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| Sarah Nordhues |
Her first year as principal of a brand new grade school brings unique challenges of its own. Sarah, however, has been here before. At Riverside Elementary in Spalding, she supervised the combination of two schools and helped the communities merge harmoniously. Even so, starting a Catholic grade school while commuting back and forth with her four children has presented other challenges.
Her husband Ken owns a feedlot production ranch in Greeley where the Nordhues family lives. Every morning Sarah, along with children Joanah, Rayna, Kendrick and Tessa, piles into the car at 6:45 and heads to Grand Island. When they arrive at Central Catholic at 7:40, they all gather in Sarah’s office.
”This is where we put ourselves together,” she laughs. She braids Tessa’s hair, organizes the day ahead, and welcomes her staff and students. Somehow she makes it look easy. How she juggles school life with home life and does it with such grace and good humor is a mystery, but it’s obvious that all the people in her life are happy - the staff, students, and her family.
“Education is not a job,” she says. “It’s a lifestyle. You’re always thinking about the classroom and the kids.”
There was a time when Sarah thought she wanted to be a lawyer. But at Drake University studying pre-law, she realized it wasn’t what she wanted at all.
”Why did you think you wanted to study law?” Her mother pointedly asked.
”Because I wanted to help kids!” Sarah wailed.
Her mother gave her daughter the obvious answer to her dilemma. “Then be a teacher!”
It was not a big leap. The education bug ran deep in her family. Sarah’s grandmother is the late and legendary Ethel Rother from Wolbach, Nebraska, who raised a large family and taught until she was 83-years-old. Sarah knew with sudden certainty that education was her own calling as well. She promptly changed her major and has never looked back. Last August between preparing to open a new school and caring for her busy family, she managed to complete her specialist degree. The girl’s got gumption.
At Central Catholic Elementary, parents, staff and students have been profoundly vocal in their praise of Mrs. Nordhues. She’s created a close, thriving community, and even small students having a rough day understand Mrs. Nordhues will help them to sort things out.
One little boy who was sent to her office confessed to struggling with his behavior on a particular school day.
”How did it all make you feel?” Sarah gently prodded him.
He sighed. “I guess I better go to Confession,” he said.
Sarah is inspired by a staff who lives their faith and teaches religion every day to their students in class. Occasionally when the elementary school joins the high school for all-school Mass, Sarah says teachers never know what to expect from their small charges. At the first all school Mass when a high school student read from the Book of Revelation about the dragon with ten horns and seven heads, a first grade boy exclaimed in awe loud enough for the old gym’s entire congregation to hear.
”Whoa! SEVEN HEADS!”
In January during Catholic Schools Week, GICC’s chaplain Father Sidney Bruggeman processed reverently around the school with the Monstrance to display the consecrated host.
“Jesus will be coming through the hallways,” the elementary staff announced to their students.
Sarah and her teachers didn’t bargain for the confusion of some of the grade school kids who were certain that Father Sid was the actual person of Jesus.
”I thought his hair would be a different color,” one bewildered student said.
This is the world of Sarah Nordhues.
Her first year as principal of GICC Elementary is closing in on the fourth quarter, and Sarah is pleased with what she and her staff have been able to accomplish - in spite of the many road bumps that come along with opening a new school.
”We’re learning the traditions of Central Catholic and figuring out how to adapt those long time traditions to a grade school environment,” she says. “So many questions about everything have come up through the year.”
The first questions were about supplies. Sarah remembers wondering what to order for a brand new school, and what was the process for ordering nearly every supply that exists? How do you divide kids into classes when you don’t know them? How do you get kids all the way from the lunchroom to the playground in a timely manner? How do you divide lunch increments as you share a cafeteria with 350 middle and high school students? Should you have a fifth grade graduation? How do you navigate Power School and report cards for grade school parents who need more explicit information? Do you schedule two semesters, trimesters, or four quarters?
At the first school Mass, Sarah and her staff realized they had no idea which of their students were Catholic or non-Catholic. When it was time for Communion, the kids followed each other like sheep up the Communion line. Sarah knows for certain that at least one little boy received his First Communion that day.
Slowly but surely, everything has fallen into place. Even so, an elementary school - although it may be part of a larger system - is not a middle or high school. Incorporating a preschool through fifth grade curriculum without disturbing the customary traditions of a 70-year-old high school has not been easy. Sarah and her staff, however, have risen to the occasion and figured it out.
”We have great parents, too,” Sarah says. She’s been grateful for their flexibility and willingness to grow together.
The upside of inhabiting the same building with a coexisting high school has made it all worth the trouble.
”The high school students are so wonderful,” Sarah says. With almost too much enthusiasm they beg to come across the hall to read to the younger students. Sarah is amazed at how they’ve taken small students under their wing and are so protective of them.
“I think our younger kids are good for the older kids, too,” she says. At Mass, for instance, the high school students are often reserved about singing. It turns out, though, that when you have 220 grade school children sitting in the bleachers behind you singing their hearts out, it’s almost impossible not to sing along.
”We’ve all been pushed out of our comfort zones,” Sarah laughs, “but it’s been great.”
High school superintendent and principal Jordan Engle has been a tremendous support to Sarah.
”He has such an open heart and mind and is so full of faith,” she said. “Jordan really has a big picture and goal for all of us at Central Catholic.”
Likewise, she’s encouraged by Development Director Jolene Wojcik.
”Every time I see her, she has a prayer book on her desk,” Sarah says.
Central Catholic is lucky to have Sarah Nordhues and her magnificent elementary staff. They are all, Sarah explains, growing in their faith.
”I am, too,” she says. “I’m growing in my own faith as a principal, as a parent, and as a person.”
It’s the most important thing she hopes to pass along to her own children and to all her students at Central Catholic.
”I want them to know that life can be hard, and it always will be. Faith makes it possible to overcome anything. I want them to know that they’re never alone as long as they have faith,” she says, “and they won’t find it in their cell phones.”
Sarah Nordhues is responsible for her many children - and certainly not just her biological ones. At Central Catholic whether they’re Catholic or non-Catholic, Sarah hopes that all of them learn to depend on their faith.
”It’s a scary world out there,” she says.
But that’s why Sarah Nordhues and Central Catholic Elementary are here.
It’s why all her kids feel safe.
