Scholastic Achievement 
By: Kassia Micek
      Conroe Courier staff
      06/05/2008

The halls of Sacred Heart Catholic School will look much different next year, missing the traditional red and white habit of a Catholic Sister. The school's last remaining religious order teacher, Sister Scholastica, is leaving after 15 years on campus for a year sabbatical.

"I went to Catholic school all the way through," Sister Scholastica said, as she kept an eye on her first-grade class Tuesday. "My calling just came. At 6 years old, I was around the sisters and it just grew from that."

For the last 45 years, Sister Scholastica taught first-graders their ABCs and 123s both in the classroom and in the chapel. "I just like little children," she said. "I like to mold them... We try to instill religion into the children so they'll take that with them."

Besides teaching her students about the rosary, saints and Catholic holidays, Sister Scholastica teaches them to have a quick wit. "She tells funny jokes and she teases us," 7-year-old Tyson Blanchard said. "I like her teaching religion and I'm going to miss it. She teaches well and she sometimes messes up and says 'whatever' and then she keeps on teaching well."

All her students recall her joking nature, which sometimes landed on herself. "She says that she never makes mistakes, but she does," 7-year-old Grace Tannos said with a smile. Even after they leave her classroom, Sister Scholastica's students don't forget her. "She was always very strict, but she had a great sense of humor," said 21-year-old Jennifer Wedgeworth, who is now studying accounting at Texas A&M University. "I remember one day after recess it started snowing. Usually teachers don't let you go outside, but she did and we had two recesses that day."

Sister Scholastica received her bachelor of arts from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Houston, her ministry is teaching. Before coming to Sacred Heart, Sister Scholastica taught in Rockport, Bryan and Houston. And while technology has changed what her students come to school knowing, Sister Scholastica said she hasn't. "I'm too old fashioned," she said. "I really haven't changed much."