Sister Patricia McCarron stunned many last summer when she said it would be her last school year leading the Notre Dame Preparatory School in Towson.

Some were devastated that she’d decided to leave after 20 years as head of the all girls’ middle and high school. Others couldn’t believe it had taken so long.

But McCarron wouldn’t go far, lining up a job as superintendent of all Archdiocese of Baltimore schools — and reigniting the controversy around her leadership.

During McCarron’s tenure, Notre Dame grew its endowment to the largest in school history, added cutting-edge programs, hit record enrollment and earned two Blue Ribbons, given to the best schools in the nation.

“Sr. Patricia’s dedication has been instrumental in not only earning numerous honors for educational excellence in the Mid-Atlantic region and nationally but also securing our solid financial position,” Sister Jane Forni said in an email last summer from the Board of Trustees that also named McCarron the first head emerita of the 152-year-old school.

But McCarron also had critics who said she’d created a verbally abusive and toxic culture that drove people from Notre Dame and, in some cases, into therapy. They wanted her gone.

Under McCarron, diversity initiatives languished, isolating people of color, those from the LGBTQ+ community and those not from wealthy families, her critics said. Some employees complained about increasing workloads and being micromanaged and ridiculed to the point of tears and panic attacks. They left at “alarming” rates and fear McCarron’s reach at her new job.

In a statement of no confidence not previously reported on by major media outlets, dozens of faculty members said that “persistent problems” under McCarron’s leadership had a “debilitating effect on morale” that led to a “climate of fear.” Those issues “directly stem from the inability of Sister Patricia to provide effective, relational, compassionate, and trustworthy leadership,” they wrote.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore announced in February that it had selected McCarron to oversee academics for over 16,500 students who attend 40 archdiocesan schools, many more than the 843 girls at Notre Dame during McCarron’s last year. She no longer runs Notre Dame, an independent Catholic school sponsored and governed by McCarron’s religious order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

A six-person archdiocesan search committee unanimously recommended McCarron from among a thoroughly vetted, nationwide pool of candidates said archdiocesan Chancellor of Education Greg Farno.

“Sister Patricia was absolutely the right person for this position,” said Farno.

McCarron told The Banner last March that people approached her at school, in stores and even at a funeral home, encouraging her to go for the superintendent job.

“I felt like I could hear God speaking in their voices,” said McCarron, who has worked in Catholic education for about 40 years. “And then when I took time to pray about it, I felt like God was calling me to apply to it.”

When asked about concerns surrounding her time at Notre Dame, McCarron said she’ll bring the same energy, enthusiasm and passion to her new job as she did to Notre Dame’s mission to “educate girls to become women to transform the world.” McCarron did not address specific allegations detailed in a follow-up email to the archdiocese.

Years of complaints

Longtime Maryland school superintendent and archdiocesan search committee chair Nancy Grasmick said they wanted a superintendent who could build relationships with school leaders and surrounding communities.

But some told The Banner that McCarron’s treatment of people did the opposite.

One alumna whose daughter attended Notre Dame said that prior to McCarron’s tenure, the school felt like a safe space. She recalled warmth, sisterhood.

But her daughter attended high school virtually during the pandemic and struggled making connections, said the mother, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation. She said McCarron dismissed those issues.

“If this isn’t a good fit, we can help you find another school,” the parent, who is one of over 8,000 Notre Dame alumnae, remembers being told.

One former department chair, who also didn’t want to use her name out of fear of retaliation, described her many years at Notre Dame as traumatic and destabilizing, despite loving her colleagues and students.

“It was like standing there, watching your house burn to the ground,” said the former employee. “You’re like, ‘I love this place.’ But eventually, you gotta leave the burning house. You gotta protect yourself a little bit.”

She recalled waiting at the end of hallways with tissues as department members left meetings with McCarron because “people would come back upset and crying from their experience talking with her,” she said.

In the 2022 statement of no confidence addressed to school officials, employees accused McCarron of verbal abuse, firing faculty and administrators that questioned her authority, refusing exit interviews, and blocking candid faculty feedback. Employees were told they served at “the whim of the Headmistress,” the letter asserts.

