Serviam Girls Academy
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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
May 2008
Planned school for girls finds home, principal
By Gary Morton
Staff reporter
Wilmington —
Serviam Girls Academy has moved several steps closer to its planned opening in September with the announcement of a location, principal and development director for the tuition-free Catholic middle school.
Serviam, which will admit girls in grades five through eight, will be housed at the Mary C. Dennison Branch of Girls Inc. at 1019 Brown St. in the Browntown neighborhood.
Sue Ogden, currently the achievement director at Thomas Edison Charter School who taught at Ursuline Academy from 1978 to 1980, will become principal effective June 1but will work before then with several Serviam committees. She will help hire two full-time teachers and two AmeriCorps intern teachers, help select students for admission and develop the academic program.
Serviam also named its first development director, Eileen Webster, a 2001 graduate of Ursuline. Plans call for the school to open this fall with about 40 students in grades five and six, said Anne Weber, Serviam’s resident. The seventh and eighth grades will be added later. Students will have extended school days from 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. and an extended school year that includes a summer program.
The school’s first-year budget is about $600,000, Weber said. Serviam already has raised more than $500,000 in donations and pledges and wants to raise another $500,000 by September for what is called the Founders’ Fund. Serviam has leased the second floor of the two-story Girls Inc. facility. Two modular buildings will be erected on the Girls Inc. grounds to provide additional space for classrooms. A few minor, mostly cosmetic improvements are planned for the upper floor before classes begin, Weber said.
The lease is for two years. Serviam Girls Academy is part of the Nativity Miguel Network of more than 60 faith-based schools nationwide. The network includes Nativity Prep, a tuition-free middle school for boys that opened in Wilmington in 2003 and is operated by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. Serviam will emphasize character, discipline, cooperation and community service in its mission to prepare students for admission to college-preparatory high schools.
Ogden, 52, said she will rely heavily on her experience at Edison Charter, where she has worked since the school opened in 2000. She called Edison “a high- achieving, high-poverty school” where 90 percent of students passed the state assessment test for seventh grade. Edison serves a primarily African-American population, mostly from Wilmington’s East Side.
At Edison, Ogden has developed the instructional program and reviewed assessment results to update the curriculum. The school has 840 students in grades kindergarten through eight. Ogden said students from lower-income families, where parents work two and sometimes three jobs, often are considered at-risk. “In reality, they have the motivation and desire to be successful and to learn but they are missing some of the fundamental skills that we who have middleclass incomes could provide for our children.”
Ogden expects to receive a master’s degree in educational leadership from Wilmington University this summer. She is a Baltimore native and earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Delaware in 1978. She taught at A.I. du Pont High School in addition to Ursuline. She and her husband, Tom, development director at St. Mark’s High School, have three children, all of whom graduated from St. Mark’s.
Webster, Serviam’s development director, earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Scranton (Pa.) and a certificate from the summer institute in general management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Palo Alto, Calif.
“Serviam,” Latin for “I will serve,” is the motto for schools operated in the Ursuline tradition. While Serviam Girls Academy was founded by a coalition of Ursuline sisters, lay educators, parents and graduates of Ursuline Academy, the new school will not be affiliated with the Ursuline Sisters or Ursuline
Academy. For more information on Serviam Girls Academy call 438-0004 or go to www.serviamgirls academy.org.