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
Wilmington News Journal
August 16, 2007
Planned private school targets low-income girls
By Edward L. Kenney
Four years after the successful launch in Wilmington of a private school to help disadvantaged boys reach their academic potential, a group from Ursuline Academy is trying to launch a similar program for middle-school girls.
Members of a steering committee formed at the mostly girls Catholic school said they are driven by social conscience because girls often have fewer opportunities to better themselves through education.
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.
Since then, 16 students have graduated from the middle school, with most moving on to attend private high schools such as St. Mark's, Salesianum, Tatnall, Sanford and Tower Hill.
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 school, at a former fitness center at Linden and Clayton streets, was created by the religious order that runs Salesianum School.
"It's really something to watch them grow," said Father Richard DeLillio, president of the Nativity Preparatory School of Wilmington. "When they walk in the doors in the morning, it's like an invisible curtain of security. They know what's expected of them. And if they do it, they get rewarded, and if they don't, they don't get rewarded."
The steering committee at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, which serves pre-K through high school students, has been approved by the NativityMiguel Schools Network to complete a feasibility study. They have been meeting with community groups to spread the word and seek support, and a campaign will begin soon to help raise $1.6 million for an initial three-year budget, said committee member Michael Arnold, who also is an economics professor at the University of Delaware.
Inspired by tradition
Committee members for what would be called the Serviam Girls Academy, said they were inspired by an editorial in The News Journal when Nativity Preparatory School opened for boys in 2003. The editorial concluded with a question: "Is someone willing to step up and provide a similar opportunity for girls?"
Mildred Haipt, a steering committee member and superior at the convent at Ursuline Academy, said taking up the challenge was grounded in centuries of tradition: The Ursuline order was founded in 1535 by Saint Angela Merici, who was dedicated to giving girls and women an opportunity.
"She was very committed to the development of women and helping women in society recognize their own dignity, their own potential, and above that, reaching out to others to help them. So it's a very compatible mission," Haipt said.
DeLillio said steering committee members have visited Nativity Prep, run by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and he has been advising them.
"They want to do the same thing for girls as we do for boys, and it's needed," he said. "We've got to break the cycle of violence and poverty. There's room for any school that makes the city a better place."
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.
Arnold, the Serviam committee member, said the proposed girls' school for grades five through eight likely will mirror Nativity Prep, with mostly black and Hispanic students, but not excluding others. Most students will qualify for the federally subsidized lunch program, a major indicator of low-income families.
The school would recruit students, concentrating on those "who are behind ... but have academic promise," Arnold said.
The hope is that after eighth grade, "these children will be able to go to any school in the city," committee chairwoman Peggy Heins said. "And one of those choices may very well be Ursuline."
Shaping graduates
Ideally, the students will perform well enough to earn scholarships to high school and college. Part of the program's model is to track and support the students in their academics through high school and help them apply for college, Arnold said.
"The character development of these students is going to be a big thrust, too," Haipt said. "We're hoping they will be deeply self-motivated to learn academically. There's also a faith base to this character development, and that is any kind of faith. It will basically be a Catholic school, but it will be open to all faiths."
Arnold said Serviam will have enrollment goals similar to Nativity Prep's. That school plans to expand to 45 students this fall, five more than last year's enrollment. The ultimate goal is to have about 80 students, with about 20 students per grade.
Real estate companies are helping the Serviam committee find a building in the city to renovate, Arnold said.
DeLillio sees a strong need for a girls' counterpart to Nativity Prep.
"There are a lot of pregnancies among the minorities in the city," DeLillio said. "They see themselves having such a limited horizon in the inner city. That's what I think the school will do: It will give them a light at the end of the tunnel. It will lift the sights of the students who will be coming to them."
Contact Edward L. Kenney at 324-2891 or ekenney@delawareonline.com.
The Model Schools
Visit www.nativitymiguelschools.org for more information about the NativityMiguel Schools Network. To volunteer, contribute or learn more about the proposed Serviam Girls Academy, call Meg Kane-Smith at 530-3273.