Kathy Almazol

In her role as head of Faith Formation and senior associate in Character Education, Almazol will set goals for the faith formation activities, produce materials, and promote public awareness of the virtues ethics educational materials that can be taught in faith-based schools and parishes.

Kathy Almazol most recently led the Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the Diocese of San Jose. She has been an administrator in the elementary schools for the past twenty years serving over 16,000 students. Almazol was instrumental in developing the Drexel School System, a unique instructional model to meet student-learning needs by using data to inform the instructional curriculum for each grade level. The Drexel System was built with the help of clergy and business partners as well as technologists and partners at Santa Clara University. There are now 12 elementary schools in the Diocese of San Jose using this instructional model.

Almazol has been a leader in developing School Advisory Councils in the school system in order to allow parents to understand their role as partners and leaders in our schools. She continues to advise principals and parent groups on the importance of choosing appropriate governance systems for their school. In addition to her work with the Catholic School Leadership program at SCU Almazol has worked to build a faith formation program through the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at SCU under the direction of the Character Education program. Almazol has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Markkula Center for the past nine years.

Almazol began her teaching career during the first bussing initiatives in Stamford, Connecticut. She also taught in an American Dependent School in Ansbach, Germany, before the fall of the Berlin wall.