When Dr. Kathryn Mitchell Lucchese began teaching at Saint Michael’s 27 years ago, none of the other local schools taught Latin. Saint Michael’s was using a simple, self-paced program, but the will was there to do much more. At that time, Saint Michael’s was also the only local school already integrating computers into its science program. But students of all ages already came together for recess, Chapel, seasonal celebrations, and pageants, playing together with mutual respect. This, in a nutshell, is what the school is and always has been about: providing a nurturing setting for both elementary and secondary students to get the best of a classical education linked to cutting-edge science and congruent mathematics taught by experts. All students experience a rigorous program in Ancient and English literature, all levels of History, including a year of Anthropology, and are rounded out with required classes in foreign languages beginning in Grade One, Latin beginning with Grade Six, and both languages continuing through Grade 12, as well as award-winning art and music courses, also required. Many know the locally popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, performed annually in January by the entire Upper School.

But academics and arts are not all: key to the school’s experience has been the multi-generational Daily Chapel, open to children of all faiths but sponsored by the Episcopal Church and firmly based in the Episcopalian liturgy: the beautiful words of the Book of Common Prayer, readings from the Bible, and songs from the Hymnal, encouraging service to the community and service to one another, and celebrating the seasons of the church year, while encouraging lively discussion and our God-given reason. There really is no school just like Saint Michael’s.

For the past few years, after the death of the founding Head Dr. James P. Spencer, and then the retirement of his wife Helen V. Spencer, who had acted for years as his assistant or Co-Head before taking over as Head in her own right, the school seemed to waver in its vision. New Heads, recruited from out of state, had difficulty in fully grasping the unique spirit of the place and thus had a hard time attracting and keeping the caliber of teacher to which the school had become accustomed.  As a result, enrollment dropped.  It was at this juncture that Dr. Lucchese – who had taken time off of teaching to care for ailing parents and to do some writing – felt it was time to put herself forward as candidate for Head of School, offering to work at the salary of an entry-level teacher in order to serve the school she and so many others love.

As a classicist and administrator, Dr. Lucchese helped to build the Upper School program from a handful of students in the 1980’s to a graduating class of 12 in the ‘90’s, co-writing the school song, encouraging the development of the athletic program, as well as solidifying the Grade 6-Grade 12 Latin and Greek standards, the Ancient Literature in Translation curriculum, and designing and leading Upper School trips to Italy and Greece. Following her earning of both a Masters of Science (1993) and Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (2000), she also taught two levels of Earth Science, introducing an extensive field trip exploring Texas geography, and a rigorous program developing laboratory notebook skills, for class and field work. She recently, after several years of telling “Saint of the Week” stories in Friday Chapel, has published a collection of her stories with The Church Press. Dr. Lucchese has taught at both the college and secondary level, was a popular lecturer at TAMU, teaching large sections of The Global Village world regional geography for many years, and while teaching at Sacred Heart School in Atherton, CA, attained Master Teacher status. She is a published classicist and geographer, as well, and delivered a paper in the spring of 2010 on a pagan sanctuary outside of Rome, an underground feature of which she discovered in 1993.

Dr. Lucchese brings the restoration of balance to the school, improving its integrity by application of more rigorous academic and behavioral admission standards, coupled with more generously funded financial need-based aid for bright students. 

Dr. Lucchese, 54 years of age and a native of Indiana, though with Houston blood, has been married for 31 years to TAMU Professor of Physical Chemistry and college sweetheart Robert R. Lucchese, and both their children, Tia and George, spent all but one semester of their school careers at Saint Michael’s, that one semester having been spent at Kendale School in Rome. George was one of the founding members of the Saint Michael’s Baby Nursery, and Tia was in the Bear House for preschool. Both children played for the Saint’s basketball teams, and both were leads in the operettas; Tia attended the University of California, Berkeley, has gone on to teach Grade One in El Cerrito, CA and sing with the Grammy-award-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus as well as The Lamplighters (doing Gilbert and Sullivan, mostly), and George (after teaching, as a Grade 12 student, computer graphics for one memorable semester at Saint Michael’s) won a full scholarship to TAMU’s Computer Science program, from which he will soon graduate. Dr. Lucchese and her husband live in College Hills with their elderly Corgi-mix, Caleb, but love to travel wherever his research takes them: he does theory and she writes books. She currently is in final revisions of two novels written over the past year.

