Providence president doing double-duty: How much can $1 get you these days? In the case of St. Mary Magdalene Elementary School, it buys a principal

In an unusual partnership among Catholic schools, Rev. Richard McGrath, president of Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, will be doing double-duty this school year by also leading St. Mary Magdalene Elementary School on Joliet’s East Side. McGrath, who has been president (similar to a superintendent) at Providence for 23 years, will be interim principal at St. Mary Magdalene for $1 this school year. “They don’t have much money. I’m not taking a salary for this job. I have gotten a lot of wonderful cooperation from Providence people to help,” McGrath said. “The technology department here has been generous with their time in providing computers that we were no longer using. The maintenance staff has worked all summer long over there to help fix some things that we could fix and we also got paving done and some of it was donated.”