What Nativity Miguel Schools are All About: Students Once Floundering Now Flourish

March 20, 2005

WASHINGTON D.C. - Scores of students who floundered in their early elementary school years will enter top-notch high schools this year after an elevating academic experience at challenging, caring non-tuition driven middle schools located in urban areas throughout the country. These are students from low-income families, many of whom entered sixth grade with below grade level test scores and then proceeded to reach or exceed eighth grade level testing by graduation.

The NativityMiguel Schools network provides outstanding middle school education for these children and, more so, it continues to provide support in the ensuing high school years. NativityMiguel Schools offer Graduate Support Programs so that their 8th grade graduates, beginning in 9th grade, can continue to receive mentoring, tutoring and college counseling to supplement that received at the students’ high schools. The dividends are turning into a 90% high school graduation rate and an 80 percent college acceptance rate.

Currently 57 of these innovative middle schools have been opened throughout the country ---several more will open in the fall of 2005 --- for children of impoverished families living in neighborhoods where cultures of violence and pain are common. Hope is provided for over 4,000 children, including graduates, with a projection that 5,000 will be served by 2008.

The movement began when the Jesuit-sponsored Nativity Mission Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side launched a middle school in 1971. The vision: to provide neighborhood economically disadvantaged families with access to superior education for their children in an environment that also addresses students’ social, physical and spiritual needs. Classes were limited to approximately 15 students attending a year round program. The approach works. The formula became a nationwide model for schools sponsored by Jesuits, De La Salle Christian Brothers, over 30 other women and men Catholic religious congregations and lay organizations. Sisters, brothers and priests, together with dedicated lay educators and volunteers, become partners in elevating the aspirations of their students and, in some instances, their families as well.

A focus on families and local communities is now an added priority at many schools. Volunteering emigrants from Poland and Taiwan, for instance, teamed up to teach English as a second language to over 300 adults, primarily parents of students of one northeastern school. At every school, teachers go beyond course work, facilitating all sorts of extra activities.

NativityMiguel Schools respond to the needs of the individual communities where they are located. Thus, some schools serve all boys; some all girls and some are co-educational. The cumulative student population of all schools is predominantly African-American, Latino, Caucasian and Native American.

Pope Paul VI wrote in the Vatican II document on education that “a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies…in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share.” The teachers at the NativityMiguel Schools work hard at such formation, each long day.

The mission is about transformation---transforming the life of a community and of a family by transforming each child through education. Each determined child deserves a chance to succeed and can do so if given the opportunity. Each NativityMiguel School is about creating the future.

Givers of time, talent and treasure witness this transformation at the schools. Recently turned teenagers greet such visitors with strong handshakes and talk about loving the discipline, demanding studies and long days, often 12 hours. Why? “Because it shows me that these people care about me, want me to be the best and are willing to work hard and long for me to make it,” says one youngster. Others spout appreciation for the personal appearance and school decorum demands, free meals, sports, trips, volunteering mentors and the summer programs “that spare me from rough times in my neighborhood.”

Each NativityMiguel School lists the teaching of moral values in its code, to “see to it that youth is never deprived of this sacred right,” as Paul VI said. The Judeo-Christian values imparted at NativityMiguel Schools include respect for the dignity and potential of each person, responsibility for those in need, a strong sense of community and promotion of social justice.

Neither race, ethnicity, nor a child’s religious faith is ever a factor in admission and students of faiths other than Catholic are in enrolled at most schools. As the late Cardinal Hickey responded, “we are there not because they’re Catholic, but because we are Catholic.” Our students enroll knowing that the NativityMiguel Schools are faith-based, often for that reason. One priest explained, “At faith-based schools, God-speak is OK.” While the Catholic tradition is taught with conviction, students of other faiths are encouraged to explore their own religious traditions. The common assumption, regardless of a child’s religious heritage, is the relevance of scripture and the paschal mystery to the lives of the students. At some schools, outside ministers help with the curriculum. Many teachers, including lay teachers, were undergraduate or graduate school religion majors. One teacher spoke of “the importance of faith formation for all of us, not just the students.” Faith formation provides a structure of beauty.

Many observers cite growth. A chaplain at one school marveled at a young man who, “when he arrived had been slated for a SRA class---those classes designated in the public schools for children who are in need of special education and severe remediation.” When he was last tested on the Stanford 9s he had jumped six grades in three years. The school leaders constantly say, “Test scores are up.”

Schools proudly list the Catholic, independent college-prep schools, and public magnet schools where their graduates have been admitted. One graduate of these middle schools attributed such success to the extent of the program: “I learned to think of the long days not as cruel, but as something positive: people willing to invest 12-hour days in us.” The schools are proud of alums who enter college, when finishing high school was considered a long shot. One alum, who grew up in an eastern urban environment, even developed the confidence to attend college on the west coast, and a university in England for one semester.

“Hope---that’s what all this gives the kids,” says one teacher.

The Foundation for NativityMiguel Schools is actively developing a coalition of foundations, corporations and individual donors who desire to support broad programs to benefit the students and graduates being developed in the classroom and after school at more than 50 NativityMiguel Schools throughout the country. Such programs could enhance the skills of teachers and the educational growth of the students who come from families limited in their ability to contribute for tuition or fees The need for such broad programs support is great, recognizing that the cumulative operating budgets of these schools already ranges from $25 million to $30 million annually