“Repeated attempts to bring these concerns to the attention of higher authorities and to Sister Patricia herself through both formal and informal means have either been met with direct intimidation and gaslighting or summarily ignored,” the letter reads. Letter writers never received an official response.

In an email to The Banner, Notre Dame Director of Communications Cami Colarossi said the school actively seeks ways to support its faculty and staff, “given their critically important role in carrying out NDP’s mission.”

But the former department chair said employees feared McCarron’s retribution if they spoke against her narrative.

“When I was there, I called it sparkle culture — like she wants everything to be sparkly," she said.

In the Banner interview last spring, McCarron said her collaborative leadership empowers employees to do their best work, adding that she’s gotten feedback from surveys and on-campus groups and invites people to talk to her.

The letter of no confidence said climate and culture survey summaries were altered “to reflect her specific leadership tenure and NDP culture in general more favorably.”

The no confidence letter also alleged “alarming rates of employee turnover.” In interviews with The Banner, several former employees independently said that a revolving door of staff led to instability.

The alumna and parent said her daughter’s education was disrupted by scores of teacher departures. One student who graduated in May and asked not to be named because her sister still attends the school said that every year she was at Notre Dame, “I had at least two brand new teachers on my schedule.”

Assistant Head of School for Finance and Administration Tracey Kuhn said Notre Dame, like other independent schools, faces post-COVID hiring and retention challenges and is examining its pay and benefits.

Breaking point

Tensions over McCarron boiled over last summer. The abrupt departure of beloved athletic director and coach Mary Bartel inspired a 2,900-person private Facebook group and an online petition filled with people sharing fond memories of Bartel and calling for an investigation into what they deemed McCarron’s “ineffective and unprincipled leadership” and a “deteriorating school culture.”

“That was kind of the impetus for everyone being like, ‘Enough is enough. You’ve gone too far,’” the former parent and alumna said.

McCarron declined to comment on a “personnel matter” but said her decision to not renew her contract was unrelated. The archdiocese’s Farno, who also declined to comment on the specifics, said all successful longtime leaders make hard decisions. He said last summer’s events were an internal matter to a “very well-run independent Catholic school.”

In an email to the community last summer, Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees declined to comment on Bartel’s exit but thanked her for “many years of dedicated service” and said they were grateful to those who expressed concerns. The email said they continued to support McCarron and the administration “in this matter.”

Bartel declined to comment. But Lisa Costello, who taught and coached at Notre Dame before leaving in 2014, considers her a close friend. She was “shocked but not totally surprised” by Bartel’s exit because “it became pretty clear that you were either with Sister Patricia or against her.”

Maureen Sack Cannon was one of several women to criticize McCarron’s leadership at a town hall last summer. The former director of enrollment management, who left in March 2023, told the audience she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from working at the school. She said she sometimes still has panic attacks when pulled into a meeting by her new boss.

During weekly meetings, McCarron would tell her she “wasn’t doing things very well,” Sack Cannon told The Banner. She said she was humiliated, yelled at. She sobbed at a school open house after being publicly rebuked by McCarron over tour guide instructions, she added. She’d agonize over emails, worried about picking the wrong words.

Once, after some of Sack Cannon’s team members complained about her management style, she said McCarron had the staff go around a table, in front of Sack Cannon, to say what they didn’t like about her in a “gut-wrenchingly painful” display.

“I did think about resigning,” Sack Cannon said. “But my daughters were in seventh grade at the time, and I just, I needed to put my head down and keep going.”

But some who worked with McCarron, like Kuhn, had only positive things to say. The last 20 years have been “nothing but collaborative” said Kuhn, who said she knows McCarron “very well” and sent two daughters through Notre Dame under her.

“Sister Patricia has just repeatedly said over and over to me in conversation, ‘How we do things matters,’” Kuhn said. “She works with all of us, in conjunction with all of us.”

Some can’t leave ‘unscathed’

The letter of no confidence said McCarron demonstrated “a lack of commitment to create profound institutional change around Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity initiatives.”

When asked about diversity at Notre Dame, where enrollment skews about 75% white, according to the school, Farno said that “accessibility, I think, suggests diversity; it suggests making it a welcoming culture.” He said McCarron and the archdiocese want to make Catholic schools affordable for many, “not just a certain subset of the population.”

