What they are saying about us


A New Beginning: Yolanda Uribe (center), with her two sons, Nico, 12 (left), and David, 8; sits in her WG home. Yolanda also has a 13-year-old daughter named Naomi. Nico started attending the new Sacred Heart Nativity School Aug. 22.

New Catholic school for boys with academic needs opens near WG

Middle school was the vision of parish pastor Father Mateo Sheedy

By Kate Carter

Nico Uribe was excited about his first day of sixth grade at the new Sacred Heart Nativity School Aug. 22. But he wasn't as excited about his school uniform.

"I don't know about that," Nico, 12, said, mulling over the new navy blue pants and gray polo shirt he has to wear.

Uniform aside, he said he's happy to be starting a new academic career at a school specifically designed to set young men like him, who are at risk of not graduating from high school, on a path to college.

Nico is one of 20 sixth-grade boys who showed up last week at the renovated private Catholic school, 310 Edwards Ave., at Sacred Heart Parish. None of them have attended a Catholic school before, said school president, Rev. Peter Pabst, S.J., and the first day was a lesson for him as well as them.

"I just taught my first religion class," he said. "Only two [of the students] have had some religious instruction. I've got to make sure I get it right. And they can't read my handwriting!"

Pabst is a Jesuit priest who helped realize former parish pastor Rev. Mateo Sheedy's dream for the school, after his death last fall. The Society of Jesus, or Jesuit order, is known for its more than 400 years of emphasis on education, especially in high schools and universities, and Pabst has taught high school theology.

Nativity schools, though, are the order's recent effort to help middle school students in urban areas who don't have many social or economic opportunities. The Sacred Heart Nativity School is the 10th of its kind and is among 40 schools that have adopted the model across the nation.

The first Nativity School was founded by the order in 1971 on the lower east side of Manhattan, N.Y. It provides day-long supervision and instruction to 20 at-risk male students in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, for very low tuition. Since its inception, 79 percent of its graduates have attended high school, and 80 percent of those have gone to college.

Sheedy came to Sacred Heart Parish in 1988 and noticed a need in the community for a better educational foundation. He surveyed residents in the Washington and Gardner neighborhoods that his parish served and found that only one person in 100 living there had graduated from college, Pabst said.

"The national average is not much better for Latinos," Pabst said. "[Sheedy] really thought the education of kids was vitally important. Without education, these kids would never make it."

Then the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit Oct. 17, 1989, and destroyed part of the church that was built about 100 years ago. Sheedy led a fundraising effort that brought in $1.5 million to renovate the church, Pabst said.

Sheedy continued to consider ways to help his community succeed in school. He approached parishioners two years ago with the idea of starting a Nativity School to operate out of the parish's old school building that was rented out to adult and early childhood education programs since the Catholic school closed in 1970. Nico's mother, Yolanda Uribe, was one of those Sheedy asked for input.

"It was a really great idea, especially if they were willing to help kids who need help in regular school," Yolanda said. "They want to help children who need the help."

The boys who attend the Sacred Heart Nativity School arrive at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast, provided by Martha's Kitchen next door. The school day runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and includes lunch. After a half-hour break, volunteers from the Jesuit Santa Clara University and local Catholic high schools lead the boys in sports and other activities from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Volunteers also assist them during a study period from 5 to 6 p.m. Then the boys go home to have dinner with their families.

They also spend two Saturdays a month at school, receiving extra instruction in math and reading and going on field trips. The students will attend five weeks of summer school at the Jesuit high school, Bellarmine College Preparatory, as well as two weeks in the summer at a rural camp near Auburn, Calif. Most schools are required to offer 180 days of school a year; Sacred Heart Nativity will offer 235 school days. Tuition costs $480 a year, and the school relies on grants and private donations.

"It's a very intensive intervention program," Pabst said. He also said it's designed for children whose standardized test scores are below the 50th percentile of the national average.
Getting Ready: Yolanda Uribe puts the finishing touches on son Nico's school uniform by putting on a capular of the Virgin of Guadalupe that was purchased by his father.

To recruit students, Pabst and school Principal David McDonough approached nearby public elementary schools, Gardner Academy, Washington Elementary and the Washington Youth Center, and asked for recommendations of youth considered to be the greatest risk of not graduating from high school. They also made announcements at the parish during Mass.

Yolanda said she heard about the realization of Sheedy's idea for the school at a Mass in March. The following Monday she picked up an application, and by Wednesday she had submitted Nico's name, academic record and teacher recommendation for admission to the forming school, she said.

Nico was a student at River Glen School in Willow Glen and would have been returning to the K-8 bilingual school for sixth grade this year. But he was struggling in reading and math, having trouble focusing and getting into trouble at school, Yolanda said. Nico also has heart problems--he had open-heart surgery as an infant and must have another surgery to repair holes in his heart in the next few years. She wanted him to raise his grades so he won't fall too far behind academically when he has the surgery.

