Combination of the LEI and Archdiocesan Latino Initiative Leads to Remarkable Growth at St. Cecilia School

When Principal Michael Goedde signed St. Cecilia School up to attend the 2014 Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI), they had just experienced the largest increase in Latino students in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati during the 2013-14 school year. Despite this success, however, they were not about to stop there. Located in an urban part of Cincinnati with a growing Latino population, Mr. Goedde knew that they had only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Seeking additional strategies to reach out to the Latino families in their neighborhood, a team from St. Cecilia attended the LEI at Notre Dame in the summer of 2014. As the third school from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to participate in the LEI, they had a good sense for what the program had to offer.

Additionally, St. Cecilia School already benefited from strong Archdiocesan support through the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Latino outreach initiative, which began in 2011 in an effort to recruit and retain more Latino students in Cincinnati’s Catholic schools.

Mr. Goedde hoped that the LEI would challenge his team to build on the work that they had already begun and bring back new ideas and actionable steps to make St. Cecilia School a model for others.

“We want to be a beacon for Hispanic families so that the faith can flourish and students can be provided a top-notch education,” says Goedde. “We want to lay the foundation for future success for our children.”

After attending the LEI, St. Cecilia School nearly doubled their Latino enrollment. Since the 2011-12 school year, the first year of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Latino outreach initiative, the number of Latino students enrolled at St. Cecilia has increased from 5 to 50, with their total enrollment growing by 28% during that same period.

The intentionality with which Mr. Goedde and his team have approached Latino outreach and recruitment has been an important driver for change in the school. "Personal outreach at the nearby St. Charles Borromeo Parish, which has a large Latino population, was key to our success," says Goedde. Not only did they make the effort to personally meet and talk with families about opportunities at St. Cecilia, they developed marketing materials in Spanish, developed a tuition assistance program within the parish, shifted the methods of communication to be more inclusive of all cultures, and celebrated the universality of our faith.

Although St. Cecilia had already taken measures to more effectively engage the Latino families in their community prior to attending the LEI, attending the program allowed them to continue to build on that work. “We learned new strategies and approaches, and we were able to formulate a strategic plan to continue increasing our enrollment of Latino students,” says Goedde. “It gave our team new energy and determination to continue this work, not only for our schools, but for the Church as a whole.”