Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington

From the

Official News Magazine of the Diocese of Spokane

(From the Sept. 29, 2005 edition of the Inland Register)

Cheryl Biehl, principal of St. Paschal School in Spokane Valley, visits with the Pre-Kindergarten class earlier this year. (IR photo)

Principal Cheryl Biehl’s office in Spokane Valley’s St. Paschal School is in the space that started out as the foyer inside the original main entrance to the school. Consequently, she has two sets of double doors. One set opens out onto the wide concrete stairs at the front side of the building – which now lead down not to a sidewalk, but to a wide expanse of lawn – and another pair that opens into the main hallway of the school where Biehl became principal this August.

Thus, Cheryl Biehl’s office is a kind of symbol for the school as a whole – simultaneously wide open to God’s world and the warm breezes of a sunny fall day, and wide open to everyone and everything going on in the school.

A visitor is likely to find the double doors from the hallway into the principal’s office open most of the time. It’s an office with a collection of Teddy bears perched atop a filing cabinet in one corner, a laptop computer propped open in the middle of a creatively cluttered desk, and the smiling first-year principal happy to lead a visitor into a few classrooms to meet the children at their desks or lining up in orderly, squirming fashion to troop outside for a recess break.

St. Paschal School traces its origins back to the beginning of the Great Depression, when St. Paschal parishioners made the unlikely decision that, depression or no depression, they wanted a Catholic school for their children. The first fund drive began in the dark days of 1930. After a decade of persistence, the school officially opened on Sept. 3, 1940.

Once the good people of St. Paschal built up a head of steam, however, there was no stopping them. By 1941, all expenses were paid and the parish continued to add classrooms. In 1957, a whole new wing was added, which brought the building that houses St. Paschal School to the size that it is today.

From the beginning, the Sisters of the Holy Names provided teachers and principals, until the decades following the 1960s, when more and more laity took over the staffing. Today, five teachers oversee 72 students in the pre-K and kindergarten classes, and the classrooms for the combined grades 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and 7 and 8. A few part-time teachers come in to cover some areas of instruction; one gives music instruction, another oversees the home economics program

Speaking of which, Principal Biehl beams when she talks about the school’s unique home ec classes for the middle grades. Students learn about nutrition and prepare recipes using fresh, unprocessed ingredients. “They might bring in okra and kiwi, and prepare it for a meal,” Biehl said. “Then they might take what they prepared around to various classes for taste tests.”

For several years, the school took advantage of a hot lunch program available from the local public school district, but that program became too expensive. This year, St. Paschal decided to offer its own hot lunch program. One of the questions the home ec students ask their fellow students is, for example, “Would you like to have okra and/or kiwi as part of the school lunch program?”

School mission statements and educational goals tend to come from the realm of the ideal. All the same, the teachers and administrators at St. Paschal take quite seriously the formally stated goals they strive for. At the top of the list you’ll find this: “A St. Paschal School graduate is ... A spiritual person who: demonstrates a personal relationship with Jesus through participation in personal, communal prayer and liturgical celebrations; understands Catholic traditions, teachings, and practices; reads and applies Scripture; demonstrates service to family, church, school and community; [and] knows and practices Gospel Values: faith, hope, love, service, courage, reconciliation, justice, compassion, respect, community, and stewardship.”

Certainly these are admirable ideals. But Cheryl Biehl adds the crucial personal dimension. A 1968 graduate of Spokane’s Holy Names Academy (closed in the early 1970s), Biehl is effusive about her gratitude for the Catholic education she received there.

“In a way, what I’m doing here at St. Paschal is ‘giving back’ – giving back for what I am so grateful for having received myself.”