Mark Ferrara stands next to a statue of Jesus in the chapel of Kennedy Catholic High School. Ferrara has been named president of the Kennedy Catholic Family of Schools.
After 40 years in public education, Mark Ferrara doesn’t need a job.
Still, he loves to work.
“My dad had a saying – he always wanted to be one to wear out, not rust out. I kind of follow that same mantra,” he said, referring to Sandy Ferrara, the former butcher at Ferrara’s Golden Dawn and manager at Valley View Department Store.
Mark Ferrara, of Masury, is the new president of Kennedy Catholic Family of Schools in Hermitage: Kennedy Catholic High School and Middle School, and St. John Paul II Elementary School.
“One of the things that attracted me to the position was the flexibility,” he said. “I was very clear with them, I want to work, but my wife retired in February.”
Ferrara, 62, spent 38 years as a teacher, coach and administrator in Pennsylvania public schools, ending with stints as superintendent in Sharpsville and Greenville, from which he retired in 2016. He then spent two years as an ambassador with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, working to get legislators into schools.
Moving into a parochial school, he works with a different set of rules. There is no school board, only an advisory board, and he answers to the advisory board president and the Diocese of Erie. His students do not have to take state tests, and religion is not only taught but practiced in school.
In terms of hiring and curriculum, “We have more wiggle room” than public schools,” Ferrara said.
“There’s no union here, so we have a little more autonomy of expressing our own interests and needs.”
But, Ferrara, who attended the former Sacred Heart School in Sharon before attending Brookfield High School, said he looks on the public schools as partners, not competitors.
“We want kids to learn, have fun, be successful, but we can have a religious or theology component to it,” he said.
Ferrara oversees only 300 students, one-third or one-fourth of what he did as superintendent at public schools, and that helps in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our smallness is a plus,” he said. “We can social distance. We follow regulations underneath the state and diocese and health department. We’re doing much like the public schools are, but since we’re smaller we can do things that they aren’t able to. We’ll be wearing masks as appropriate and the plexiglass shields and the hand washing and the temperature (checks). We’re following the same protocols that they are, but since we are physically, don’t have the same numbers, it’s slightly easier.”
Kennedy classes opened Aug. 25 with a mix of in-class and at-home learning, like many public schools are doing.
Ferrara said he is creating a new vision for the school, which he can’t yet talk about, but noted he wants to strengthen the religious aspect of the school to try to foster interest in the clergy; assess the condition of the school buildings and their needs; and boost technological offerings.
“Our enrollment is steady and growing,” he said. “There’s a place for Catholic education. Our goal is to not only survive but to thrive.”
