Jim Rigg took over as superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago Oct. 5, following a stint in the same position in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Married and the father of four school-age children, he spent time during his first weeks on the job visiting schools to get to know them.

The Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic schools are the largest non-public school system in the United States, with nearly 83,000 students in 230 schools. They have been recognized with more U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Awards than any school system in the nation.

Rigg spoke with Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin on Oct. 29.

Catholic New World: What do you think of the state of Catholic schools in the archdiocese?

Jim Rigg: One of the reasons I wanted to come to the Archdiocese of Chicago is because the Catholic schools have a national reputation for strength, for excellence, for faith formation, and I think that, by and large, that reputation has been affirmed in my first month on the job. I’ve been in a few schools and I’ve talked with many principals, pastors, parents, people in the central office and I’m trying to do as much listening and learning in my first few weeks as I possibly can.

People are extremely complimentary about our Catholic schools. Families who come into our schools seem genuinely committed to them. One of the strengths of Chicago is the vibrancy of the Catholic culture. There are a lot of Catholics here. Many of them attended Catholic schools, they’re proud of those schools, many of them identify very strongly with the elementary and the high schools they graduated from, and that’s a real asset, I think.

At the same time, Chicago is a big and complex place when it comes to Catholic schools, so I’m taking my time to be sure that I truly understand it, that I get to know the people who are around and supporting our schools.

CNW: What challenges are you seeing?

Rigg: I think the challenges we see in Chicago are reflective of national challenges to Catholic education. The schools here are strong, they have a well-deserved reputation. At the same time, we have seen declines in Catholic school enrollment. We have seen consolidations and closures of Catholic schools. The schools have tried to be nimble in adjusting to demographic shifts as they’ve occurred. The Catholic population has changed through the generations. Chicago, like many large cities in the U.S., has a concentration of Catholic schools in the urban areas serving populations that have changed dramatically over the last several decades. That doesn’t mean that Catholic schools can’t be viable or aren’t viable. It just means we have to think differently about how Catholic education is delivered to those populations.

I’m an ardent believer that Catholic schools should be present for a diversity of populations. That’s one of our strengths. We need to be present for families of diverse racial, economic and religious backgrounds.

I’ve watched with interest societal changes in the Catholic populations. Catholic schools aren’t always the top priority for families today. Fifty years ago if you were Catholic, you went to a Catholic school. Nowadays, parents shop around oftentimes and we are in a competitive marketplace, so we have to be sure that our schools are as strong as they can be in terms of quality, that we’re delivering the best possible education to our families.

And we have to make sure that we’re marketing our schools, that we are enthusiastically, assertively telling the good news of Catholic education to make sure that our families know that Catholic schools are a great option for them.

A challenge we face in our schools, which is a challenge for our church in general, is one of evangelization. Not every family is directly connected and engaged in the faith, and Catholic schools can be wonderful vehicles for evangelization. We are immersing children in the Catholic faith seven hours a day, all subjects, praying constantly, the Catholic faith lives and breathes through our schools.

Often we have families who work very well with us, evangelizing their children and acting as primary educators, and other times we don’t. We need to evangelize our families, evangelize our parents and guardians, while we are evangelizing our children.

CNW: Over the past several years, there has been an effort to attract more Latino families to Catholic schools. Is it working?

Rigg: I think it is working. I’ve been impressed by the growth of the Latino population in the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Chicago. I think the archdiocese has a strong Latino presence. I’ve been told approximately half of the Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago are Spanish-speaking, and nationally, the majority of practicing Catholics under the age of 35 are Latino. Latinos are the next great Catholic immigrant population.

Our Catholic schools in the United States were largely built by immigrants from Germany and Italy and Ireland and Poland and other places, and our schools were here for them when they came and educated their children faithfully.

We need to be here to serve the next great Catholic immigrant population, and that is Latinos. I think there’s a real openness on the part of pastors, principals, teachers to serve the Latino population and to help each family overcome the economic and cultural and sometimes legal obstacles that prevent them from coming.

As an ideal, we need to provide high-quality Catholic schools that are accessible, affordable and available to any family that wishes to come.

CNW: How do we keep Catholic schools affordable?

Rigg: I have four kids of my own and they’re in Catholic schools. I can certainly relate to the economic pressure of paying tuition. Affordability both locally and nationally has been identified as the number one reason why more families don’t come to Catholic schools and why families leave midway through their journey.

We do make a commitment of serving all types of families, so we have to help families overcome the economic obstacles that prevent them from coming to a Catholic school.

