Advertisements ad

July 6, 2008

New school breaks ground on West Side

By Michelle Martin

ASSISTANT EDITOR

The audience of about 200 people at the June 26 groundbreaking for the new Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory School included movers and shakers, prominent business leaders, civic leaders, officials and church prelates.

The speakers on the dais included Cardinal George, the pastor of more than 2.3 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

But the person who got the most attention when she approached the microphone was 13-year-old Shaquocora Henderson, a recent eighth-grade graduate from KIPP-Ascend Charter School, who is among the 120 students who will make up Christ the King’s founding class.

“I need to see what I’m truly capable of and where my opportunities take me,” said Henderson, whose career goal is to be a corporate chief executive officer. Henderson then turned to the area where her new classmates were seated, and reminded them that they have yet to finish climbing the mountain to success. “We have to remember that the top of that mountain is where we want to be.”

First in 85 years

Christ the King, the first new Catholic high school on the West Side in 85 years, aims to help students from the community climb that mountain, said Jesuit Father Chris Devron, the school’s president.

It will offer a faith-based, safe place for students to learn and grow, he said.

Christ the King will open Aug. 25 in temporary quarters at St. Martin de Porres School. Its own building, under construction at Jackson and Leamington, will share a campus with a Chicago Jesuit Academy, a middle school for boys. The new, $27 million building, is set to open in 2009.

The school will operate on the Cristo Rey model, named for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Pilsen. Cristo Rey, now in its 11th year, pioneered the idea of having students work in corporate, entry-level jobs several days each month, with their earnings paying the majority of the cost of their education. Nineteen Catholic schools around the country now use the model, including St. Martin de Porres High School in Waukegan. Cristo Rey-model schools are intended for students who would not otherwise be able to afford a Catholic education.

Their goal is not only preparing students to get into college, but preparing them to graduate from college, said Devron. The corporate internship program provides students with an opportunity to meet, work with and be mentored by professionals, gaining invaluable experience, he said.

Christ the King, like Cristo Rey, is sponsored by the Jesuits’ Chicago Province. Students there will earn 75 percent of their tuition through the corporate internship program; many, like Henderson, also are receiving outside scholarships.

The prayer service before the groundbreaking included a reading from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which included the verses, “For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:9-11).

All are coworkers

Cardinal George spoke of St. Paul’s statement that all are coworkers with the Lord. The Cristo Rey model was created “to take seriously the capacity of young people to be coworkers in their formation and education,” the cardinal said.

But they can’t do it alone. They need coworkers in the form of support from parents and teachers, donors to help build the new school and the wider community, including support from government leaders.

“Politics can divide,” the cardinal said, “but service always unites.”

Cardinal George noted that he was born not far from the site of the new school, being built on the grounds of what was Resurrection Parish. The cardinal was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians, another West Side parish that is now closed, but whose site is home to a Catholic school, the San Miguel School-Gary Comer Campus.

Daley drew on his history, as well, noting that he is also a product of Catholic schools, and that he knew young people who attended then-Resurrection School.

Improving public education is the most important thing any city can do to combat social ills, Daley said, noting that sometimes, that means working with private schools.