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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sweet Sister

Sister Loretta Giampietri doesn’t rap knuckles. Nor does she believe anymore in punishment.

Increasingly over the past 15 years, the Spokane native has led St. Paschal’s School with kindness and understanding.

The school hasn’t grown during those years, but those who know it believe it’s a jewel, due in part to its smallness.

Enrollment has perpetually remained under capacity of the 1940 building. Sister Loretta calculates for a minute, reaching a total potential of 140 students.

This year’s enrollment is about 100, not counting the children in the adjoining St. Paschal’s Educare.

“We’ve broken a hundred a couple of years. But we don’t have a waiting list. If we did…”

Sister Loretta clearly has worked through this conundrum countless times. She knows growth can breed more growth. Yet, the very size of the school creates both a sense of jeopardy - and its richness and sense of family.

“The parents love the size,” said Dan Hill, the seventh- and eighth-grade teacher. “And the students who transfer in really like it. They know everyone in the school.”

Sister Loretta said she believes that keeping the junior high students in an elementary school pays off. “It keeps them sensitive to the needs of the little ones,” as well as easing adolescent peer pressure.

Two weeks into the school year, the families of St. Paschal’s School had sold enough candy bars to raise $12,731.

For St. Paschal’s, the smallest and most modest of three Catholic schools in the Valley, that’s an important sum. As in most Catholic schools, the parish subsidizes the school. And, to keep tuition down, the parents annually agree to raise $25,000 of the school budget. Each family agrees to volunteer for at least 80 hours. Failing that, parents face an extra assessment. Also, the school is using a new scrip program that brings in donations from merchants.

Such are the realities of keeping a Catholic school open.

At an assembly congratulating the top candy sellers, all the children, teachers and several volunteer moms fit into a faculty room smaller than most public school classrooms. Some older kids get comfortable on overstuffed, middle-aged couches. Others make do with the carpeted floor. Except for the school uniforms, it feels a bit like a family reunion.

The grades, except kindergarten, are all multi-age: first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth.

Sister Loretta went through school herself in the same system. Each “even” year, she remembers, was easier than the previous one.

“I attribute that to the fact that a lot of the material I heard vicariously the year before,” as her teacher worked with the older children.

Hill remembers Sister Loretta as a teacher. He had her in sixth-grade at All Saints School in Spokane.

“She was strict … That’s the year I learned how to study and how to write,” he said.

Now, Sister Loretta is known for her sense of humor, and as an organized administrator who always finds small ways to improve her school - a piece of carpet here, a new flagpole there. She is the only nun still leading a school in the Spokane diocese.

The emphasis on rigorous discipline has changed, both in the Catholic schools and in other churches, Sister Loretta said. A generation or more ago, most churches focused on wrong-doing.

“Remember, many of our Catholic schools were run by religious who immigrated to this country. That was the way they knew, the way they were raised.

“That was a time when penance and austerity made you holy. The more you sacrificed, the more you were holy.”

But under Vatican II, Catholics came to believe in a more loving God.

To fallen away Catholics who remember the knuckle-rappings of their youth, Sister Loretta says: “I feel badly for the people who blame the sisters who trained them in the past. They (the sisters) were doing the best they knew.”

Today, Sister Loretta believes in the power of straightforward communication with her students, as well as a hug, a kind word and a piece of candy. The candy jar on her desk looks well used.

“The kinder I am to them, I’ve noticed, the more responsive they are to me,” she said.

About 10 percent of St. Paschal’s students this year are not Catholic, down from a usual fraction of about one-third. Sister knows that not every child in her care will embrace the Catholic faith.

“Please God that you find a God you can be faithful to.”

She tells of one rowdy little girl who assessed her discipline this way: “You scolded me in a quiet voice. I liked that.”

Sister Loretta also works toward compromise. Last year, a boy who liked to experiment with his hair came to school with part of his hair pulled up in a ponytail and “The Knights” - the name of his soccer team - shaved into the back of his head.

He was an eighth-grader and the head of the student council. This wouldn’t do.

The nun explained to the student that he had to shave off the message, or he couldn’t continue in his office. He resigned. She persevered.

Finally, a face-saving solution was found.

“We realized that if he let his (longer) hair hang down over the shaved part, it looked like normal hair,” she said.

If boys fight on the playground, her usual solution is for the two offenders to stay in from recess the next day and play a game of chess or checkers.

“That way, they have to talk to each other and work it out.”

If a student disrupts class, he or she may be sent to Sister Loretta’s office - located in what was originally the formal entryway of the school. From there, he is sent back to class, charged with making an apology.

“Aren’t you going to call my father?” one boy asked her.

“No, I think this will be very difficult for you,” she replied.

“Public scene equals public apology. Private scene equals private apology.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)