Schools that work: a creative approach to funding that puts students in both the corporate office and the classroom has sparked a renewal in Catholic education.

Urban Catholic high school have had a tough go over the last few decades. Nationwide, their number has dropped from almost 1,100 in 1970 to just over 600 today, according to the National Catholic Education Association.

The financial strains that lead to high school closings and consolidations come from all directions: older buildings that cost more to maintain; fewer students bringing in less tuition money; the fact that more than 85 percent of faculty and staff today are lay women and men who need larger paychecks to make ends meet than the sisters, brothers and priests who preceded them.

So John Huelskamp, principal of the two-year-old, 192-student De La Salle North Catholic High School in Portland, Oregon can be excused if he sounds a little proud and a bit more than incredulous at what they've managed to accomplish in North Portland. "Growth like this is unheard of. You're supposed to be closing schools in these areas. You're not supposed to be opening them."

De La Salle North Catholic is part of the Cristo Rey Network, a growing coalition of small high schools that aim to provide a Catholic, college-prep education to students who would otherwise miss the opportunity. The stroke of genius that allows these schools to function is a corporate work-study program in which all students work one day a week at an entry-level professional job. The money they earn goes directly back to the school, keeping tuition low and the school in reach of economically disadvantaged families. In Portland, that means families pay $2,100 a year while students contribute $4,375 through their work.

Five schools are currently operating: The first, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, opened in Chicago in 1996; De La Salle North Catholic opened in 2001. Last year Juan Diego Catholic High School opened in Austin, Texas and Verbum Dei High School in Los Angeles switched from a traditional tuition-based school to the corporate work-study program. Arrupe Jesuit High School in Denver opened its doors just this fall. Next year, thanks to an $18.9 million gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation, six more schools are set to open in Tucson, Arizona; Cambridge and Lawrence, Massachusetts; Waukegan, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; and New York City.

Keys to success

Cristo Rey ("Christ the King" in Spanish) opened seven years ago in Pilsen/Little Village, the heart of Chicago's Latino community. The 450-student school that bills itself as "the school that works" has convinced everyone from students and their parents to corporation presidents and office managers that this innovative model is the way to go.

"They don't call in sick. They're never late. They're quick. They don't screw around. There are days when it's much easier to deal with them than some of the other people in the office," says Mary Dwyer, an executive assistant at LaSalle Bank in Chicago who has worked with Cristo Rey students for six years.

Linda Ramos, a 15-year-old sophomore who works at the John Buck Company, a commercial real estate office, says her job "helps me out for the future, for college. I have a better understanding now of what I want to do."

The school draws mainly from nearby public schools and looks for kids who may be up to two grade levels behind, but who are motivated and capable of handling college prep classes and a professional work environment. The application process includes an essay, two letters of recommendation, and an interview. Last year just 57 percent of applicants were accepted.

The academics and community spirit at Cristo Rey are also key ingredients to the school's distinctiveness. "Most schools claim that students are the priority. Here [that claim] is lived," says Jesus Marquez, a 16-year old junior who spends his Tuesdays working at a law firm. "Since the school is small, you get to know the teachers more; they get to focus on your needs."

And Marquez says his mom and dad have the same feeling as most Cristo Rey parents about the school's corporate internship program: "They love it. From their view, I'm learning what it takes to earn a dollar instead of just to spend it."

That lesson also appeals to businesses that hire students, says Jeff Thielman, president of the Cristo Rey Network. "A lot of people in the business community remember when they were young, and they admire that these kids are working."

"It was scary at first," says Araceli Heredia, a junior who works at a hotel representation company. Heredia still doesn't like dodging the traffic and crowds of Chicago's Loop, but her coworkers make up for it: "They're really friendly. I get a chance to learn new things and become familiar with what they do."

Going national

As Cristo Rey honed its program, many looked at the school with hopes of replicating it in other cities, but no one managed to secure the initial funds to start a school. Cristo Rey administrators first approached California philanthropist and Catholic B. J. Cassin for money to build a library and gym. But when Cassin saw what was going on at the school, he plunked down $22 million instead to help take the model nationwide. A network office opened in 2001 to oversee the creation of new schools, and the energy spread fast.

