By Christian Coffman

The Natchez Democrat

NATCHEZ — Cathedral School is updating its facilities under the surveillance of a new headmaster.

Headmaster Norman Yvon began working at Cathedral School this month.

Yvon’s experience in education spans back 30 years when he still lived in Massachusetts.

Yvon has been a first grade teacher, curriculum specialist, building administrator, district-wide technology director and district superintendent, which was his most recent position.

Yvon intends to start the school year with a positive picture of success and doing what needs to be done to make that picture a reality.

But with such a goal in mind, Yvon understands that he will need help in his new job.

“I’m not a carpet bagger,” Yvon said. “I’m not here to come in with all the answers in my pocket.”

Yvon said that he thought it was providence that he found a position in Natchez.

“We brought my daughter down and came to love the city,” Yvon said. “Our real estate agent said the position was available. Everything seemed to fall into place.”

Yvon said that being the headmaster of a Catholic school will be great way to give back to the community, to the people who taught and raised him during the 16 years he attended his Catholic education.

Yvon said that being the headmaster of a parochial school is like being “a chief cook and bottle washer: you try to get everything done to help the students.”

There are several things being built on the school campus as a part of those many duties Yvon has.

A new field house is being built which will be completed at the beginning of this school year.

Yvon said the field house will end up costing between $550,000 to $600,000.

Yvon said the field house is the end result of a successful capital campaign, after receiving enough pledges from the community to pay for the building.

The field house will feature offices for coaching staff, locker rooms for home and away student athletes and a room that provides the ability to watch and review game video.

Yvon said construction is also underway for the rewiring of the digital infrastructure of the elementary school.

“It was wired by volunteers a long time ago, so we’re getting it professionally repaired…for students and staff to be able to use the technology effectively,” Yvon said.

IT Coordinator Rita Beane is primarily in charge of the project and said the rewiring and network updating of the elementary school is almost done.

“When I started in 2005 there were only 17 computers,” Beane said. “Now we have over 250 desktops…we have three mobile carts with iPads and 52 Permission Interactive System boards in each classroom of the school.”

The project costs $31,000.

Beane said that in order to be able to use these features, the school has to have to have a reliable network with a strong firewall, high speed Internet, web filter and “a lot of other devices that allows us to apply contemporary technology to the schools.”

Beane said in 2012 we completely upgraded to an infrastructure that allowed connection to over 1,000 devices to the internet.

Beane said that every year after 2012, Cathedral has been implementing and upgrading their equipment and network reliability.

This year is the elementary school building’s turn.

Beane said that alongside the rewiring will come new online French courses for the high school students for the first time.

Cathedral’s long-time French teacher Jean-Claude Coullerez retired at the end of the 2016-17 school year.

As Cathedral’s projects wrap up, the new headmaster feels confident about his place in his new community.

“I feel blessed to be here, and I’m looking forward to finding my place in this community and feel doubly blessed to be working as a leader,” Yvon said.