When Sallie

McQuaid took over as principal of Our Lady of Victory Catholic School

in Tyrone almost one year ago, the dust had barely settled on the brand-new

desk that occupied her office.

The newly established

elementary school had been open about four months when McQuaid replaced

the school's first principal, Nanci Pearson.

At the time,

the school was faced with the struggles all new educational institutions

are confronted with upon opening establishing workable rules and regulations,

cultivating a trust between the parents and children and faculty and administration,

and developing open lines of communication within the school and the community.

Today, McQuaid

admits the school is still experiencing growing pains. "It takes

several years to get everything in motion," she said during a retrospective

interview.

But McQuaid

is making headway and is determined to lay the groundwork for building

a stable school for the next century. "I'm interested in setting

up an institutional process," she said. "What we do as a school

should be appropriate for the next 10 years."

With 258 students

in grades pre-K through 8, OLOV has already exceeded its anticipated enrollment

of 250 and 30 faculty and staff members.

The school

has been accepted into the Georgia Independent Schools Association, which

has a statewide membership of 130 private and religious institutions and

is working toward its accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges

and Schools, a process which takes between 18 months and two years.

"I love

it," McQuaid said of the process. Bringing in experts from all over

the country to assess the school is a factor she finds enriching and "self-identifying."

She expects an on-site visit from a SACS team in the spring of 2001.

Creating a

mission statement and developing the philosophy of the school are two

of the tasks McQuaid intends to accomplish during accreditation.

The basic premise

is to educate students "to strengthen and grow in their love for

Christ while developing a wholesome self-image and assuming responsibility

for learning."

Our Lady of

Victory remains the first and only Catholic elementary school on the southside

of Atlanta. This September, it was joined by Our Lady of Mercy High School,

on the Fulton and Fayette county lines on Ga. Highway 314, which opened

with the ninth and tenth grades.

The two new

schools are among five to be opened by the Atlanta Archdiocese to meet

the educational needs of growing Catholic parishes.

According to

McQuaid, OLOV's student body draws primarily from the parishes of Holy

Trinity in Peachtree City, St. Gabriel in Fayetteville and St. George

in Newnan. "This is a regional school and we want all of the priests

to feel that they are a part of the school," she said.

As a regional

facility, McQuaid said there is also a move among diocesan schools to

decentralize administration to a more site-based type of management, allowing

each individual school to meet the needs of its constituency.

Selecting textbooks

is one area where schools staffs and principals can exercise their judgement

in implementing the curriculum best suited to their students. "We

have three different math series," McQuaid noted, ranging from developmental

math in the pre-k class to algebra in the seventh and eighth grades.

Since opening

its doors, the school has developed a number of club and athletic teams

including a book club, chorus, soccer and basketball. A school band is

in the works for fourth through eighth grade.

A major component

of a student's education at OLOV is involvement in service projects, McQuaid

said. The current project is Operation Christmas Child, which calls on

children and their families to fill a shoe box with small gifts for a

child overseas living in crisis.

About six weeks

ago, the school soccer team raked, mowed and clipped the grounds of the

cemetery located behind Tyrone Town Hall.

Children attending

OLOV are being prepared to "go on to higher education," McQuaid

explained, therefore the school is selective in its admissions policy.

"We cannot accommodate every child," she said, explaining that

they do not have the resources for children needing special education.

However, student

tutoring and remediation is available, along with enrichment activities

for all students. "Everybody can benefit from enrichment," she

added.