Big News: We're a Common Sense School!

Common Sense, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in a world of media and technology, has officially recognized St. Mary’s Catholic School as a Common Sense School for the 2025-2026 School Year.

St. Mary’s has demonstrated its commitment to taking a whole-community approach to preparing its students to think critically and use technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate while preparing them for the perils that exist in the online realm, such as plagiarism, loss of privacy, and cyberbullying.

"We applaud the faculty and staff of St. Mary’s for embracing digital citizenship as an important part of their students' education," said Merve Lapus, vice president of education outreach and national partnerships at Common Sense Education.

St. Mary’s recently adopted Common Sense Education's innovative and research-based digital citizenship resources, which were created in collaboration with researchers from Project Zero. The resources teach students, educators, and parents tangible skills related to internet safety, protecting online reputations and personal privacy, media balance, managing online relationships, and media literacy. The free K–12 curriculum is used in classrooms across all 50 states, in more than 80,000 schools by more than 1,00,000 educators.

"We're honored to be recognized as a Common Sense School," said Amanda Esparza, St. Mary’s principal. "By preparing our students to use technology safely and responsibly, we are building lifelong habits to help them focus on the life skills and relationships that matter most."

For more information about St. Mary’s Catholic School, go to www.saintmary.org.

To learn more about the criteria St. Mary’s met to become recognized as a Common Sense School, visit https://www.commonsense.org/education/recognition-schools.

Press contacts:

For inquiries related to St. Mary’s Catholic School:

Teresa Castle Hamm

Communications Coordinator

For inquiries related to Common Sense:

Christian Medina Beltz

Public Relations Manager

About Common Sense Education

Common Sense is the leading independent nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids thrive in a world of media and technology. Every day, Common Sense supports parents and caregivers, teachers, and policymakers with unbiased information, innovative tools, and trusted advice to support kids' digital well-being.