January 26, 2007

Dear Friends of Sacred Heart School,

It is with great enthusiasm that the Board of Trustees announces the appointment of Rich Dioli as Director of Schools, effective July 1, 2007. He is the resounding choice of the Board and we are delighted that he has agreed to take on this new role.

Rich’s appointment is the culmination of a process that began late last year when Dr. Joe Ciancaglini decided to accept the Director position at our sister school, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Since then, the Board has devoted a great deal of time thinking through our needs and selection criteria, talking to search firms and schools who have gone through similar searches, and conducting a rigorous assessment of Rich. Although he is well known to all of us as Principal of SHP, and in many ways is a logical and natural choice, we nevertheless felt a duty to step back and carefully and objectively evaluate hisexperience and capabilities against the needs of this critical role. Our conclusion is that Rich is an excellent and uniquely well-qualified choice.

Rich is a strong, experienced leader with an outstanding track record of success, including 14 years as Principal of the Prep. He is deeply familiar with our organization, our culture and history. He passionately supports and champions Sacred Heart’s unique mission. His own values, character, integrity and personal faith closely reflect the Goals and Criteria of a Sacred Heart education. At the Prep, he has distinguished himself by building an extraordinary team that materially improved our high school on every dimension during his tenure. His enormous energy and contagious enthusiasm have been a driving force behind the Prep’s success. He has strong, broad-based support from parents, students, faculty, staff and alumni and is extremely well known and respected in the community. Since he is integrally involved in our strategic planning process, he understands and embraces the direction we are headed and will immediately step in and begin driving key initiatives. Most importantly, Rich is profoundly and genuinely committed, at a very personal level, to the long term success of SHS.

At the end, of the day, we couldn’t imagine a national search yielding a more qualified candidate, let alone one already so steeped in Sacred Heart’s values. The Board feels very fortunate and blessed to have Rich available to lead our School in the years to come.

One of Rich’s first responsibilities will be to lead a process to find his own successor as Principal of the Prep. This will begin immediately. Rich will also immerse himself in becoming even more familiar with SJSH,and getting to know more of the SJSH parents, students, faculty and staff. We are developing plans to properly, introduce Rich to the broad Sacred Heart community and celebrate his appointment. Please join the Board in extending Rich heartfelt congratulations and continued success in his new role.

Sincerely,

Mindy Rogers