our lady of hope school

Potomac Falls School Boasts High Number of Male Teachers

By Gretchen R. Crowe
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 1/25/07)

At Our Lady of Hope School in Potomac Falls, eight of the 25 faculty and staff members, from the principal down to the custodian, are men. While 32 percent may not seem like an overwhelming number, according to the Office of Catholic Schools, men only comprise 18.6 percent of educators in Arlington’s entire Catholic school system. So it would seem that the two-year-old school north of Sterling is ahead of the curve.
Principal Joseph N. Orandello said he is proud of the role that men play on his staff.
“I think especially for the young men upstairs these teachers are role models to these children,” Orandello said, sitting in his first-floor office, light-heartedly named “Dante’s Inferno” by Father William Saunders, pastor of the church located only steps away. (Instead of numbers, the school rooms are named after saints or places — including the teachers’ lounge, which is dubbed “Purgatory.”)
“I think it’s just that male relationship — that they can find them easy to talk with, like a boy with his father — especially at that age when they’re seventh/eighth grade,” he said. “They may find it easier to approach a male teacher.”
The staff is also affected by a more even ratio, he said.
“Having witnessed meetings last year with just myself and a few guys, having more men on staff, it undoubtedly changed the dynamics,” Orandello said. “It lends a different perspective to faculty meetings — getting different viewpoints.”
Nationally the statistics on male teachers, especially for Catholic elementary schools, aren’t much better. According to the annual report published by the National Catholic Educational Association based in Washington D.C., the number of male lay teachers in Catholic schools for the 2005-06 school year was 32,505, or 21.3 percent, with the majority teaching in secondary schools (typically grades 9-12). Religious brothers and priests add an extra 1,909 males in the classroom.
Two of the six male teachers at Our Lady of Hope were just beginning their post-college jobs when they started teaching at the small school. For the other four, teaching, at least at a private Catholic elementary school, was a second career.
Sixth-grade teachers Danny Heenan and Sergio Yona graduated from Christendom College in Front Royal in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Heenan said that being both male and young helps him be an effective educator.
“I think it’s a great thing for the kids at this age to have male role models,” he said. “This is a crucial time in their lives for them to see that it’s not just for women to practice their faith.”
Yona said he thinks there is a different kind of relationship between a male teacher and both male or female students.
There’s a “different kind of bond,” he said. “I think it’s important for the girls as well to have someone to look at as a father figure, as an authoritative figure.”
Dan Culler, middle school language arts teacher, spent 33 years teaching English literature, grammar and related subjects in Fairfax County schools.
He retired in June 2005 and began teaching at Our Lady of Hope three months later. He had been joking (mostly) with Father Saunders about being a teacher at the new school. Then the talks started getting more serious.
“It was a humbling experience” switching from the public education he knew so well to private, he said. “It’s nice to have my faith so importantly intertwined. In the public school you were pretty much expected to park your religion outside before you entered the school.”
Culler spent the last class period helping his students write anti-abortion letters in the computer lab as part of a “persuasive writing unit” he is teaching in his language arts classes.
Culler believes his students have a different way of communicating with him because he is a male teacher, and thought that it was valuable that the male students have adult males to act as role models.
“We’ve got such a good balance here,” he said. “We are trying to educate the kids the best we can.”
Math teacher Ben Almond, music teacher Keith D’Anna and physical education teacher Ralph Peluso are all in their “second careers.” Almond teaches math half-days to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. He worked for 24 years as a lobbyist and manager before switching tracks to teach.
Does he think he’s a role model?
“I hope I am — that’s in the eyes of the beholder,” he said. “But that’s what we all try to be here. I pray that’s the case.”
In addition to teaching music with a theory basis, D'Anna is also the parish music director. His daughter, Lindsey, is in sixth-grade at the school.
Originally from New York City, Peluso worked for 35 years as a business executive and has been involved in youth sports and athletic development for more than 20 years.
“Not being an educator by background, my approach with the kids is more how I’ve coached,” he said, pausing to tie the shoe of one of the kindergarteners waiting in line to jump over orange cones.
He said that it is his experience that students react to male and female teachers in different ways.
“The women teachers deal with emotions differently,” he said. “I think naturally that students will react to males and females differently and much more structurally to males.”
Whether the students are being taught by males or females, the school is remarkably community-based.
“When I was hired I mentioned to Father that I wanted to find the best qualified teachers I could — not necessarily parishioners,” he said. As it turns out, all but three members of the faculty attend the church next door — and Orandello said those parishioners were the teachers who were the most qualified.
Part of what makes them qualified is the passion the teachers have for their work.
“I love teaching,” Yona said. “I knew I wanted to be a teacher before I even started, but now I’m sure of it.”

Gretchen R. Crowe can be reached at gcrowe@catholicherald.com.