CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ Plus) — Bishop McCort in Johnstown and Bishop Carroll in Ebensburg are partnering together.

The former assistant principal at McCort, Stephen Cotchen, has been promoted to Head of School at Bishop Carroll. This move is accompanied by a bunch of other changes.

“We’re going to create a Dean of Students position here at Bishop McCort and that’ll be filled by Chris Pfeil who’s worked here a long time under Stephen. We’re also going to create a Dean of Instruction position which will be filled by Jen Bradley who’s been here for several years as well,” said Tom Smith, Principal at Bishop McCort.

Bishop McCort guidance counselor, Richard Denhard, will also assume the role of Career and College Readiness Coordinator at Bishop Carroll.

“He’ll still be serving as guidance counselor here. It’s not going to be a set schedule as to Monday, Wednesday, Friday…as we have needs in different places he’ll just go to one campus as opposed to another,” said Stephen Cotchen, Head of School at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School.

That new role includes creating individualized four year plans for each student.

Cotchen says it’s all about coming together.

“If we don’t have our faith we have nothing and the collaborative effort is based in faith. We want to see each other be successful, we want to see the Catholic system within our Diocese grow and be enhanced in every way possible,” said Cotchen. “Bishop Carroll doesn’t currently have a stream lab or a video digital production room like we have in Bishop McCort so we can really get those students in front of some new pieces of equipment, new curriculum to enhance what they may want to do in the future as they are looking for college and career readiness.”

“Bring them down a couple of days of the week so they can have access to our equipment here, we’re willing to do that and to share that,” said Smith. “We can do different online trainings and classroom activities with them. Our religious instruction can be shared. There are so many opportunities for us to get better at what we do academically.”