Catholic School Advantage

Every school has a story to tell.

Throughout the six-year history of the Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI), we have seen Catholic school principals from all over the country come to the LEI in the hopes of transforming their schools, and in essence, change their school’s story. Some schools are near closing and desperately need to increase enrollment quickly. Other schools already have a large Latino population and simply want to start serving them better. And still schools see their neighborhoods, their country, and the Church changing and want to be proactive in making sure their school is ready for this inevitable change.

When Shaileen Riginos of St. Anne Catholic School in Rock Hill, South Carolina, applied to the LEI in the summer of 2015, she asked herself, “What do I want our school story to be?” Their enrollment was healthy, their finances were in order, and parents were happy with the direction of the school. But one major area gnawed at her. Despite the fact that St. Anne’s parish was 28% Latino, there were very few Latinos enrolled in the school. With the cost of tuition, attracting low-income families was proving to be difficult.

In the fall of 2016, the Alliance for Catholic Education’s Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI) hit the road for the first time, offering the three-day Mid-Atlantic LEI at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. This year, in partnership with the Diocese of Providence, we will offer the New England LEI to 25 Catholic schools, representing the (Arch)Dioceses of Boston, Bridgeport, Fall River, Hartford, Manchester, Norwich, Providence, and Springfield-in-Massachusetts. The program will be held at the Aldrich Mansion in Warwick, Rhode Island, October 2-4, 2017.

Similar to the summer institute on campus, the New England LEI will feature presentations and discussions led and facilitated by school leaders and with demonstrated success in developing innovative Latino outreach programs. It will offer strategies and best practices intended to boost Latino enrollment in Catholic schools and to better serve Latino families once they enroll. Among the topics of focus are:

• Developing a deeper understanding of Latino cultures and traditions
• Building intercultural competency and what that means for your school
• Enlisting faculty, staff, and parents to reach out personally to Latino families and invite them to Catholic schools
• How to think about development - cultivating and maintaining private and corporate donors
• Instructional strategies for teaching English language learners
• Bright spots - a look at specific schools that provide an ideal "witness to the possible" with regards to Latino outreach

We look forward to this exciting opportunity to extend the reach of the LEI to a greater number of schools in the New England region.

If you’re interested in bringing the Latino Enrollment Institute to your (arch)diocese, contact Manuel Fernandez ().

If you think your school would be a good candidate to attend the LEI on campus at the University of Notre Dame in the summer of 2018, please visit ace.nd.edu/LEI to learn more. The application period will open in mid-October.

This is our latest installment of the English as a New Language Program’s Moments with Multicultural Saints, intended to provide useful classroom takeaways that will help you to broaden perspectives, teach about the universal Church, and find inspiration from saints from around the world. This month, we highlight the life of Saint Josephine Bakhita. You will find two different versions below, tailored to the appropriate age range of your students.

Each summer, as much of student life winds down here on the University of Notre Dame’s campus, it is just gearing up at the Alliance for Catholic Education. The “ACE Summer” is a reliably busy time for ongoing programs and new initiatives alike, and the Catholic School Advantage Campaign (CSA) is no exception.

Through its two most widespread and increasingly well-known initiatives—the Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI) and the School Pastors’ Institute (SPI)—the CSA welcomed hundreds of new mission partners to engage in four weeks of conferences that focused on best practices to sustain and strengthen the vibrancy of Catholic schools for the children who need them most.

As we begin another school year, the Alliance for Catholic Education’s English as a New Language Program (ENL) is offering a new resource designed to help Catholic school leaders better serve their culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The ENL Online Professional Development Modules blend research, videos, and instructional strategies that spotlight how to support the unique needs of this growing population of learners. This is an excellent learning opportunity for your whole school community. Each of the six online modules is interactive, self-paced, and designed to reflect two hours of professional development.

Topics addressed in the modules include:

• Module 1: What Research Has Taught Us about ELLs
• Module 2: Understanding Language Acquisition and Creating Linguistically-Rich Classrooms
• Module 3: Instructional Strategies and Technology
• Module 4: Vocabulary Development
• Module 5: Leveraging Culture as an Asset
• Module 6: Literacy Development

The modules, which are delivered through the Sakai learning platform, are available from August 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018.

The total cost for participation in the six-module unit is $300 per teacher. Title II and III funds may be used to fund participation.

The deadline for registering for modules is October 31st.

REGISTER FOR THE ONLINE MODULES