Above: ND Elementary principal Mary Rossi with the awards (photo courtesy of 2024 Best of Mohawk Valley Community’s Choice Awards)
By Dc. Tom Cuskey, editor
Good organizations typically strive to be the best at what they do. Being voted the best among the best by your community, though, is an accolade that few may ever achieve.
Notre Dame schools in Utica have now done it two years in a row.
The Pre-K through 12 diocesan school is a “2024 Official Community Choice Award” winner in a program sponsored by LocalIQ and the Observer Dispatch newspaper in Utica. Businesses and organizations are nominated as “best” in more than 130 categories by the general population. Among their nominees, the top five in each category move on to the finalist voting round which determines the winner as the “Best of Mohawk Valley.”
The Notre Dame Elementary and Jr./Sr. High School were voted best private school and the Pre-K program won additionally in the separate pre-school category.
Team effort
Richard Hensel is the new principal at Notre Dame Jr./Sr. High School but is no stranger to the campus. He served two years as the associate principal, taught for eight years, and is also an ND alumnus. Being voted best private school in the area is no surprise to him.
“For me, I think it affirms everything that I’ve known about the place,” he said. “But it’s refreshing to see that it’s also recognized by the larger community, that this is a special place, with very special people in a very special ministry.”
Hensel refers to his role at ND as his “calling … I see this as my ministry, not as my job.” He adds that “the people on the team here, the faculty, the staff, see it that way, too. I think that’s what makes the difference.”
Mary Rossi is one of the ND teammates. As principal of Notre Dame Elementary, she is always aiming higher.
“We don’t sit on our laurels,” she proudly shared. “But we really feel very blessed that we have the community support in both categories, for preschool, and also for the Notre Dame elementary school and the junior/senior high school.”
Rossi shared that at the award ceremony, the Notre Dame impact on the community was also on display through the success of past students now working in the Mohawk Valley.
”I had so many individuals come up to me, and many were alumni” she shared. “And they had so many wonderful, beautiful things to say about their time spent at the elementary school, and/or at the junior senior high school.” Many of them were there to accept awards for the business or organization they are now part of, Rossi said. “It was almost like a full circle moment for me … what a blessing!”
It is no secret that the current environment for private schools can be extremely challenging. To maintain a strong foundation, Rossi points to the good job that the Notre Dame administrators, faculty and students do in outreach to the community and sharing the mission. “We really key in on faith, and academic excellence.”
As superintendent of diocesan schools, Dr. Amy Sansone underscored the importance of the recognition these awards can generate in the public marketplace, and impact Notre Dame’s upward trajectory.
“Part of our application enrollment process involves asking people when they inquire about our schools — how did you hear about us — and the most commonly cited thing is word of mouth,” she shared, Sansone added that an independent community vote of confidence demonstrated in these awards shows that people pay attention to what is most important.
“It’s that personalized, human to human interaction,” she said, “the kind of information that you could only get from another person, which is [at] the core of our schools: about the faith, about the dedication of the staff. This is just so neat.”
