John Moran is the first male to lead St. Francisc High School in its 85-year history, but his goals transcend gender.
“Of course I want us to be the best all-girls Catholic school, but I also want to extrapolate that to be the best school of any type, period,” he says.
The Brooklyn native plans to achieve excellence by strengthening current offerings at St. Francis while adding new programs that attract students with different backgrounds and interests.
“I want to have something for everyone, and I want each student to have a variety of choices of opportunity to become well-rounded people,” Moran says.
The job as president of the East Sacramento school for young women feels natural for Moran, who comes to St. Francis after working as president of Junipero Serra High School in Gardena.
“I’ve always been big on girl power,” Moran says. “I would uplift and honor women and girls in coed schools because sometimes they’d get overshadowed in a male-dominated environment. I worked to counteract that. I realized I have always been a champion of young women.”
Moran credits his affinity for the job to growing up with “three amazing, strong sisters” and his “biggest mentor,” his late mother, Angela, whom he describes as “a model of such strong, loving womanhood and a force in her own right. She would be very proud of me that I’m helping uplift the lives and build the futures of young women.”
He brings a unique perspective to the role. With 27 years in religious education and leadership, Moran has the experience. He holds a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California and a master’s from Harvard.
But his work as national sales director for a Fortune 100 company prepared him best for running St. Francis, Moran says.
“Religious private schools need to be three things,” he says. “One, they must be committed to faith. Two, they must understand education. And three, they must also understand business.
“The third piece is sometimes missing. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, you need business leadership. You don’t increase enrollment because you need or want to—you increase the value of your offering every year and communicate that value better.”
Unique opportunities are already happening at St. Francis. This year, the school joins an elite group from across the globe in an International Space Station program. Students design, build, engineer, code and send an experiment to the space station and receive weekly data downloads from astronauts on board.
Moran has lots of ideas. He wants to expand the school’s network of community partnerships as “one of the primary ways to catalyze the success of a school.” He also wants to expand St. Francis’ network of philanthropic givers and stewards.
“Excellence has a price tag,” he says. “The more partners of like mind who love our mission and want to help us achieve our vision, share that story and expand our network will help us gain more financial strength. We’re in the business of developing amazing women. The next 85 years will be better than the first.”
For information, visit stfrancishs.org.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