Right away, groups in Portland, Cleveland, and Austin signed up to do feasibility studies. Recent inquiries have come from Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., and Albuquerque, New Mexico. A proposed school needs to meet nine "mission effectiveness standards" developed by the network, and if it's deemed feasible, the network awards Gates and Cassin money for the startup.

The network continues to get three or four serious inquiries a month, Theilman says, because this type of school is a real hope for otherwise underserved communities. Rich Clark, president of St. Martin de Porres High School, slated to open on Cleveland's East Side next fall, estimates that 14,000 kids between the ages of 5 and 18 live in the area St. Martin de Porres will serve. The median family income in the neighborhood is $16,000.

"Colleges are thirsty for kids like this," says Clark. Currently Cristo Rey is the only school with graduates who completed all four years of high school under the corporate workstudy program, but Clark's point bears out: All 70 members of Cristo Rey's class of 2003 were accepted to at least one college, and the class was awarded more than $1 million in financial aid. Schools they chose include Brown University, St. Louis University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Maria Tirado is a freshman at Monmouth College, a small liberal arts college three and a half hours from Chicago. She was Cristo Rey's valedictorian last June and is the first member of her family to go to college. Tirado is studying accounting and Spanish. She's also gotten involved with the university's Christian fellowship and the coalition for ethnic awareness in her first semester.

"My whole high school career prepared me for this," she says. "I'm happy." Tirado's family moved from Mexico to Chicago when she was in the seventh grade. She picked her high school not because of its internship program or its Catholic foundation, but because of some thing far more basic: "Cristo Rey was just a name in Spanish," she says with a laugh.

Tirado didn't know any English before moving to the U.S., and she was worried she wouldn't catch up to the level of her high school classmates. She credits the dedicated faculty with her progress.

"I feel competent now," Tirado says. "Because of Cristo Rey, I'm more committed to my studies." Her goal is to become an accountant and be able to return to Pilsen/Little Village to help residents with their taxes.

"A second family"

Tirado's story is exceptional, but nearly all students at Cristo Rey are first- or secondgeneration Mexican Americans. A decade ago, Father Jim Gartland, S.J. spent nine months researching how best to meet the needs of this underserved Chicago community. He walked around Pilsen/Little Village, knocked on doors, and listened to everyone he could: residents, local business owners, pastors, parents, principals.

In a neighborhood where the two overcrowded, gang-ridden public high schools reported graduation rates of just over 50 percent, the top request was for more educational opportunities. The Jesuits rose to the challenge and opened the high school in an old Catholic elementary school building that had closed.

Six years later, Cristo Rey formalized its ad hoc campus ministry program to complement the religion classes and to help instill students with Catholic values and a sense of religious identity. The office organizes monthly liturgies, annual retreats, and prayer opportunities. "We invited faculty and staff to be a part of the spiritual life committee," says Gartland. "Out of 50, 36 joined. It's an incredible group. We had too many volunteers."

Students, too, appreciate the ministry focus. "We really get to know each other when we go on retreats," says Miguel Blancarte Jr., a 16-year-old junior. "We open up. I consider it a second family."

While almost all students at Cristo Rey are Catholic, only about half at De La Salle North Catholic and Verbum Dei are. The network requires that all its schools be Catholic. And while Cristo Rey, Verbum Dei, and Denver's Arrupe are run by the Jesuits, De La Salle North Catholic, the first school to replicate the model, is run by the Christian Brothers.

Matt Powell, president of De La Salle North Catholic, first heard Cristo Rey president Father John Foley, S.J. at a workshop he attended. "John said the Jesuits developed the model, but it'll take the Christian Brothers to replicate it. He knew it was so in line with our mission."

Although the Christian Brothers already ran a school near Portland, they planned to open this one in North Portland, an area where many parishes, schools, and other ministries had been shut down or consolidated over the past few decades. Until Powell heard Foley speak of Cristo Rey, he says, "We didn't have a due how to fund this school if it weren't tuition-driven."

So the Christian Brothers joined in. Soon more than a dozen different orders, dioceses, and lay groups had embraced the movement's mission. Cleveland's St. Martin de Porres is a lay initiative endorsed by the Jesuits and the Sisters of Humility of Mary. And while Austin's Juan Diego is run by the diocese, five of its 10 faculty are religious: two are Holy Cross brothers, two sisters are Marianites of the Holy Cross, and one is a Franciscan priest.

