Thursday, Sep 2, 2010

Education

Anita Diaz, Dean of Students at Immaculate Conception Academy, with students Elisa Balladares, Eliana Barrera and Rochelle Canaya.

July 14th, 2010
By Valerie Schmalz

Catholic families who had ruled out a Catholic high school education for their daughters are coming back to Immaculate Conception Academy this year – drawn by the new Cristo Rey jobs-based financial model, school officials say.

That is perhaps the most exciting development one year after the 127-year-old Dominican college preparatory school converted from a traditional tuition-based model to the corporate work study approach of the Cristo Rey Network, ICA Admissions Director Gina Espinal-Aguerre said. The 2009-2010 school year was the first one where tuition dropped from more than $10,000 to $4,000, while in return students worked one day a week at a corporate or non-profit entry-level professional position and attended school longer, starting near 7:30 a.m. and leaving after 4 p.m. Most students also receive scholarships and unlike at other high schools, all school fees and book costs are covered by ICA.

“Just a couple years ago, from a lot of the schools right here in the Mission, our feeder schools, we were losing students – they were in public school. The girls could not afford it. How sad to go eight years to Catholic school and not be able to afford Catholic high school,” said Espinal-Aguerre. “Now, they are starting to come back.”

Among the parishes that Espinal-Aguerre visits are Latino parishes with active Catholic families, such as St. Charles Borromeo in the Mission District, where people are so involved there are three teen groups. “They say, ‘We can’t afford Catholic school.’ I say, ‘No, we have an opportunity here,’” Espinal-Aguerre said.

Some people doubted the Dominican Sisters of San Jose’s decision to convert Immaculate Conception Academy to a Cristo Rey Network school – particularly because the conversion coincided with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the business model relies on paid corporate jobs eventually supplying 65 percent of the school’s costs. For ICA, the tuition cost of $11,250 for the 2009-2010 school year was divided between $7,250 from corporate work study and $4,000 from parents. Elsewhere in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, high school tuition ranges from $14,000 to $32,500. The school is operating at an expected deficit because it has about half the jobs it will eventually need, Chief Business Officer Max Straub said.

However, after one full year of operation, ICA’s administrators are bullish on the Catholic high school’s future, citing a full freshman class, high marks from employers such as GAP and law firm Jones Day where the ICA students were employed during the 2009-2010 school year, and talks with other employers about more jobs for students by September.

“I think everyone is feeling really optimistic after the first year,” said Lisa Graham, principal of the girls’ high school founded in 1883. “It’s been a year with plenty of challenges and lots and lots of rewards. Our admissions numbers are greater than they were last year. Our incoming freshman class is right at the target we wanted. Our rising sophomore class is bigger than years previous.”

The school enrolled 251 students for next year, with 81 freshmen, 64 sophomores, 51 juniors and 53 seniors. The freshmen and sophomores and any transfer students must meet income requirements set by the Cristo Rey Network that are designed to ensure the students come from economically disadvantaged families. Seniors and juniors who were enrolled prior to the conversion are grandfathered in and are not subject to income requirements. Students do not have to be Catholic. Sixty percent of Cristo Rey students nationwide are Catholic. ICA students were 80 percent Catholic in 2009-2010, Straub said.

Ninety –eight percent of ICA students received outstanding or good ratings from area employers, Straub said. Eighteen students received internships or summer jobs, including one student who was hired for the summer by GAP and another by Jones Day, Straub said.

Straub said with 30 full-time jobs promised for September, ICA has about half of the 60 salaried positions that will keep the school viable long term. Ten percent of jobs are always unpaid entry-level positions at non-profits. “We will grow the number over 30 but how close we get to 60 remains to be seen,” said Straub.

ICA is launching a capital campaign to help pay for overhead costs such as job preparation, training in business etiquette and office equipment operation, the girls’ transportation to work, and salaries of the chaperones who take the girls to workplaces daily, Straub said.

Students work five days a month, with four students sharing one full-time job at a corporate, business or non-profit organization. Ideally, the business pays the school $29,000.

The Chicago-based president of the Cristo Rey Network said ICA transitioned to a Cristo Rey school in a slumping economy, and is one of only four Cristo Rey schools that did not start as a brand new school. However, Network President and Chief Executive Officer Rob Birdsell said even the first school founded in Chicago in 1996 took nearly nine years to hit full strength.

“What ICA does have going for it is an incredible history and brand,” Birdsell said, as well as professional, networking and educational support from the Network, and a “talented team.”

“I would envision in four or five years when that brand is combined with that work study program, it is going to be a show stopper,” Birdsell said, saying the enrollment jump in the incoming freshman class “shows the community wants the school. What I hope is the business community will now see what the families are seeing – that this school is a value to the city.”

Nationwide, the Cristo Rey Network is the fastest growing Catholic high school model, from the first school’s creation in 1996 in Chicago to 24 college preparatory schools nationwide in 2010, Birdsell said. The Cristo Rey School students’ average family income is $35,682, although in San Francisco family income can be quite a bit higher because of the high cost of living. Ninety-five percent of students nationally are students of color, according to the Cristo Rey website. Ninety-six percent of graduates were accepted at a two- or four-year college as of October 2009, according to the website.

The model has been embraced by 21 religious orders and five dioceses that sponsor the schools. The sponsoring group assures that the school is Catholic in identity and mission, true to the religious charism of the sponsor and appropriately governed, under Network bylaws. Nationwide about 60 percent of Cristo Rey students are Catholic and all must be low income. At ICA about 80 percent were Catholic last school year.

American Catholic school enrollment, after a high of 5.2 million students in the early 1960s, has been dropping nationally for about 40 years. In the past decade, Catholic school enrollment went into a steep slide – losing more than 20 percent of enrollment this decade, the National Catholic Education Association reports. From 1999-2000 to the 2009-2010, total Catholic school enrollment dropped from 2.6 million to 2.2 million. Most the decline came at the elementary school level. Still, national Catholic high school enrollment fell from 623,180 students in 1999-2000 to 593,097 in the 2009-2010 school year.

From July 16, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

 

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