By Paula Day

Sixteen years of commitment to education at St. Anthony’s School in southwest Atlanta will come to closure this June when Sister Patricia Clune, CSJ, resigns as principal.

The Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet plans to study for a doctorate in educational administration at Georgia State University for two years. She hopes to remain involved in education in the archdiocese.

As principal of the inner city school, Sister Patricia steered St. Anthony’s toward faculty strength, curriculum growth and enrichment. In 1980 the elementary school was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Since then the junior high science program has added a portable science lab with a staff the principal describes as “enthusiastic.” The school has a well-equipped computer science program, which has attracted interest as a model from area public schools. Under Sister Patricia’s guidance, an infusion of black history into the entire curriculum has strengthened students’ knowledge of their race’s contributions and significance. St. Anthony’s has a 99 percent black student body.

“It’s a good time to leave,” Sister Patricia said. “The school program is strong. The curriculum is strong. The staff could not be more dedicated.”

“The board of education challenges us to new growth. The parts are in place for whomever comes. The new principal will come into a very supportive situation.”

The native of Kansas City, Mo., came to St. Anthony’s in 1975 as a second-grade teacher after teaching for four years at St. Joseph’s School in Marietta. She became principal in 1979 and took a leadership role in education in the archdiocese. She served seven years on the archdiocesan board of education, as its president in 1984-85.

As an educator living and working in a neighborhood terrorized from 1979 to 1981 by the kidnapping and murder of black children, she felt the fearful menace that engulfed families.

“Our children were very, very scared,” she recalls. “If children were late coming home, where before their parents would assume they were with a friend, now they would become panicky and call and ask me to look on the playground or check a classroom. It was a traumatic time.”

On the whole, Sister Patricia says her 16 years at St. Anthony’s have been “the happiest ministerial experience of my life, and I have learned! When people say, ‘Oh, you’ve given so much!’ I say, ‘But honey, I’ve received so much more. You’ve been patient with my mistakes and helped me grow.’ Whoever comes here is going to be very lucky.”

If the past 16 years have been a good experience for the principal, they have also been good for parents and students.

Harold and Peggy Florence’s oldest daughter graduated in 1988 and is now a junior at St. Pius X High School. Their son is in the eighth grade and another daughter is in the fourth grade. Mrs. Florence appreciates the school’s discipline under Sister Patricia, and that her children have never been bored in school, a fact she credits to the principal’s contagious enthusiasm which spreads to faculty and students. She notes the “extras,” such as the visiting artists’ program Sister Patricia has introduced. Local artist Carol Stangler recently completed a two-week session teaching basket-weaving.

Larry and Brendel Stewart’s association with Sister Patricia goes back to when their 23-year-old daughters were students. Mrs. Stewart bewails the fact that the principal won’t stay one more year until her seventh-grade son graduates.

“She encouraged them and kept them focused,” Brendel Stewart said, recalling how the twins were well-prepared through St. Anthony’s and the ABC (A Better Chance) program to succeed at a private secondary school and later to graduate from Duke University.

“She’s been an inspiration. She not only prepared them, she fed them educationally, morally and spiritually. She was not just their principal, but their counselor and their arbitrator.”

There were special personal touches, too. Sister would deliver birthday “licks” to students, one for each year and a “punch to grow on.” She supported Mrs. Stewart emotionally and with her prayers during her mother’s yearlong bout with terminal cancer.

“She’s a beautiful, beautiful person,” commented James Simmons, president of St. Anthony’s Board of Education. “She brings a love of learning, one of her greatest contributions, and transfers that enthusiasm to staff and students.”

Simmons pointed to faculty workshops provided to improve skills, and Sister Patricia’s efforts to find innovative school programs and to continually upgrade the curriculum. He recalls being particularly impressed when first meeting her with her ability “to call each kid by name.”

“This is a person who takes each child individually,” he remembers thinking.

“She’s a great motivator,” Simmons added, noting that as a white person in a black setting, being “able to encourage and promote a sense of black identity in her students is a special gift.”

Sister Patricia is also “the dreaded opponent” in the annual faculty-student basketball games, according to Brendel Stewart, and Simmons calls her “the best basketball-playing principal in the archdiocese.”

Helen Fraser taught for 13 years at St. Anthony. She speaks of Sister Patricia’s doing “everything possible” to make the staff feel comfortable.

“She involved the parents in working in the school,” Mrs. Fraser recalls. “Whatever we asked for, we got. Our textbooks were upgraded every five years.”

An educator’s impact is rarely appreciated by his or her students until they reach some maturity. Antarah Moody is a junior at Emory University, majoring in religion with minors in psychology and sociology. He keeps in touch with his former second-grade teacher and principal.

“She always was very fiery, spirited, had a lot of enthusiasm,” Moody recalls. “I think of her now as having so much spunk, with all pistons going.”

Moody said Sister Patricia seemed to think of the students as her children. He remembers his habit of looking at his feet when an adult was speaking to him.

“‘Antarah, look up,’ she’d say to me. ‘Look up into the face of the person you’re talking to.’” The Emory student believes this concern meant a lot to many St. Anthony students.

“She wanted us to reach our full potential. She always saw a person as being able to do more, not stopping at one level. She’d write little things on our papers like ‘You can do better’ or ‘Great job!’”

Raymond Moss is a junior at Morris Brown College majoring in business administration. He admits that he and sister Patricia “had to come to an understanding.”

“If it hadn’t been for Sister Patricia, I wouldn’t be half the man I am today. We had to work through some things, but she stayed on me, to keep my head on focus. I love her dearly. I’m sad to see her go.”

Parents, faculty, parishioners and friends of St. Anthony’s School are planning a tribute to Sister Patricia on May 18 at 7 p.m. in the Empire Room of the Sloppy Floyd Building. The dinner-dance lasting until midnight will include a surprise “roast” according to Cecilia Torrence, chairperson for the occasion.