Catholic schools excel at excelling

Timothy McNiff , Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools, prior to coming to New York in September 2008, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Timothy J. McNiff spent 13 years as Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Arlington, Va. He is an active member of numerous organizations dedicated to Catholic Education, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Education Committee in Washington, D.C., and the Christian Brothers Employee Benefit Trust in Chicago. In 1800, six years before the first public school was established in New York, Irish and German immigrants at St. Peter’s Parish founded a school for 100 students on Barclay Street in lower Manhattan. St. Peter’s School was the only Catholic school in Manhattan until St. Patrick’s (Old) Cathedral School opened in 1817 on Mott Street. Archbishop John Hughes, who served New York from 1842 to 1864, is considered the grand architect of what would become the Catholic school system. Today more than 71,000 children learn in 218 Catholic elementary and secondary schools across the nine Catholic school regions of the Archdiocese of New York, from Staten Island to Kingston.