New Crete school emerging from merger in style

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Principal Sandra Robertson gives a hug to 7th grade student Sarah Eisha in the hallway at Mother Teresa Catholic Academy in Crete Wednesday, November 2, 2011. The new school combines St. Liborius School in Steger and St. Mary School in Park Forest. It is housed in the former St. Liborius Early Childhood Center in Crete. | Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: December 17, 2011 8:02AM

For a school that is just over two months old, Mother Teresa Catholic Academy in Crete already is making a name for itself.

There’s the undefeated girls basketball team, the $50,000 prize earned in a national promotional contest and the enrollment figures.

The academy, the result of a merger between St. Liborius School in Steger and St. Mary School in Park Forest, is 301 students strong — and growing.

“We grew much farther and faster than the (Diocese of Joliet) expected us to,” Principal Sandra Robertson said. “We really are thrilled.”

Mother Teresa Catholic Academy, at 24201 S. Kings Road, sits on 10 acres in a building previously used as an early childhood learning center for St. Liborius School. It serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

Robertson, hired in May to lead the academy, said it was a race against the clock to transform the space into the school it is today.

“Literally 24 hours before our opening day on the day after Labor Day, there was wet cement and tile that had just been laid. It’s a miracle how we got the school to open,” she said.

Opening it wasn’t easy — and not just because of all the re-wiring and painting that took place, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed in pledges from families and parishioners.

Robertson said the whole idea of having to close two historic schools in order to form Mother Teresa Catholic Academy was difficult for many people to accept.

St. Liborius School was established in 1912, and St. Mary opened in 1961. The Diocese of Joliet said a merger was necessary to save the schools from shrinking enrollment and dwindling financial resources.

“A lot of parents are still angry about the merger and still grieving the loss of their schools. … but that has made us that much more motivated to create something really great for the kids and their families,” Robertson said.

Jen Karlin, one of the few teachers from St. Liborius who moved to the new building, said she is glad she has more children to teach as a result of the merger. The gym teacher also is thankful for a “fresh start.”

“We get to start basically from scratch and start all new traditions,” Karlin said. “I like that we are doing things now for a purpose because it is for the better of every one of these kids here.”

One “new” tradition is actually a carryover. The seventh-grade girls basketball team went undefeated and won the league championship, with many of the same girls who also went undefeated in the regular season at St. Liborius in fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

Last week, a grassroots, online-voting effort helped put Mother Teresa Catholic Academy on the national map as well. The school won $50,000 in U.S. Cellular’s “Calling All Communities” campaign, making it just one of 18 schools nationwide to collect a prize.

“This project goes to show that a very small group of people can change the world,” Robertson said.

With the prize money, school officials plan to enhance their technology by buying laptops and smart boards for all classrooms.

Despite all the changes, students don’t seem to mind that their classrooms are a bit more crowded. Hannah Martin, an eighth grader, said teachers still take the time to notice each individual.

“They get to know you on a personal basis and they really help you,” Martin said.

Students do and always will come first, Robertson said.

After spending more than 30 years in the public school system, she said she is glad to be working where she is now.

“I felt like I needed to find a place where I could just love kids and look at the whole child instead of their test score,” Robertson said.

Mother Teresa Catholic Academy, which got its name from a school contest, strives to represent the qualities of its namesake.

“(The school) wanted to choose someone who represented the ideal of caring for a family,” Robertson said.

And the family-like atmosphere is experienced on a daily basis, students said.

“There’s a lot of pride, and it didn’t take long to develop that pride. I think it comes from the fact I am here for a reason and so is everybody else,” Robertson said. “We feel very blessed.”