Dear Saint Ursula Community,
We have great news to share: Saint Ursula Academy is now the #1 Best All-Girls High School in Cincinnati as ranked by Niche.com. Niche is a growing resource for families looking at schools. It uses dozens of sets of data and millions of reviews to compile comprehensive rankings, report cards, and profiles for every school from kindergarten to college and everything in between. Niche’s 2024 Best School Rankings and grades come out each September. This year, for the first time, we have secured the #1 ranking! Read about SUA on Niche.
Rankings and recognitions are very nice and certainly well-deserved in SUA’s case. The most important thing, always, is how these reviews translate to the student experience. Last week I had an opportunity that speaks so well to the “value added” of attending SUA. Remember that very rainy day last week? Well, that was the same day that I was scheduled to accompany a group of eight juniors from a Social Justice class to the Walnut Hills Community Garden for service learning. I am not proud of this fact, but I hoped the event would be canceled because it was miserable outside. I am really glad that it wasn’t.
The girls told me how much they loved the community garden coordinator, Gary, whom they described as “a really cute old man.” (Gary was maybe 5-7 years older than me!) Once we were at the garden, the girls excitedly inquired about how their prior plantings were doing and what was recently harvested. One student found a crazy carrot that she added to a bag of veggies to take back for her Advisory to sample later that day. Gary had plans for the girls to quickly pick some flowers and take them to the local food pantry a block away. Those girls picked flowers under umbrellas or hoodies without complaint. While they arranged their small bouquets with twine, I observed one girl chatting with a college-aged volunteer about some popular culture thing that I didn’t understand; others interacted with two senior citizens who were volunteers. Gary explained that the greatest benefit of the garden is that it builds community, and there was evidence of that as our girls chatted about upcoming sporting events, student life, homework, etc.
The trip ended with taking the flowers to the food pantry where we met other inspiring adults as well as the faces of people who benefited from the garden. The girls put their flowers into a shallow tray, and someone commented, “Look at how beautiful they are all together.” No truer words were said for that morning’s experience and what the girls learned about community and helping others with food insecurity. That is one small experience: the rest of the class was in other locations having similar lessons. As someone new to SUA, there are times when I have moments of “that is what makes SUA so special.” That morning was one of them!
I hope your daughters have similar stories and experiences all of the time. This exciting ranking reminds us to be grateful for all of the things that make Saint Ursula Academy a great place for our girls to learn and grow.
Please check out this link that has all of the details about next week’s schedule as well as an exam reminder sheet that we are sharing with the students.
Go Bulldogs!
Kathy Restle