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Nigel Jaquiss and Meg Remsen
Parents of Ry '17 and Nell '19
Why did you decide to send your children to Central Catholic?
MR: All three of our children went to Waldorf School through eighth grade. They had been used to a smaller environment, with twenty to thirty kids in their grade all through eighth grade. So we felt like them jumping into a public school would be too big a leap for them. So we started looking around for smaller schools. But they didn't want to go to any small private school like a Waldorf School. We had been coming to girls' basketball games here when they were younger. The team was very strong then. They always admired the school and wanted to go here. Especially the younger two.
When they came to visit each of them came home from their shadow day saying, 'Oh, I want to go there. We don't need to look anywhere else.' They just immediately felt comfortable with the environment and the people. They said everyone was really nice.
NJ: For several years our neighbor was Michael Harrington, part of the extended Harrington family. He always spoke very positively about Central Catholic. We had some other points of contact that were positive. We also live close by.
All the kids were athletic so they would play rec or neighborhood soccer or lacrosse with kids and then they wouldn't see them in school. So I think they wanted to go to high school with kids from their neighborhood.
MR: I also wanted them to be in a class of 20-25 kids and not 40. They wouldn't have known a soul there and here they knew some athletes. I wanted them to be at a place where they could look around and see kids who were engaged and doing their homework and were participating in discussions in class. Also, the classes were small enough that they could get to know their teachers and have a relationship with them. That had been the case for them at their Waldorf school as well. That wasn't as much of a change.
As kids get older they look outside of the family to find mentors or people to admire and look up to. I think there were a lot of teachers here, especially a lot of English teachers and Spanish teachers, whose classes they really enjoyed. I know Ms. Branscum, Ms. Quigley, Ms. Danek and Ms. Moore were all favorites.
NJ: They both also had Mr. Mullady as freshmen. I think freshmen are nervous and they aren't sure they are going to fit in, and we aren't Catholic. There are so many kids who come in knowing each other from Catholic feeder schools. I think someone like him really put them at ease. He has a good sense of humor. He's really into basketball as are both of them. He's a very good teacher and he made it easier for them to transition here. They both had him so they had a common point of experience.
MR: I remember being in a parent meeting with Ms. Moore and her describing all the different ways she was going to help them learn Spanish. Not just reading and writing Spanish but also speaking it. She's encouraged them to get outside of school and go see plays. Or she would bring in cartoons and movies. She had them do discussion groups. I just felt she was really making an effort. Sometimes it's hard to reach kids who don't have an ear for language. But she was trying every angle to get them engaged which I really appreciated.
NJ: I remember Ry coming home and saying, "Mr. Ward is really smart." He was impressed with how smart he was. Our kids had relatively little exposure to Catholicism. Nell had Mr. McMonagle and I think he made what can be a little dry and inaccessible at times – fun, which is important. I think it's great when kids get exposed to things they haven't been exposed to before. It seems like those teachers understood that not everyone comes with a grounding in Catholicism.
MR: Even though we are not Catholic, it was important to have time in class and with their peers and a teacher to reflect on their values and what's important to them and who they want to be in life. They came from a background where their intellectual and spiritual life and their artistic and creative life were met and I wanted to make sure that that continued.
If your kids where to summarize their years here, what do you think they would say?
NJ: One of our biggest takeaways was that the kids were really happy here. They both made very close friends. They both felt accepted and felt engaged. They really grew here. But I also felt like they were surrounded by a very close knit community. Even if it wasn't the community they grew up in, they became a part of it and that has enduring value for them.
MR: I would just add that they felt comfortable immediately here when they shadowed. They knew. "This is it. This is where I want to be. I see myself here."
It's going to make me teary, but there was like this sense of spirit here that is maybe lacking in some public schools.
But I feel like the school set the standards and expectations that were obvious to them and they could choose when they were ready to meet them.
So, you raised them to be their own people.
NJ: We have, but I think they got a lot of that here.
MR: I think that culture of acceptance and sense of community is so important for kids these days. They are exposed to so much on their phones and it's hard for them to weed through what's okay and what's not okay. And, who do they want to be when they get older? Do they want to be this fancy lady who always has everyone's attention or do they want to be a really good human being, someone who cares about others and is kind?
Why do you choose to support Central Catholic financially?
MR: The first word that comes to my mind is diversity. We live in a very white city. I feel like Central is way more diverse environment than they've ever been in. They've had exposure here to kids who are different than them. I think that's really important in a classroom to hear different perspectives. And they benefitted greatly from that and from friendships.
NJ: There are certain tenets of Catholicism that we would disagree with strongly. The one that really moved both of us was the culture of service and giving. We saw it in the service work the kids were required to do. We did some of it with them. I think that we have had exposure to others, to De La Salle North Catholic and St. Andrew Nativity, so we understood over time that part of Catholic education is to make it as accessible as possible. Giving is part of encouraging diversity and accessibility and diversity are closely linked. I think we saw a real value in the education that our kids got here, so to the extent that we can help make it available to others, that's a really positive feeling. I think the kids who leave this building are going to be important in all kinds of ways in our community. We want to try to make this accessible to other kids.
Do you have a favorite memory as a CC parent?
NJ: I don't like football but I love the fact that Nell was so excited about it, and that she and her friends would dress up or put on different things. They would go sit in the rain and support the team and I thought that was really kind of endearing, that they were that into it.
Our son Ry developed a rather large group of friends who were quite different from each other. We'd look out in the garage and they would all be slumped around the ping pong table. There were some who were athletes, some were musicians, different faiths represented, and it was a nice snapshot of his time at Central. This large group of large teenage boys going everywhere together.