May 5, 2026
Dear Members of the Connelly Center Community,
With great pleasure and pride, our Board of Trustees has unanimously confirmed Shalonda Neeley Gutierrez as Executive Director and Head of School of Cornelia Connelly Center.
Shalonda has served in an interim capacity as executive director since July 2025. She has guided the Center most capably through this period of transition, demonstrating exceptional leadership and strong commitment to our educational mission. As many of you know, Shalonda was the Principal of the Center’s middle school for the previous 17 years, steadily working with faculty to strengthen academic and extracurricular programs. We have now been impressed by how ably she has adapted to the significant expansion of responsibility demanded by the executive leadership role, with skillful organizational management, teamwork, strong communication and fundraising efforts, warm outreach to our multifaceted community of students, parents, alumnae, supporters, the extended Holy Child Network, the Archdiocese and more, as well as attention to longer-range strategic challenges.
We as a board are confident that, under Shalonda’s direction, Cornelia Connelly Center will continue to thrive, providing a joyful, faith-filled, robust educational program, including crucial graduate support. Since starting at CCC in 2003, as a language arts teacher, Shalonda has made our mission not just her job, but her life’s work. She has embraced and advanced the loving, holistic commitment that defines Holy Child education.
Please join me in congratulating Shalonda on this well-deserved appointment. We look forward to supporting her leadership and to the creativity, skill and drive that she will bring to her collaboration with all of us.
As always, we deeply appreciate your continued support for the Connelly Center, creating a brighter future for the young women we work to serve.
Sincerely,
MJ Murphy
Chair of the Board of Trustees