I am amazed at the local forms of help that exist within our parishes and our schools. All of our high schools have financial aid programs, most of our elementary schools have programs, we’ve kicked off in recent years the Caritas program, Big Shoulders is extremely generous in helping to fund scholarships, and we’re aggressively pursuing a tax credit bill in our state legislature that would be helpful in making our schools more affordable.

CNW: What have you seen that you’ve liked in the schools you’ve visited?

Rigg: My outings to the schools have affirmed my reasons for wanting to come to the Archdiocese of Chicago. I’ve been in six schools so far and had an opportunity to meet with the leadership and walk the halls and walk into classrooms and interact with kids and teachers and parents and others.

I have been deeply impressed by what I’ve seen. The teachers seem deeply dedicated, passionate about the work that they’re doing. The students seem engaged and happy. I’ve talked to parents who seem positive about their decision to come to Catholic schools. I’ve been in schools that represent diverse populations. My first visit was St. Gall School, which serves a lower- to middle-income, largely Latino population. I’ve been in schools that serve other types of populations and have enjoyed all of them.

One of our great strengths in Catholic education is we don’t just serve those who can afford the cost of tuition; we’re here to serve all types of populations and serve them well. I think our results speak for the quality of education that we provide. Our academic indicators, our test scores, are very, very high. They compare very favorably and are at or above, most often above, the local public schools and charter schools. Our schools have a long record of breaking the cycle of poverty.

CNW: Tell me about your background.

Rigg: For undergraduate, I went to the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, a Jesuit college. I studied history with a minor in international studies, so my career path was teaching. My goal was to be a history teacher in a Catholic high school. In some ways that was really the last time I had a career path. I served for two years in the ACE (the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education) program in the Diocese of Memphis (Tennessee). It was at an inner-city seven-through-12 school, and I taught mostly seventh-graders and 12th graders. I had always had an objective of going back to Denver and being a Catholic school teacher there, but in the spring of my second year in ACE, two things entered my life that changed my mind and kept me in Memphis.

First of all, the principal offered me a promotion. Secondly and most importantly, I met a girl who is now my wife and the mother of our four children. So I stayed in Memphis, became an assistant principal/dean, got married, and then became principal of an inner-city school, one of the Jubilee Schools in the Diocese of Memphis that was reopened after something like 20 years.

Then I went back to Colorado, to the Diocese of Colorado Springs, where I was a principal and the diocesan director of curriculum. In 2010, I made the decision with my wife to pursue superintendent positions and ended up in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, where I was the director of educational services and the superintendent of Catholic schools. Every step along the way has been a wonderful experience.

One of the things I really enjoy is coming into a place and helping to drive forward a new strategic plan and vision for the future. For example, at my school in Colorado Springs, I went to that school when it was just in horrible disarray. The school had had a catastrophic year: the school had two principals who had been removed, the pastor had been changed out, the school was at historically low enrollment, it was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and despite having other offers, I felt compelled to go to that school because I felt that the potential was strong there. Despite what had happened, the families were dedicated to the school and the school, if it was positioned in the right place, could really thrive, so over a period of several years, we restored the school to vibrancy and when I left it was largest Catholic elementary school in the city and was back at historic highs in enrollment.

In Cincinnati, the archbishop expressed the need for a new vision for the future for Catholic schools. We’d never really had a strategic plan for Catholic schools and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati was losing, on average, over 1,200 students per year, we were closing and consolidating schools very, very rapidly. The archbishop said that Catholic schools are important, they are a vital part of the future and we need a forward-thinking vision. He tasked me with leading the effort to coordinate that vision. We unveiled that vision in the summer of 2012, and it really focused my last three years of work there.

Chicago is different. We have a strategic plan that’s been in place, but it’s reaching the end of its lifeline. There’s a need to develop the next plan for Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Chicago, to be deliberate and strategic and hopeful about the future of our Catholic schools here in the Archdiocese of Chicago. I’m looking forward to being part of making that plan.

CNW: Will that plan look at structural issues in the archdiocese, such as those addressed by the new Northwest Side regional school?

Rigg: I think we have to. I think we’re all watching the formation of that Northwest Catholic school. I would caution people from saying that will be the automatic model of Catholic education. We’re in a diocese that’s very complex, and as we look at each of our schools, we need to look at each individual school and each individual circumstance on a case-by-case basis and work with the local leadership in the best long-term interests of that school. For those four particular schools in the northwest, that was apparently the model that made the most sense for them. For other schools, it might not be the case. Our focus is our children, and we want to make sure we have schools that are high quality, that are authentically Catholic and that are best positioned to serve our children and our families. That will be, I’m sure, the focus of our next strategic plan.