IWA Board of Directors

Commitee Chairs

Letter from Tim Ehrman, 2005-2006 Board Chairperson

It has been a pleasure to work with the School Board for the 2005-2006 school year. Our Board of Directors strives to make Incarnate Word Academy a Catholic school that serves as a voice for the Catholic Church and Catholic values, a center of academic excellence, and a place where Catholic intellectual life is not only vibrant, but also ascendant. The Board is comprised of a devoted and hard working group of current and past parents, alumni and Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. As a group, the Board is dedicated to advancing the most fundamental tenets of the mission of Incarnate Word Academy to ensure that our campus is a place of teaching and learning, of faith and service, and of scholarship and community.

This year’s School Board members were Brent Bottom (Advancement Council Chair), Sr. Maria Elizabeth Brehony, Dr. Christine Canterbury-Cory (Medical Internship Ad-hoc Chair), Tom Carlisle, Norma Castaneda, Todd Coerver (Marketing Committee Chair), Jim Devlin (Finance Committee Chair and Treasurer), Sr. Anna Marie Espinosa (Incarnate Word Academy President), Sr. Irma Gonzalez (Superior General), Bobby Gough, Kathryn Green (Long Range Planning Committee Chair and Board Vice-Chair), John LaRue, Michael Lippincott (Facilities Committee Chair), Ralph Meyer, Sr. Anne Brigid Schlegel, and Dan Shea (Mission Effectiveness Committee Chair).

Creating a setting in which faculty can excel is critical to the mission of Incarnate Word Academy. Our teachers are deeply active in their fields and they bring that scholarship into the classroom to inspire our intellectually hungry students. Our teachers show great devotion to their students and embrace the Gospel values through their teachings. We continue to try and improve the salary and benefits package for our teachers. Teachers and administrators received a four percent salary increase from the prior year and a three and one-half percent bonus at the end of the year. We still search for ways to increase teacher compensation while minimizing tuition increases.

We take great pride in the accomplishments of our students. Once again, one hundred percent of our graduating seniors have been accepted into college. Our students, at all levels, continue to excel when taking standardized tests and when participating in extracurricular activities and competitions. Mission work has always been an integral part of the educational experience we offer. Our students have participated in the St. Jude Math-a-thon, collected books and clothing for the less fortunate, collected money for hurricane victims and have traveled to Mexico during Holy Week to minister to isolated villagers.

Students at the high school and middle school received scholarships and tuition assistance from the Incarnate Word Academy Foundation totaling $562,000 for the 2005-2006 school year. Tuition assistance changes the lives of our students, but it also changes Incarnate Word Academy by bringing in the top students, who add a layer of richness to our campus in terms of their quality and diversity. We do not want to lose that, and so we continue to rely on the generosity of our benefactors. Fifty-seven percent of our middle school students and sixty percent of our high school students received tuition grant awards or scholarships.

Incarnate Word Academy’s financial position remained strong during the school year. Providing outstanding learning facilities, a dedicated faculty, and a unique educational experience remains the cornerstone for our operating budget. We have continued to weather successfully a challenging operating environment with the ongoing generosity of our benefactors, the hard work of our teachers and administrators, and the very limited growth of expenditures across the campus. We are confident that our future efforts will allow us to maintain the fiscal strength that we have recently enjoyed.

Incarnate Word Academy has exceptionally loyal and generous alumni, parents and friends. The reliable strength of their support is directly linked to Incarnate Word Academy’s capability to realize its vision for the future. These groups contributed $892,628 during the year to fund various projects including: a faculty benefits package; a new middle school science lab; student transportation; renovations to the Dougherty Center and girls’ high school locker room; and raise funds for the Incarnate Word Foundation.

Incarnate Word Academy attained its re-accreditation for all three levels during the school year. This accreditation will span the next ten years. I would like to congratulate the teachers, staff and administration for all of the sacrifice and hard work that went toward accomplishing the re-accreditation.

I hope you will continue to show your support of the vision, goals and dreams we all have for Incarnate Word Academy remembering that we are human, yet guided, we pray, by the Divine, and that our vision derives from the splendid vision of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. Ours is an awesome responsibility: to provide students with not only a superior education, but also with a sense of purpose and duty so that they may use their knowledge in service to God and the world. It is this responsibility which motivates the Board and, I imagine, is part of what inspires you to share your time and resources so graciously.

Thank you again for giving so much of yourself. You are Incarnate Word Academy.

Sincerely,

Tim Ehrman