He said she did so at Notre Dame, where aid and scholarships can help cover the $24,600 tuition.

But some who worked and studied under McCarron said she and the school weren’t always welcoming to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, students of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Nicole, who asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear of professional retaliation, said multiple aspects of her identity — she’s half-Filipino and gay and attended the school on a scholarship — shaped her experience for the worse.

She and her friends felt the school was divided into “kids who had and the kids who were on scholarship.” She often felt she should “sit down and shut up, because you’re just lucky to be here,” she said.

Nicole said it took later teaching at her alma mater to realize that “a lot of what I saw at the institution of NDP was kind of Sister’s [McCarron] views of what NDP should be.”

Nicole said she was told by another teacher to “make sure they never know” she was gay. Nicole had hidden that part of herself as a student, too. While students, parents and faculty have shifted their perspective since, Nicole said, “there’s been a lot of progress halted by Sister Patricia.” She quit her Notre Dame job after she married another woman and had to keep it secret.

“Looking at our current political culture, I think if there’s any pushback of ‘there shouldn’t be DEI,’ she will be too happy to oblige,” Nicole said. “And now this reaches a lot of other schools, not just the one.”

McCarron said Notre Dame’s overall student of color population has grown from 14% in the 2017-2018 school year to 24% last school year. She said she values diversity and recognizes and appreciates “that we’re all made in God’s image and likeness.” All are treated with respect and dignity in Catholic schools, she added.

Colarossi said Notre Dame strives to be a welcoming community for all students. There’s an Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and affinity groups for minority students. On-campus displays declare Notre Dame’s commitment to DEI and anti-racism.

For many, that’s not enough.

Tracy Williams, a Black elementary school reading teacher and former Notre Dame parent, said the school had impressive academics for her daughter, who graduated in 2023.

But several of her daughter’s classmates suffered mentally, she said, and some Black students even left for other private high schools.

“You’re not going to leave unscathed,” Williams said. “I don’t recommend the school to anyone.”

At the town hall, Williams said her daughter‘s last two years were “catastrophic.” Adults at the school constantly scrutinized her, called her hostile and said they were afraid of her, she said.

“They raise these girls to be able to speak their mind. My daughter spoke her mind about Black Lives Matter, racism, microaggressions,” said Williams. “Sister Patricia threatened to expel my child because of that.”

Catholic legacy

Chris Kaiser, who was the associate dean of students at Notre Dame until the end of last school year, said McCarron was her favorite head of school in 44 years working there. The two formed a “best friendship” while teaching together at Notre Dame. McCarron “jumped right in,” coaching basketball and moderating student government, Kaiser said.

McCarron’s departure is a “great loss” for the school, said Kaiser.

McCarron’s fellow sisters are proud and grateful for her years at Notre Dame and “know she will share the Spirit that guides all School Sisters of Notre Dame with the students, faculty and staff entrusted to her care” said Sister Charmaine Krohe on behalf of the Atlantic-Midwest Provincial Council in an emailed statement.

In selecting McCarron, the archdiocesan search committee wanted someone with a strong Catholic identity.

“Catholic identity is our cornerstone. It’s our mission. It’s our North Star. It is our secret sauce,” Farno said. “Understanding right from wrong, understanding morals and values are all part of Catholic identity.”

Grasmick said she hopes those concerned about McCarron give her a chance because the committee believes she’ll do an “outstanding” job. McCarron also welcomes people to get to know her.

“I think that certainly they will experience my commitment to Catholic schools, my passion for Catholic education, that I am driven as a School Sister of Notre Dame, by my relationship with Christ, with God,” McCarron said. “This is a service of love. And love is at the heart of all that we do.”

In mid-May, Notre Dame said goodbye to McCarron with dance and band performances, gifts and even the Orioles mascot. The assembly was themed to “Sister’s favorite things.”

It made some uncomfortable. The 2025 graduate described it as “almost surreal in its absurdity.”

But the farewell also secured McCarron’s legacy — Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees named the school’s auditorium after her.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.