Speakers tell how urban school was pulled back from brink of closure

Published: 2006-04-19

ATLANTA (CNS) -- When Sister Joanne Cozzi was chosen in 1998 to be the principal of St. Vincent de Paul School in Nashville, Tenn., she got a surprise on her first visit to the school -- she learned at a meeting that the school was closing. "I said, 'Wait a minute! I'm comin'!'" Sister Joanne, a Daughter of Charity, recalled telling those assembled at the meeting. The school not only did not close, it increased enrollment and built a new $4 million school. Sister Joanne and Stella Simpson, who chaired the St. Vincent de Paul school board during Sister Joanne's six-year tenure there, spoke about how the school gained the necessary momentum to turn itself around during an April 18 workshop at the National Catholic Educational Association convention in Atlanta.

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