Page 23 - Priorities #71

Zappelli
by Thea Sullivan
It was 1990. George H. W. Bush was President, Nirvana’s Nevermind was climbing the charts, and a thousand miles apart, Al Zappelli and Priory—neither yet quite aware of the other’s existence nor the role each would play in the other’s future—were facing similarly uncertain moments.
It all had to do with babies. As in, not enough of them having been born the right number of years earlier in order to sustain enrollment at Catholic schools. It was a widespread crisis, and it meant that Al’s job in development at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Washington—a town he and his wife loved and where they thought they’d stay forever—had suddenly been cut, along with his entire department.
Priory History of
Meanwhile, in Portola Valley, Priory was experiencing the same enrollment challenges. In an attempt to increase its own declining enrollment, the historically all-boys school had made controversial plans to go co-ed. A core group, including some board members and Father William, who was Prior at the time, supported the move.
Al had grown up Catholic in the Bay Area, attended Bellarmine, and had a vague idea of Priory. “Its perceived reputation was as a boarding school for kids that couldn’t fit in anywhere else,” he says. He had lunch with a priest friend who told him, “It’s a great school. They know who
they are, and the Benedictines are great educators. But I don’t know if the school is going to survive.” Still, jobs in Spokane were scarce and he and his wife Peggy, had a family of four children. So when Priory offered him the job of Admissions Director, despite the risk it entailed, he said yes.
From a numbers perspective alone, the job was daunting. Of Priory’s 106 enrolled students in the fall of 1990, over half were boarders. Between graduation and attrition, the school stood to retain only 60 students for the coming year. They would need 125 just to keep the
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