Superintendent of Tucson's Diocese schools honored

NOGALES, Ariz. — An interview with Sister Rosa Maria Ruiz at Lourdes Catholic School means regular interruptions by admiring students and parents who can't pass up an opportunity to greet her. She's made the local Catholic community proud.

Ruiz has been in Catholic education for half a century. She was a teacher at Sacred Heart School when it was run by her order, the Minim Daughters of Immaculate Mary, who have a particular focus on education. With her organizational abilities and attention to detail, she eventually became the school's principal.

The responsibilities have continued to multiply and so have the details. Now she is superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson.

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, she was among eight others honored at the White House for her innovative approaches to education as part of the president's program, Champions of Change: Winning the Future Across America.

Despite multiple challenges in a district that now comprises 8,000 students at 26 schools spread out over a huge socio-economic landscape from Nogales to Tucson's foothills, northeast to the Superstition Mountains, and west to Yuma, she has served 14 years in her position. That's double the national average tenure for superintendents.

Her colleagues will tell you she is anything but average.

"She has always had this passion to help children have the best education possible," said Sister Esther Hugues, who worked side-by-side with Ruiz at Sacred Heart and who is now the principal at Lourdes Elementary.

One of the first things on Ruiz's to-do list as superintendent was bringing salary schedules to within 85 percent of the state average, which she accomplished gradually. She has worked with local businesses to create an endowment program to help ensure future financial stability; created protocols so that all Catholic schools within the diocese are properly accredited; went knocking door-to-door to form partnerships with the congregation and area firms on much-needed school-renovation projects; oversaw the opening of three new high schools and an elementary school; and revised the entire Catholic schools policies four times.

Referring to the most recent laborious and intensive revision, she said, "That's the last one I work on. I don't think I'll be around for the next revision." But with sister, it's hard to say. She works at God's whim, she says, to accomplish things that initially may seem too lofty.