St. Frances makes effort to recruit Hispanic students

The Catholic Review
May 24, 2007

By Chaz Muth
cmuth@catholicreview.org

When the new school year begins in late August, officials at St. Frances Academy, Bal­timore, expect to see a more diverse enrollment with the addition of several Hispanic students.

It’s the first time in the school’s 179-year history that St. Frances Academy officials have actively recruited stu­dents, which they did with a concerted effort to enlist His­panic teens. “The Hispanic population in this state and this country is growing by leaps and bounds,” said David Owens, a tennis coach and teacher at the school who was educated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the same religious order that runs St. Frances Academy.

St. Frances was approached by the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Hispanic Affairs to recruit Latino stu­dents to provide this growing population with quality educa­tional opportunities.

The inner-city school, locat­ed near the Maryland Peni­tentiary and Central Booking, was seen as desirable because of its track-record of academic success among minority stu­dents who are often from low­income families, said Haydee Rodriguez, executive director of the Governor’s Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

Approximately 90 percent of St. Frances Academy grad­uates enroll in college, said Sister Marcia Hall, O.S.P., principal of the school, who emphasized that a majority of them are first-generation col­lege students in their families.

Their approach is to offer rig­orous academics, strict disci­pline, uniform code and tough love, Mr. Owens said. “We want kids who want to be here and want to learn. Once we have them, we provide them with the tools to learn, the time to mature and the opportunity to succeed.”

St. Frances Academy was founded in 1828 in part by Mother Mary Lange, the Caribbean-born black nun whose canonization is cur­rently under Vatican consid­eration. Mother Lange helped establish the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first Catholic religious order of black Amer­ican women.

“They have a phenomenal record in terms of their gradu­ation rate, but also in terms of the high level of discipline and requirements for quality work from the kids,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “They know how to moti­vate kids who might otherwise fall through the cracks.”

It’s the kind of environment that is needed for Hispanic students, many of whom are very bright, but lack a family structure that promotes solid academic habits, she said.

But the rules have to be fol­lowed, which was evident on a recent morning when several students were sent to the office for uniform violations and one student – who had been warned the day before – was told to call a parent to bring in the proper attire.

Cardinal William H. Keeler has made it a priority to grant financial assistance to deserv­ing Hispanic students accept­ed into Catholic schools within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. About 75 percent of the 320 students enrolled at St. Fran­ces Academy receive some sort of financial assistance for the annual $6,300 tuition, the second-lowest among arch­diocesan high schools, Sister Marcia said.

“I think the cardinal is a very smart man,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “He knows education is truly the one venue that opens doors and that opens opportu­nities. The more we invest to give kids education, the better off we will be as a society.”

Although the addition of Hispanic students will end a two-year interlude with an all­black student body, having a diverse population is not new to the school, said Mr. Owens, noting that Latino and Cau­casian students have been enrolled in the past.

In an effort to head off any racial tensions that may occur, school officials have enlist­ed the aid of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio, which will help school officials and students embrace a multicultural future, Sister Marcia said.

“Of course, there is going to be an adjustment when stu­dents look around and see others who may not look like them,” she said. “But in a lot of ways, the Latino popula­tion can identify with the same challenges the black popula­tion faces in society.”

The school also has a mul­ticultural faculty, many of whom speak fluent Spanish, Sister Marcia said.