Southern Nebraska Register
For Tony Arens, leading St. John the Apostle School in Lincoln is not simply a job. It is a vocation rooted in relationships, faith, and a shared mission to help students grow into disciples of Christ.
Arens, principal of St. John the Apostle School, will receive the Diocese of Lincoln’s 2026 St. Thomas Aquinas Award for Administrator of the Year at the Oct. 11 Saints & Scholars banquet.
Southern Nebraska Register
Students in Catholic schools and parish CCD programs across the Diocese of Lincoln will see two curriculum changes this year as the diocese adopts new resources for safe environment educationand Theology of the Body.
The diocese is transitioning its student safe environment curriculum from Circle of Grace to Bridges and Boundaries, a program developed by TOBET, and will also begin incorporating TOBET’s The Body Matters as its Theology of the Body curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Guest column by Joe Cowan
Owner/Principal Consultant, Sundown Global Solutions, LLC
Observe almost any Catholic school in Nebraska on a school day morning and you’re likely to see parents doing morning drop-off under the watchful eye of a teacher, someone pressing the intercom at the front door and waiting for the door to release, and a secretary sliding a sign-in sheet and visitor badge across the desk without missing a beat, even as she’s signing for a delivery and waving at a line of students headed to daily Mass. It is warm, it is familial, and it’s also – whether anyone notices or not – already good security, quietly at work.