With the new school year, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Catholic Schools got a new executive director and a new leadership structure.
Matt Walter, who joined the archdiocese in 2018 and had been the chief operating officer for the Office of Catholic Schools, became the office’s first executive director on Sept. 1. He will work with a new chief of Catholic mission and a new chief of academics as well as the existing leadership team, according to an announcement from the archdiocese.
“A system as large as ours really requires leadership across the three dimensions: academics, faith formation and operations,” Walter said, describing his role as the “quarterback” bringing all of the areas together.
Walter succeeds Greg A. Richmond, who has served as superintendent of Catholic Schools for the past five years.
“Matt brings a deep understanding of our Catholic schools, the communities they serve and the opportunities ahead,” said Auxiliary Bishop Larry Sullivan, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Chicago. “His leadership and collaborative approach will help our schools build on their strong foundation while ensuring our students receive an excellent education rooted in faith, character and service.”
Before coming to the archdiocese, Walter served as chief financial officer of ReGeneration Schools, a charter school organization, and spent eight years with Chicago Public Schools, ultimately serving as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
He said Catholic schools in the archdiocese are in a good place.
“We’re in a really strong position right now,” he said. “Our focus is on building on the strengths that are in our schools.”
Those strengths include “extremely strong” academics, he said, with students at 93% of archdiocesan schools outperforming the national average in English and language arts.
Faith formation and Catholic identity are strong and getting stronger, Walter said, noting that student answers on questions about Catholic identity on the University of Chicago’s “5 Essentials” survey have shown a consistent increase.
At the same time, Catholic schools have committed administrators, faculty and staff, and create a strong sense of community among students and families.
Walter knows those strengths because they are the reasons he and his wife chose Catholic schools for their three children.
“First and foremost is the faith aspect of it — you can’t get that in other schools,” he said.
Once families are there for faith formation and academics, they become part of the community.
“The people that we spend time with are our fellow parishioners and parents,” Walter said. “I don’t know where else you can get that.”
The schools do face challenges, with some struggling to maintain enrollment at a time when the number of school-age children is declining and the cost of providing high-quality education is increasing. Seven archdiocesan elementary schools closed after the 2025-2026 school year.
According to census data, the number of children in Cook and Lake counties has declined about 10 percent over the past decade, a trend that has led to lower enrollment in public as well as Catholic schools.
“There’s just fewer school-age children in a lot of the communities around Chicago,” Walter said.
To counter that, Catholic schools must make sure they get their message out.
“It’s telling our story around our strengths in our schools,” he said.