Vitality of Catholic Schools 7 ARTICLES The Impact of Catholic School Identity and Organizational Leadership on the Vitality of Catholic Elementary Schools

In order to fulfi ll their role of teaching children to receive Jesus and live out his call to create the Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven, Catholic schools need to possess and foster the distinctive characteristics of Catholic school identity. This study examined the relationship between Catholic school identity and or-ganizational leadership and the extent to which these predict aspects of school vitality in Catholic elementary schools. The results of the analyses point to the signifi cant predictive relationship of Catholic school identity on each subscale of school vitality and at least one subscale of organizational leadership on three of the four subscales of school vitality. In addition, years of teaching in Catholic schools and percent of Catholic students are signifi cant predictors of Catholic school identity. The purpose of this research is to (1) examine the relationship be-tween Catholic school identity and the organizational leadership of a Catholic elementary school and (2) determine the extent to which Catholic school identity and the school’s organizational leadership predict aspects of school vitality. Catholic schools face the challenge of ensuring the Catholic identity of their schools as instructed by the documents of the Catholic Church (Congregation for Catholic Education [CCE], 1977, 1988). It may be advantageous to distinguish qualities of the school, especially those indicating the strength of Catholic school identity and the organiza-tional leadership of a school. It may be further useful to determine the extent to which Catholic school identity and organizational leadership can predict overall school vitality that is defi ned as the ability of a school to develop as an effective institution in the realization of its educational mission (Fullan, 1982