Christina Mendez-Hall tends to get sentimental when talking about the Arlington diocese.
“I have a Hallmark story,” said Mendez-Hall, who started her new job as assistant superintendent of diocesan schools for leadership and accreditation May 12. “My boyfriend and I broke up in college and we reconnected 20 years later at a church festival in Texas.”
Two years later he proposed when he was working in Northern Virginia. “We did our marriage prep at St. Joseph’s (in Herndon) and of course, I fell in love with St. Joseph’s,” she said. “I had always seen how supportive the Arlington team of the Catholic schools office was and how united they were. They were happy with each other.”
With no openings in the Arlington diocese, she took a job in the Archdiocese of Washington as assistant superintendent of schools in charge of Catholic identity and accreditation, where she just completed her sixth year.
But “when this opportunity came up, I was like, ‘I’ve got to go for it,’ ” said Mendez-Hall, a native Texan who earned her doctorate in education in ethical leadership from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. “It’s now or never and I thought, I want to be part of a team like that.”
It’s the long-term vision for diocesan schools that Mendez-Hall found compelling. “Bishop (Michael F.) Burbidge has such a vision,” she said. “It blows me away. The fact there’s a strategic plan for the diocese is rare to find. There’s a diocesan cohesiveness.”
Serving the large Hispanic population of the diocese is a priority for Mendez-Hall, who was a principal for six years at a Fort Worth school that was 99 percent Hispanic.
“If there’s a large Latino community in a church and they have their own Spanish Mass and it’s bursting at the seams, but we don’t see Latino children in the seats in the school, then what do we need to do to make that outreach possible and a priority?” she asked. “Because the students are out there. Sometimes it’s just a matter of intimidation. Sometimes it’s a language barrier. Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding because in some Latino countries, Catholic school is considered only for the elite.”
The goal for Mendez-Hall is that no one will be left out. “My dissertation focused on inclusion of students with learning disabilities in Catholic schools,” she said. “When we look at Catholic social teaching, we have to look at the fact that everyone should be included, and everyone should have a voice at the table.”
The accreditation part of the job may not sound exciting, but Mendez-Hall embraces the challenges of helping schools to meet educational and business standards. “As a principal, I was kind of like a fixer,” she said. “I would go into schools that maybe had budgeting issues and come up with creative solutions. That’s tough, and hard work. Most educators never have to worry about it.”
As the assistant superintendent in charge of leadership, Mendez-Hall said that leadership begins by having a right relationship with God. “Your primary role, either as teacher or principal, is to make sure our students have and develop a personal encounter with Jesus,” she said. “We’re continually called to conversion, and we’re continuously called to improvement within our schools so that we’re serving our students in the best way possible.”
