Questions
The things people actually ask.
Answered plainly, and short. If something you're wondering about isn't here, it belongs here — tell us.
The school
- Will this put me crosswise with the administration?
- It is built not to. The pledge is a promise about our own households — how we raise our own children, and how we bring a concern to another family. It names no one and asks nothing of the school. This runs alongside the school rather than against it: we are aligned on the same mission, and parents taking up their part of it is a service to the school, not a critique of it.
- Does the school have to approve it?
- No. Parents are the first educators of their children, and this is parents organizing themselves — the same standing a book club or a carpool has. Most communities brief the pastor as a courtesy once they are underway. That is informing, not asking.
- Does this expect anything of the school?
- The Convictions say plainly what we hope for from a Catholic school community — that the Faith is evident in the hallway and not only the curriculum, that one standard applies to every child, and that parents are treated as partners. They are offered as the standard we hold ourselves to first, not as demands. When a school lives them out, the families who signed are its loudest defenders.
- Can the school itself start this, or take part?
- Yes, on both counts. A school can initiate it directly, handing it to a few families and letting it run parent-led alongside its own mission. And there is a school-wide form of it: the Community Convictions restate the same truths as shared affirmations for parents, teachers, staff, and leadership to sign together, publicly, as the standard of the whole building. More often that is where a parent-led community ends up — the moment the standard stops belonging to the families who began it and becomes everyone’s.Read the Community Convictions →
- Is this a substitute for talking to the school?
- Never. Anything involving safety, or that belongs in the school’s hands, goes to the school exactly as it would have before. This is about what happens between families.
What you’re committing to
- How much time is this?
- For most families: signing the pledge, and then living it. Anything else — a gathering, a formation night — is an invitation, not an obligation. Leading takes more: a Homeroom Host a couple of hours a month, a Director three or four a week in season.
- What does it cost?
- Nothing. There are no dues, no fees, and nothing to buy. The framework is published free and stays that way — it is the first of the eleven promises in the Stewardship Commitment.
- What about the formation nights, the kids’ program, the digital tools?
- All offered, none required. A community takes them up as the standard takes root and as people have appetite for them — usually over several years, not in a first one. Trying to launch everything at once is how volunteer efforts die in year three.
- Can I sign if my spouse isn’t on board?
- One parent can sign on behalf of the household, and invite the other in later. Many families work this way.
Signing, privacy, and the grade
- Who sees that I signed?
- Nobody, until eight families in your child’s grade have signed. Then all eight are introduced to one another at once. The school is not notified and never receives a list.
- What if nobody else at my school signs?
- Then your signature sits privately and nothing happens — no list, no announcement, no awkwardness. Grades usually fill in slowly and then all at once, because signing is quiet enough that people are willing to be early.
- Isn’t this a clique of families judging everyone else?
- It would be, if it were a group with a membership list and a guest list. It is the opposite: the pledge commits families to include the excluded, to invite every family in the room every time, and to hold the standard first of all about their own children. It applies to how we treat every family at the school — signed or not.
- What if my child is the one causing the problem?
- Then the pledge is doing its job. Two of the eight promises exist for exactly that moment: that we accept our own child is capable of cruelty and will listen before we defend, and that when our child causes harm we require real repair at home — apology, restitution, changed behavior — whatever the school does or doesn’t do.
Who is behind it
- Who runs this?
- A small steward organization publishes and maintains the content, and nothing else. Each community that adopts it is independent and self-organizing — it answers to no central authority, sends no reports, and pays nothing.
- Is my family’s data going anywhere?
- The platform carries content, commitments, and coordination — never cases. There is no incident reporting, no logging of conflicts, no naming of children in any stored record, and no discussion forums. Those exclusions are deliberate and permanent.
- Is this Catholic-only?
- It is written for Catholic grade schools and grounded in the Church’s teaching that parents are the first educators of their children. The Golden Rule belongs to everyone; the framework is free for any community that finds it useful.
Still unsure? The pledge itself is two minutes, and why this exists is four. Everything else is in the library, for whenever you want it.