"Bringing different religions orders and lay people together has been great," says Kristy Blackmore, who serves as a liaison between each school and the network. "People put their egos aside for this work." ,

Representatives of each school meet this month to hash out what the Catholic connection means for the whole network and what common values they want to highlight. One element that has taken root is a culturally focused campus ministry. Monthly Masses at Cristo Rey include observances of Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race) in October and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in November. Students and faculty in Austin celebrate Saint Juan Diego's newly official feast day on December 9, and Las Posadas later in the month.

Perhaps the most admirable and sometimes elusive aspect of the schools is the balance they aim to strike between Catholic values and corporate savvy. Does the importance of their work with companies like Dell Computers, Bank One, or Leo Burnett Advertising interfere with the Catholic message?

"The reality is our kids are going to go off and work somewhere, and chances are they'll be part of corporate America," says Theilman. "I've come down on the side that it's better to get them exposed to this world. We're working with kids from low-income communities. By introducing them to the business world, they have the option to decide if that's for them or not.

"We have kids in Portland who work for Nike. They can go back to the classroom and have a really good discussion about what Nike's doing," says Thielman, referring to the company's use of sweatshop labor to make athletic gear. "They can do their own research; they can think about the facts. It's a great moral challenge."

But that challenge can be difficult to meet when teachers still have to cover math, English, biology, and history.

"The reflection piece is not where we want it to be yet," says Huelskamp. Independently, some teachers already include it in their lesson plans: recently a social studies class did a critique of practices and policies of corporate America. "But we have to build that into the curriculum, and it has to go beyond what we're doing now."

The schools still have time to work out the kinks. While the foundation funding is meant to help develop 16 network schools by 2008, the reality that fewer urban Catholic high schools will be able to support themselves through traditional means may boost the popularity of this model.

And that may benefit many others besides the students.

"There's such bad press about teenagers," says LaSalle Bank's Dwyer. "Then you meet these kids. They're so helpful. They share what goes on with them at school. They want to get good grades. They want to go to college. It's refreshing to see young people who really want to succeed."

GROWING PAINS 

For all their successes, Cristo Rey Network schools do pose some challenges for both teachers and students. On any given day, about a quarter of the students are at work, so it's hard to have an all-school function. The academic year starts earlier and ends later than other schools. The school day is longer, too: LA.'s Vetburn Dei starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. They've got a strict dress code and attendance policy. There's not much room for elective classes, and it's a one-track, college-prep school, so there are no provisions for students with learning disabilities. Even the sports programs are somewhat compromised. If there's a practice on Wednesday and that's a team member's work day, tough. That goes for games, too. The policy didn't go over well at Verbum Dei, the first school to shift from a traditional tuitiondriven model.

"This school was definitely known as an athletic powerhouse," says Jamie Mainvielle, vice president of development at Verburo Dei. The 41-year-old school in Watts had been struggling financially, and enrollment had plummeted from a high of about 400 to 125. Although two nearby Catholic high schools had closed, Mainvielle says, Cardinal Roger Mahony wanted to keep this one running. In an area where only 38 percent of public high school students graduate, Verbum Dei was worth saving.

The Jesuits came aboard in 2000 to help revive the school.

To focus on its new priorities and revamped schedule, the all-boys school--currently the only single-sex school in the network--suspended its football program the year prior to and the first year of the new model. "It was a big deal for students, and for some parents as well," Mainvielle says. Many left; the first graduating class under the new model had just 12 members.

But many others were excited. This year 115 freshman enrolled, and the 26 seniors who roughed it out as the school was going through the transition are doing OK, Mainvielle says. "Here are 16-year-olds who get business cards from company vice presidents who say, 'If you need anything, call me."

Today the school, whose students come from throughout South Los Angeles, has an enrollment of 247. "Now we're financially stable; we're growing," says Mainvielle. "We're roaching more students who normally wouldn't be able to afford a Catholic college prep high school."

Meanwhile, the sports program is holding its own. In the school's first year under the corporate work-study model, the basketball team won the conference championship. And this year, football is back. "It's a big deal," says Mainvielle.

--Heather Grennan Gary

HEATHER GRENNAN GARY is assistant editor of U.S. CATHOLIC