St. Frances has history of success

The Catholic Review
January 24th, 2008

By Chaz Muth
cmuth@catholicreview.org
 

St. Frances Academy has been featured in publications nationwide as a high school that successfully reaches high academic achievement goals for minority students.

Of the 320 students currently enrolled at the coeducational Catholic high school, one student is white, four are Hispanic and the rest are black; about 99 percent of its students graduate from high school and about 95 percent of its graduates go on to college, said Sister John Francis Schilling, O.S.P., president of St. Frances Academy.

“Usually, the rest of the students go into the military or the police academy,” said Sister John Francis. While school systems across the nation have struggled with minority achievement, St. Frances Academy has key ingredients for helping students succeed academically: intense therapeutic counseling, a strict adherence to campus rules and a program that teaches organization and structured study habits to all incoming freshmen, she said.

Freshmen accepted into St. Frances Academy are required to take a five-week summer course to prepare for the rigors of a Catholic high school education, Sister John Francis said.

“We have to teach them how to be organized,” she said. “Kids need boundaries and organization. Sometimes they don’t get it anywhere else. I think they fight it for a while, but once they get it, it’s something they understand and accept. These skills make them more organized and successful students.”

The school has a long history of educating minority students, dating back to the 1820s when Oblate Sisters of Providence co-founder Mother Mary Lange and two other women established the academy with a mission to educate black children, both free and enslaved.

The majority of the students receive financial assistance to cover the annual $7,600 tuition bill. About 50 percent of the student body comes from inner-city public schools and the rest from surrounding Catholic primary schools. The school has a Catholic population of about 5 percent, Sister John Francis said.

A significant percentage of the students are not being raised by their parents, and many don’t have a built-in family support system to create a healthy educational environment that often translates into academic success, she said.

This is why the counseling team at St. Frances Academy is so vital to the success of its students. Candidates for masters’ degrees and doctorates from Loyola College in Maryland, Howard University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland serve as interns in the counseling department, which also includes a full-time staff
counselor.

“About a third of our students participate in weekly therapy sessions,” Sister John Francis said. “We have students who have seen violence; they deal with issues such as parents who are incarcerated or on drugs. They deal with death, anger issues and all different kinds of things. We have kids who have problems emotionally. Once we’ve addressed that, we have an easier time addressing the academics. I think that makes a big difference.”

About 15 percent of students who enter the freshman class leave the school by the end of the academic year for a variety of reasons, but many of them end up returning to graduate from St. Frances Academy, she said. The Catholic school is partnering this year with both the Baltimore Freedom Academy and the ACCE Academy – two Baltimore City charter schools – to foster therapeutic counseling programs and to help their students achieve academic goals, Sister John Francis said.