1/1/09

Cincinnati Enquirer

Barry M. Horstman

The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati plan to establish a new high school here in which students will work part time to help earn their tuition for a college-prep education.

The so-called Cristo Rey high school, expected to open in 2010 in a vacant school or existing building, would draw 500 economically disadvantaged students from Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The school will be modeled after an innovative work-study program in Chicago that has been duplicated in about two dozen other cities, including Cleveland and Indianapolis.

Under the Cristo Rey – Spanish for “Christ the King” – model, students attend school four days a week and work one day in a local business to earn more than 70 percent of their tuition cost. Twenty-six local companies have agreed to participate in the program.

Nationwide, 98 percent of Cristo Rey high school graduates continue to college.

The Sisters of Charity and the Cristo Rey Network Board of Directors approved the new school in Cincinnati after a one-year feasibility study found strong support for the concept among local education, church and community leaders, as well as among students and their parents, said Sister Catherine Kirby, the local Cristo Rey coordinator. Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk also approved the new school’s development.

“The sisters gave their overwhelming support and commitment to this endeavor,” said Sister Barbara Hagedorn, president of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. “It continues our legacy from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton of daring to risk a caring response.”

It would be the first Catholic high school to open here since 1960, when La Salle, McAuley and Moeller opened.

An advisory board has reviewed many potential sites for the new school – among them closed schools, abandoned warehouses and other empty buildings, Kirby said. A site decision is expected by mid-2009, when officials also plan to seek applicants for top administrative positions at the school.

Karen Vance contributed to this report.