Serviam Girls Academy
- Educating
- Inspiring
- Transforming
In the news
The Dialog
February 14, 2008
Middle school for girls still plans September opening
Wilmington News Journal
August 18, 2007
Proposed girls academy shows how communities solve real-life problems
Wilmington News Journal
August 16, 2007
In the news
The Dialog
August 28, 2008
Serviam follows Nativity model, Ursuline tradition: Tuition-free Catholic academy for girls opening in Wilmington for fifth-and sixth-graders
By Gary Morton
Staff reporter
Wilmington —
Serviam Girls Academy’s opening Tuesday will be a blessed event for its first 34 students, their families, and for the new all-girls middle school.
The girls feel blessed for not having what several called the distraction of boys. As fifth-grader Danaijah Jackson put it, “I don’t want to stay around boys because boys are too mean.”
Their parents are graced that their children will receiving what they believe will be a quality education that will prepare them for private high schools and for college. “It’s like a blessing,” said Danaijah’s mother, Shani Smoke. “I have three other children (all boys); I would have never been able to afford a Catholic or private school.”
And Serviam officials are thankful for the success of a similar middle school for boys, Nativity Prep, which the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales opened in 2003. “We have been incredibly blessed by the work that Nativity Prep has done,” said Anne Weber, president of Serviam Academy. “There’s a very favorable impression of this model as a result of their work, which has made our work here easier.”
Serviam was founded last year by a group of sisters, lay educators, parents and graduates of Ursuline Academy, but has no official ties to Ursuline Academy or to the Ursuline Sisters. The school will emphasize character, discipline, cooperation and community service in the Ursuline tradition as it prepares students for college-preparatory high schools.
Serviam will begin with fifth and sixth grades and plans to expand to the eighth grade as the first students advance.
Faith-centered
Nativity and Serviam share several similarities, but are independent of each other. Both provide a tuition-free, faith-centered education for children from low-income families of all faiths. Both are associated with the Nativity-Miguel Network of Schools, an association of more than 60 schools. And both use elongated school days (Serviam’s girls will report to school at 7:30 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m.) and require students to be involved in sports and other extracurricular activities built into the schedule.
Gwanda Hunter provided a testimonial for the influence Nativity Prep has had on Serviam. Her son, David Moore, graduated from Nativity in June and will attend St. Mark’s High School this fall. Her daughter, Damia Phares, will be a fifth-grader at Serviam.
David’s experience “had like a 99 percent influence on my decision to send Damia here,” Hunter said, citing the sense of community and “atmosphere of positive empowerment” the family felt at Nativity. “I felt I would do her wrong if I didn’t send her here.”
Sixth-grader Angela Amado learned about Serviam from a counselor at Jones Elementary.
“She told me that I got good grades so I should think about coming here,” said Angela, who wants to be a surgeon or a lawyer. “She said I had a chance to get a scholarship to college, and I think I’ll get a good education.”
Most of Serviam’s students come from Wilmington, Weber said, with others from Newark and New Castle.
Holistic education
Serviam Girls Academy is located at the Mary C. Dennison Branch of Girls Inc., 1019 Brown St. Classes will be in two modular buildings outside the Girls Inc. facility, but Serviam will use part of the main building for its offices and share the art and computer room and the combination gymnasium, cafeteria and stage with Girls Inc.
The school may also participate in activities of other groups, such as a YWCA program to build self-esteem among girls 9-14, said Meg Kane-Smith, an Ursuline Academy teacher who helped found Serviam and helped devise its curriculum.
Music, arts, drama and chorus, and perhaps a pre-engineering program and a Girl Scouts troop, are being eyed as additional programs, but Weber wants to proceed slowly. “Once we know the girls better —know their desires and dreams and needs and interests — then we can begin to choose and fit programming to their holistic education,” she said.
The basic curriculum will include language arts, math, science, social studies and religion. The sports program, which will begin with volleyball and cross country this fall, is mandatory and will help the girls fulfill state requirements for physical education, Weber said.
On a typical school day, the girls will arrive at 7:30 a.m. and have breakfast. Morning assembly will be at 8, with classes running from 8:20 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Students will participate in enrichment programs, including sports, until 6 p.m., when they are dismissed.
Margaret Gfoeller, formerly head of the English department at St. Thomas More Prep in Magnolia, will be interim principal. She replaces Sue Ogden, who was named principal this spring but left shortly thereafter. Weber declined to comment on the reason for Ogden’s departure.
Other staff members include fifth-grade teacher Victoria Gokdemir, who graduated in December from Wilmington University; sixth-grade teacher Renisha James, who taught at Nativity Prep for two years and at Friends School in Wilmington last year; and Eileen Webster, a 2001 graduate of Ursuline and 2005 graduate of the University of Scranton, who is the school’s development director and program coordinator.
Two volunteer teachers are expected. They and volunteer teachers at Nativity Prep will live at the former convent of Christ Our King Parish.
“It’s one of the many ways that we can work together with Nativity Prep, and the young people will get a sense of community as well,” Weber said.
She believes the two schools will have more opportunities to work together, but that will come in the future, she said. For now, the focus is on Serviam’s opening.
“We have to have a sense of flexibility and a good sense of humor to get us through this first year,” Weber said.