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Who Is Sister Plante?

ister Michaelinda Plante was born Beverly Plante and grew up in a mixed-religion family. She attended Catholic elementary school from the second through the ninth grades, and believes that it was this experience that led her to her vocation as a nun. She especially remembers a sixth grade teacher who she describes as "a tough lady, but she helped us mature". This teacher was a Sister of Mercy.

Young Beverly Plante at first was drawn to the Maryknoll Order, which maintains missions in Africa. However, a vocational priest urged her to consider an educational career in the United States instead. Beverly's mother insisted that she attend a public high school rather than a Catholic one, hoping that her daughter would abandon her dreams of entering a convent. But Beverly was sure she had found her true vocation. After high school, she worked for several years, and in 1954, she entered the Rhode Island congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. She took the name Sister Michaelinda Plante as her name in the religious life.

Sister Michaelinda earned a B.S. in Education from Mercy College in Rhode Island in 1960, and took her M.Ed. at Rhode Island College in 1969. She was elected to Phi Delta Kappa and wrote for their newsletter, "Kappan". She taught in a number of different elementary schools, gaining teaching experience in all grade levels from first through ninth, before progressing professionally to the administrative level. She worked at Salve Regina College (now University) in Newport, Rhode Island for several years. She is certified to teach grades one through eight in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and is certified as an elementary school principal and superintendent of schools in Massachusetts.

Sister Plante excelled in other areas besides education. She earned a certificate in Family Therapy (considered equivalent to a Masters) from the Boston Family Institute in 1978, and has carried on a private practice as a Family and Individual Counselor. In 1977-78 she completed an Internship in Alcohol Counseling, and has worked with couples in pre-marriage counseling, and separated and divorced couples. From 1968 to 1973, Sister Plante served as the Director of Carter Day Nursery in Providence, an inner city day care center whose clients were 85% black and minority, and 90% on public assistance. During her tenure as Director, enrollment increased from 33 to a maximum of 150 children, and the State strengthened its support of the program.

From 1974 to 1984 Sister Plante served as the Principal of St. Mary's School in Winchester, Massachusetts. In 1974 when she came on board, the school was struggling, with an enrollment of only 133 students. Sister Plante worked with the school administration on improving the curriculum, and set up early childhood (ages 3, 4, and kindergarten) programs that earned local recognition for their excellence. Family involvement with the school was strengthened, with the creation of a working school board and a parent fund-raising organization. Local public school students were admitted into some of the parochial school's more advanced programs. By 1984, enrollment had increased to 325 students. A new computer room had just been built, equipped and staffed, and a solid computer program had just been started when Sister Plante left in 1984. In the early 1980's, computer rooms in elementary schools were the exception rather than the rule. St. Mary's had become a highly respected school which the Diocese looked on with pride. Sister Plante left behind a community that loved and admired her, and she retained many warm friendships with the families whose children she had watched grow up in the classrooms and hallways of St. Mary's.

From 1984 to 1985, Sister Plante was a full-time graduate student at Boston College. She earned her doctorate in Education in 1991. Her dissertation topic was "A Study of Pastor, Principal and Laity's Knowledge of and Attitude toward Financial Sources for Parochial Elementary Schools."

From 1985 to 1994, Sister Plante served as Associate Superintendent of Elementary Schools for the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts (this Diocese includes the South Shore and Cape Cod). She was responsible for overseeing 25 elementary schools (grades N (nursery school) through 8), including the hiring of new staff in coordination with local pastors. As Associate Superintendent, Sister Plante oversaw a continuous process of curriculum revision and improvement at the elementary school level, updating textbooks and providing ongoing educational opportunities for teachers in both secular and religious areas. Sister Plante began a model leadership training program to encourage teachers to progress professionally to the administrative level, which was imitated in other Dioceses. She also instituted a new process for evaluating the performance of school principals.

Taking an active role in Diocese policy-making, Sister Plante developed a self-evaluation process for the schools to assess their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as working with teams of outside experts who studied the schools' procedures and offered suggestions for improvements. This gave the Diocese's parochial schools a strong foundation for moving into the accreditation process of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Sister Plante also began a Principals' Council to which new ideas and policies were first introduced for feedback and revision by the principals, before being implemented. The principals found their inclusion in the policy-making process and the high value placed on their input to be extremely rewarding.

Sister Plante also encouraged the development of Extended Day care programs in the schools, especially in low-income communities.

Just before leaving her position with the Fall River Diocese, Sister Plante had been devoting herself to setting up two new schools on Cape Cod, traveling on location to interview candidates for principals' and teaching positions, and networking with the local pastors and communities. Although she was not able to see those schools in operation, she is proud of her hard work in creating the infrastructure required for them to open.

Despite her impressive credentials and achievements, Sister Plante was not able to find employment in the field of education after leaving the Fall River Diocese. She feels that the failure of her former superiors to provide her with references and letters of recommendation has hindered her job-search in her professional field. Unable to remain idle, Sister Plante has devoted her energies to full-time volunteer work with the Department of Social Services in Fall River and New Bedford. She works as a Foster Care Reviewer, and estimates that she has reviewed over 650 cases. Her work has been recognized by the Governor of Massachusetts and by DSS, and she has worked as a trainer for the agency.

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