DOREEN ENGEL
Catholic School Educator
An educator for almost 40 years, Doreen Engel received a bachelor’s degree in music therapy from Anna Maria College and a master’s degree in education with a concentration in special education from The Catholic University of America. Formerly the assistant superintendent for the Diocese of Arlington and director of special education for the Archdiocese of Washington, Engel’s classroom experience includes teaching students in every grade from preschool to graduate school with courses ranging from AP psychology to elementary school music. She has served as principal for four Catholic schools, including St. Coletta School in Arlington, VA (1985–1988), Blessed Sacrament School in Washington, DC (1994), St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Academy, RI— where she and her team were awarded a grant from the Raskob Foundation to implement distance learning for highly gifted students via the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented and Gifted Students—and is the current principal at Our Lady of Mercy School in Potomac, MD. Engel was also an adjunct professor at The Andrew M. Greeley Center, Loyola University, Chicago, and has worked with The Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College. While working for Blessed Sacrament as assistant principal, Engel met Hal DeLuca, currently at St. Anselms Abbey School, who sought to determine why local students were experiencing challenges getting accepted to Catholic high schools. Through this relationship, she went on to design, implement, and direct the St. John’s College High School’s Benilde Program (1998–2006), named for visionary and innovative Lasallian educator St. Benilde Pierre Romancon. To this day, the SJC Benilde Program offers a college preparatory curriculum for highly motivated students with diagnosed mild learning differences. The program received a national award from the National Center for Catholic Education Association (NCEA) in 2000 and again in 2004. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity and experience at St. John’s,” said Engel. “I laid the groundwork for the Benilde Program, but it was St. John’s College High School who first had the vision.” From 2014 to 2018, Engel went on to create and then direct the Benilde Program at St. Raphael Academy in Rhode Island, and in 2020, received the Catherine McNamee Award, an award given annually to the person in American Catholic education who has provided additional opportunities for children to have a Catholic education. Engel is the author of Be Open!: A Guide to Prayer for Reflection on the Inclusion in Catholic Schools (NCEA, 2019); “A Powerful Sign: The Catechesis of Children with Disabilities” (Catholic News Service, 2019); and co-author of “Serving Exceptional Learners” (Best Practices, NCEA, 2018), among other articles. An experienced speaker, Engel recently hosted an NCEA webinar for more than 3,000 enrolled participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a former member of NCEA’s Exceptional Learner Advisory Committee, an associate for the Sisters of Mercy, and was a former board member for the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. In her precious spare time, Engel is a serious student of Spanish and enjoys playing the violin. Engel’s son Daniel graduated from St. John’s in 2007.
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