Corinne (Corie) Alimento has been named the new principal at St. Isidore School in Bloomingdale. She succeeds Cyndi Collins, who is retiring at the end of the current school year after serving as principal at the Bloomingdale Catholic elementary school for the past 15 years.
Alimento will be leaving her current position as principal at St. Paul Catholic School in Joliet, where she has been principal for the past five years. Like St. Isidore School, St. Paul is part of the Diocese of Joliet.
In announcing Alimento’s hiring, Father Jim Murphy, St. Isidore’s pastor, stated that she “will be coming home again,” in that she taught at St. Isidore School for eight years prior to her pursuing her administrative degrees and certifications and is a current St. Isidore parishioner.
A graduate of Elk Grove High School, she earned her undergraduate degree in secondary education from DePaul University, Chicago, and an MS Degree in Teaching and Learning from St. Francis University in Joliet. She then went on to earn her educational leadership certification (formerly called Type 75) from DePaul, and then taught for four years in the Chicago Public Schools before joining St. Isidore School in 2001, teaching Spanish, social studies and literature.
After earning her administrative-related certifications, Alimento was hired as principal at Holy Family School in Bensenville, when St. Charles Borromeo School, Bensenville, was merged with St. Joseph, Addison, to form Holy Family School. She served as principal at Holy Family for five years, before moving on to the position of principal at St. Paul in Joliet.
“I am so very excited to be returning to St. Isidore School, a place that I truly consider home,” she said. “I have very big footsteps to follow in Mrs. Collins, who was my principal and mentor when I taught there, as well as Mrs. Sandy Renehan who originally hired me at St. Isidore, and was my first principal there before she moved onto the principal position at All Saints [Naperville]. Working for these two really amazing administrators was truly my honor and privilege, as I learned so much from both of them.”
Relative to her beliefs in the value of a Catholic elementary school education, Alimento referred to an intense branding process that the Diocese of Joliet’s Catholic Schools Office undertook a few years back.
“Our Catholic Schools Office adopted the tagline ‘We Teach More,’ which more strongly ties our striving for academic excellence to a spiritual foundation,” she said. “This means that all of us in the diocese focus on what’s important: finding God’s truth, beauty and goodness in everything we do, and weaving the same into every subject we teach. Our mantra at St. Isidore School is ‘Teaching the Heart of the Matter,’ which means we work to bring everything we teach and do, back to our faith.
“I do think there is something special about St. Isidore. It’s a feeling I can’t really explain, but it is based on family, faith and love. It’s truly a special place to me, and means so much to me and my family. I cannot wait to see some familiar faces within the school and parish, and meet many new ones.”
