Conspiracy of Care

Designed for input on individual and group efforts to improve the education of Black Males in America. Sponsored by the Delores Walker Johnson Center for Leadership of Atlas Communities.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Here's an article from Delaware about an all girls school for at risk girls. It is modelled after the all boys Nativity Prep in Wilmington . The article tells about the NativityMiguel schools nationwide network. Matt Brunell from Nativity in Worcester, MA was at the first day of The Gathering back in June. Not all of the NativityMiguel schools are single gender schools.


Planned school targets low-income girls
Ursuline Academy group hopes to match success of model schools in Del., nationwide

By EDWARD L. KENNEY, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, August 16, 2007

The school would be similar to the all-boys Nativity Preparatory School of Wilmington, which threw a lifeline to low-income, at-risk boys when it opened in 2003.

The proposed girls' school would be modeled after Nativity Prep and the nationwide NativityMiguel Schools Network to which it belongs. The network comprises dozens of co-ed and single-gender schools that focus on urban students, providing discipline and individual attention.
Nativity Prep, for example, has about one teacher for every three or four students.

The model schools
About 4,400 students attend 64 NativityMiguel schools nationwide, said Monsignor John Jordan, executive director of the network, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. The schools are "non-tuition-driven," he said, and depend on support from foundations, individuals and corporations. Parents contribute what they can, perhaps as little as $5 per week, or they volunteer their services, cleaning the school or helping out in other ways, he said.
At Nativity Prep, a parent is asked to supply a supper for the faculty meeting once a week, because the teachers can't leave the school then to get their own meals, DeLillio said. The parents usually cook the meals at home and bring them in.
The schools use uniforms for students, have small classes, strong discipline, and a lengthier school year and days than most, Jordan said.
Nativity Prep often runs from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., with children going home for a two-hour dinner break then returning for evening study hall. They go on weekend field trips and spend July at a mandatory academic camp at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pa.
Getting results
The demanding schedule has produced results: Sixty percent of NativityMiguel students who go to college graduate, compared with 21 percent of low-income students nationally who enter college, Jordan said.
It's still too early to know whether Nativity Prep will match those national statistics. Its first graduating class will be high school sophomores this year.