For Joan Morris, school principal of St. Monica Elementary School in Santa Monica, excellence is to be found in the details. A cup full of birthday pencils communicates welcome and celebration to the students who eagerly walk into her office on their birthdays. She can greet each of her 274 students by name. Every weekly newsletter includes a favorite quote.

It's no surprise that an office plant that started off with two leaves is now overflowing with green petals --- mirroring the care and attention Morris has consistently provided the school for more than 23 years.

At the end of the month Morris, 63, will retire from her position as principal - a job she's held since she was 39. The school community will honor her service with a Mass of Thanksgiving June 21.

"Being at St. Monica's has been one of the great blessings of my life," Morris recently told The Tidings. "It really has in terms of the people I've met here starting with Msgr. [Lloyd] Torgerson, who's just a wonderful pastor. And then our teachers. We have great stability on our faculty and staff. We have great parent leadership. We have a wonderful partnership between the home and school. And the kids. We have great kids."

Working together for the benefit of its young people, "we've built a school that we can be very proud of," said Morris, who began her tenure in 1985 when Msgr. Anthony Duval was pastor. "Eighth graders go on to the Catholic high school of their choice. This eighth grade, 94 percent are going on to a Catholic high school, which we're very proud of. They have been educated with us for nine years, and they can go on confident that they can be successful at the next level."

With dedicated parent involvement and support, the school started an after school enrichment program that provides students with unique opportunities to take classes in a foreign language, karate, chess, keyboard, drama, even ballroom dancing.

"Twelve years ago we determined a goal of integrating technology into the curriculum to enhance student learning," said Morris. Every teacher has a computer in their classroom, connected to a digital wipe board through a video projector.

"When it's time for the class to end, instead of erasing the board, she just saves that whole lesson on her computer, and the next day she just flashes it up again, and they just continue with what they are doing. Isn't that great?" Morris asks with her characteristic enthusiasm. Two computer labs are tailored to meet the needs of younger and older students.

As important as technology is, emphasis also is placed on community building and Christian service.

The school families program, an idea Morris brought from her teaching days at Saints Peter and Paul School in Wilmington, involves creating school families with a child from each grade level led by an eighth grade student family leader. The school families sit together at Mass and are brought together for other school-wide activities.

Every grade has a Christian service project benefiting the parish. Eighth graders serve monthly at the older adult luncheon. Seventh graders volunteer at St. Joseph Center. Sixth graders make cards for parishioners in the hospital or for the homebound.

Additional service projects benefit the wider community, like fundraising for leukemia or breast cancer research or collecting school supplies for homeless children. Students also fundraise for their sister school in Kenya.

"We are first and foremost a Catholic school. That's what distinguishes us from the local public school down the street," said Morris, who likes to acknowledge the Holy Names Sisters who started St. Monica School. Morris was a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange from 1962 to 1975 and began her 41-year career in Catholic education at Our Lady of Victory in Compton.

At St. Monica, she said, "we pray daily in our classrooms. We attend Mass. We engage in Christian service. We model Catholic/Christian values. We're very clear about what we expect our graduates to be able to do." The school-wide discipline program," she added, "is "a positive program teaching kids personal and social responsibility. It fosters self-esteem. We have a safe, peaceful learning environment.

"I feel like the school is in great shape right now. It's a good time to hand the baton to another," she adds. (Sharon Dandorf, currently principal of Daniel Murphy High School in Los Angeles, succeeds Morris).

For more than two decades, Morris, a resident of San Pedro, has gotten up at 4 a.m. each weekday morning to beat the traffic and arrive at her Santa Monica office by 5:50 a.m. Still, she claims she's not a morning person.

"That's really the reason I'm leaving. It's just worn me down over 23 years - the schedule, the commute," said Morris, of her 65-mile daily roundtrip. "It's going to be hard for me to go. But I feel at peace about the decision."

Born and raised in San Francisco, Morris feels right at home in San Pedro. "It's the bridge. It's the hills. It's the fog," she says fondly. "There's something inside me that just connects with my childhood."

After the school year ends, Morris will travel to Hawaii and to northern California to visit family and friends. She plans to make a retreat to discern her next step. She also plans to serve as Eucharistic minister at St. Monica Church once a month to keep up her ties with the community.

"My goal is a simpler life closer to home. But I still want to serve the church in some capacity," said Morris. "I think there are some other things I'm sure the Lord wants me to do."

In thanksgiving
Members of the St. Monica community said they have valued the strong educational and faith community Morris has built and sustained.

Msgr. Torgerson, 21 years pastor at St. Monica Church, praised Morris' "wonderful" ability to develop long-standing relationships with students, parents and faculty.

"She knows every kid by name in that school. She stands up in that yard everyday and one by one by one, she's able to identify the parents and the young people as they come into our school," he said. "And because of that, they really believe that she cares about them, knows them and is invested in their education and in their future."

Elizabeth Christian, 14, eighth grade student body president, echoed the pastor's sentiments, saying that Morris "knows all of us. She's on the yard every morning. We can just always talk to her."

Sharon Varnell, special projects coordinator and assistant to Morris, said that Morris "always cares about the morale of the faculty and staff. I remember the first paycheck of the school year she put "PayDay" candy bars in everybody's boxes.

"She will always listen to whatever you have to say if you have a concern," added Varnell, whose son was in first grade when Morris began her tenure. "She has fostered a true sense of community and family."

Kim Tuverson, St. Monica School technology coordinator and marketing/outreach coordinator, recalled her husband's death three years ago when her son was halfway through his eighth grade year.

"Brent came to school, not 12 hours after his father's death, knowing that he was going to be taken care of here," remembered Tuverson. "She just went up to the classroom. Everybody put their arms around him. Msgr. came over. It was remarkable how she rallied everybody."

Msgr. Torgerson added that while Morris has had a strong commitment to education and technology, "she also sees that Catholic education has this great advantage for life. It helps these young people to form the principles, the basis out of which they are going to make the decisions in how they are going to live their lives.

"When someone has integrity of life and lives that, then it redounds to the folks that work with her and the children who are in our school," he said. "Treating people with honesty, treating people with integrity, treating people with respect and with love. The principal, I presume, means master teacher, and she's certainly been that."

Editor's note: The St. Monica School community will celebrate Morris' retirement June 21 with a Mass of Thanksgiving at 5:30 p.m. followed by a reception in the Cantwell Auditorium. To rsvp, e-mail kim.tuverson@gmail.com.