our students don’t have electricity in their homes, so they were glad to be back at school,” Hicks said. She made sure the buses ran virtually on time.

“They were no more than 10 or 15 minutes late,” she said.

That kind of dedication and organization leads people to describe her as an inspiring leader.

“She models everything that she wants us to be as teachers,” said Nick Senger, vice principal of the middle school, Our Lady of Fatima.

“She is very interested that new teachers feel welcome. She makes sure they have someone to talk to,” he said.

When a group of parents expressed interest in adding a foreign language program to the school’s curriculum, Hicks found volunteers to teach French and Spanish before regular school hours.

Though All Saints no longer has a French program, students can still study Spanish. They arrive one hour before regular classes to work with a volunteer teacher.

And while Hicks has implemented administrative changes, she has never totally left the front lines - the classroom.

Teaching algebra three times a week, she has frequent reminders about what it takes to prepare a lesson plan, motivate children to learn and grade papers.

Like Senger, Verd also describes Hicks as being a positive role model for teachers at school.

“You know how people have mood swings?” Verd said. “Well she doesn’t.

“She gets down and does things with you - rolls up her sleeves and works with you. She’s a terribly hard worker.”

But Verd says Hicks also has a playful side and loves to read, garden and grow roses.

“The first time we were planning for our first year she said, ‘Why don’t you stay overnight and we’ll have a slumber party?”’ Verd said.

The new St. Peter’s Church was finished last February but needed trees planted this summer.

“There was Hicks,” in shorts, old tennis shoes and a shovel in hand, Verd said.

In 1988, the two schools merged and Hicks arrived as principal. Today, enrollment totals 397, about equally divided between the grade school (kindergarten through fourth grade), and the middle school (fifth through eighth grades). About 20 percent of the school’s students aren’t Catholic, Hicks said.

“We don’t make a distinction between Catholic and non-Catholic,” Hicks said. The schools’ goal is to educate children and imbue them with a feeling of responsibility toward the larger community, she said.

Whatever a child’s faith, this year’s motto is, “We are called to be saints,” Hicks said.

“Last year each class adopted a mom in need,” Hicks said. “The kids collected food for her and clothing for her children.”

Students also worked on community projects for Habitat for Humanity, a group that builds homes for needy families, the principal said.

Though the children aren’t allowed to work directly on the house-raising projects, they scoured their neighborhoods for donations.

“They collected pennies. Even the kindergartners collected pennies,” she said. In a separate project they sold T-shirts through the South Hill parishes for the group.

Students also contribute to local parish projects, she said.

Hicks is especially proud of the primary school’s new gym, the old St. Peter’s Church building. The curved beams will be padded, but the former place of prayer now has a wooden floor and basketball court.

A good teacher, Hicks says, is “someone who loves kids, has enthusiasm, wants all children to excel, but understands they all learn differently.”

Ask Theresa Groshoff, a fourth-grade teacher, what a good principal is and she says Kathy Hicks.

“On occasions she’ll come into my classroom - spontaneously - and read or tell the children a story. She gives greatly of her time - too much I think. She gets run down,” Groshoff said.

Standing in the unfinished gym, Hicks said she couldn’t do her job without the support of a wonderful husband and staff.

The new gym will be finished in a few weeks. Next door another building is taking shape.

In a year, it will house the new administrative offices. Upon completion, Hicks will move out of her office, a former breezeway, and into the new building.

But the first priority was the gym so the children could play basketball and volleyball.

Hicks will have one new office and one old, but shuttling between schools won’t change.

“I have two offices, two computers, two sets of everything,” Hicks said. “I just lug everything else back and forth.”

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