When Dr. Kathryn Mitchell Lucchese began teaching at Saint Michael’s 27 years ago, none of the other local schools taught Latin. Saint Michael’s was using a simple, self-paced program, but the will was there to do much more. At that time, Saint Michael’s was also the only local school already integrating computers into its science program. But students of all ages already came together for recess, Chapel, seasonal celebrations, and pageants, playing together with mutual respect. This, in a nutshell, is what the school is and always has been about: providing a nurturing setting for both elementary and secondary students to get the best of a classical education linked to cutting-edge science and congruent mathematics taught by experts. All students experience a rigorous program in Ancient and English literature, all levels of History, including a year of Anthropology, and are rounded out with required classes in foreign languages beginning in Grade One, Latin beginning with Grade Six, and both languages continuing through Grade 12, as well as award-winning art and music courses, also required. Many know the locally popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, performed annually in January by the entire Upper School.

But academics and arts are not all: key to the school’s experience has been the multi-generational Daily Chapel, open to children of all faiths but sponsored by the Episcopal Church and firmly based in the Episcopalian liturgy: the beautiful words of the Book of Common Prayer, readings from the Bible, and songs from the Hymnal, encouraging service to the community and service to one another, and celebrating the seasons of the church year, while encouraging lively discussion and our God-given reason. There really is no school just like Saint Michael’s.

For the past few years, after the death of the founding Head Dr. James P. Spencer, and then the retirement of his wife Helen V. Spencer, who had acted for years as his assistant or Co-Head before taking over as Head in her own right, the school seemed to waver in its vision. New Heads, recruited from out of state, had difficulty in fully grasping the unique spirit of the place and thus had a hard time attracting and keeping the caliber of teacher to which the school had become accustomed.  As a result, enrollment dropped.  It was at this juncture that Dr. Lucchese – who had taken time off of teaching to care for ailing parents and to do some writing – felt it was time to put herself forward as candidate for Head of School, offering to work at the salary of an entry-level teacher in order to serve the school she and so many others love.

As a classicist and administrator, Dr. Lucchese helped to build the Upper School program from a handful of students in the 1980’s to a graduating class of 12 in the ‘90’s, co-writing the school song, encouraging the development of the athletic program, as well as solidifying the Grade 6-Grade 12 Latin and Greek standards, the Ancient Literature in Translation curriculum, and designing and leading Upper School trips to Italy and Greece. Following her earning of both a Masters of Science (1993) and Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (2000), she also taught two levels of Earth Science, introducing an extensive field trip exploring Texas geography, and a rigorous program developing laboratory notebook skills, for class and field work. She recently, after several years of telling “Saint of the Week” stories in Friday Chapel, has published a collection of her stories with The Church Press. Dr. Lucchese has taught at both the college and secondary level, was a popular lecturer at TAMU, teaching large sections of The Global Village world regional geography for many years, and while teaching at Sacred Heart School in Atherton, CA, attained Master Teacher status. She is a published classicist and geographer, as well, and delivered a paper in the spring of 2010 on a pagan sanctuary outside of Rome, an underground feature of which she discovered in 1993.

Dr. Lucchese brings the restoration of balance to the school, improving its integrity by application of more rigorous academic and behavioral admission standards, coupled with more generously funded financial need-based aid for bright students. 

Dr. Lucchese, 54 years of age and a native of Indiana, though with Houston blood, has been married for 31 years to TAMU Professor of Physical Chemistry and college sweetheart Robert R. Lucchese, and both their children, Tia and George, spent all but one semester of their school careers at Saint Michael’s, that one semester having been spent at Kendale School in Rome. George was one of the founding members of the Saint Michael’s Baby Nursery, and Tia was in the Bear House for preschool. Both children played for the Saint’s basketball teams, and both were leads in the operettas; Tia attended the University of California, Berkeley, has gone on to teach Grade One in El Cerrito, CA and sing with the Grammy-award-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus as well as The Lamplighters (doing Gilbert and Sullivan, mostly), and George (after teaching, as a Grade 12 student, computer graphics for one memorable semester at Saint Michael’s) won a full scholarship to TAMU’s Computer Science program, from which he will soon graduate. Dr. Lucchese and her husband live in College Hills with their elderly Corgi-mix, Caleb, but love to travel wherever his research takes them: he does theory and she writes books. She currently is in final revisions of two novels written over the past year.