Nico was the first student chosen to attend the school, a fact that Pabst announced at Mass and that made Nico and his family proud. Most of the other 19 students are also members of the parish from the Gardner and Washington neighborhoods.

The school is located on the second floor of the old school building on the church site that has been updated to house, eventually, 60 middle school boys. Pabst said the school will add a new sixth grade class for the next two years until it has complete classes in all three grades.

"We're creating this culture here, which is really exciting," he said. He added that the Catholic Diocese of San Jose is looking for a sponsor to start a similar girls' school in the near future.

The school is staffed by only five people, three of whom teach classes. Pabst teaches religion, McDonough teaches social studies and science, and Susana Azevedo teaches English, Spanish and math. Karry Porcaro is a Jesuit volunteer who has committed to helping as a teacher's aide and coordinating the afternoon activities for a year in exchange for room, board and a small stipend. Rose Jimenez is the school's receptionist.

Yolanda said she, is a little worried about the long hours her son will spend in school. But she can already see a change in Nico after the school's recent preparatory summer school.

"Just from the two weeks in summer camp, he's talking about going to college," Yolanda says. "He says he wants to be a lawyer."

Nico moved from Willow Glen to downtown San Jose last year, with Yolanda, his father, Prudencio, his sister, Naomi, 13, and brother David, 8. Yolanda said she plans to volunteer for the school, serving meals at lunchtime or in any other way that can help. She is a stay-at-home mom; Prudencio works as a laborer for a plumbing company.

Yolanda said she would like Nico to attend Bellarmine College Preparatory, if he works hard and Bellarmine establishes scholarships for the Nativity school boys. She hopes that her younger son, David, could also attend the Nativity School. David is doing well in school and entering second grade at River Glen this fall.

The school is hosting a liturgy and blessing by Catholic Bishop Patrick McGrath, who oversees the Catholic Diocese of San Jose, as well as tours of the school, on Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. For information, call 408.993.1293.

November 24, 2004
ON EDUCATION
Giving Poor Children a Chance to Study Hard, Long and Late

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

WILMINGTON, Del.

SOMETIME around 6:30 on a Monday night last September, Byron Bailey left the rectangle of packed dirt that passes for a play area in the Riverside housing project here. He was due back at his middle school, Nativity Prep, by 7 for the mandatory two-hour study hall, and he didn't want a check mark for arriving late.

By then, early in his second year at Nativity, Byron had grown accustomed to the teasing ridicule of the neighborhood children about wearing a burgundy uniform and attending an all-boys school. "The gay school," they called it. Byron had learned to shed the barbs. He knew Nativity as the place where he'd gone from reading Dr. Seuss to "Fahrenheit 451," the place where he was learning Latin, the place where nobody accused him of cheating when he solved a tough math problem, the way one of his teachers had at his old public school.

He returned to Riverside toward 9:30 that night, the darkness deep, the crack dealers out on the prowl. His mother told him that while he'd been at school a little girl, just 7, had been shot, hit by some gang member's stray bullet. Byron, who is 13, knew her. He'd been playing horseshoes with her out back just before leaving for Nativity.

Here was reality as parable and parable as reality. Nativity Prep had quite literally saved Byron's life by giving him a reason not to be standing in the line of fire that night. In a more metaphorical sense, too, the school was saving his life, giving him the education and orderly existence that promised to lift him out of Riverside forever.

That is exactly the mission of the 57 schools across the country in the Nativity Network. Largely affiliated with Roman Catholic religious communities, the Nativity schools intend to serve the poorest of the poor - families that cannot afford even the relatively modest tuitions of urban Catholic schools. Instead of several thousand dollars a year, the usual figure, Nativity schools generally charge from $200 to $600.

Financially, then, the schools depend on variations on the theme of sacrifice. There is the sacrifice of private donors, some wealthy, many not; the sacrifice of nuns, priests and brothers who teach and administer for virtually no pay; the sacrifice of volunteers who serve in roles from tutor to school nurse; and the sacrifice of those pupils like Byron Bailey who show up for study hall instead of running the streets.

Educationally, the schools are committed to holding class sizes at 15, running an extended class day, and requiring a lengthy summer session. The Nativity program aims specifically at middle-school students, in part to prepare them for admission to elite high schools and in part to intercede during what many educators consider the most treacherous part of a young person's academic life.

"While everybody else is debating how to fix the system," said the Rev. Richard DeLillio, the executive director of Nativity Prep in Wilmington, "we'll deal with the kids one by one by one."

School here celebrated its centennial. The most renowned school in Wilmington, Salesianum had produced scores of lawyers and doctors and executives, and its tuition was $7,500 a year. When it started, however, it had offered a free Catholic education to the Polish, Irish, and Italian immigrants packed into row houses on hillsides and along docks.

Edward Ogden, a brother in the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales religious order and an assistant principal at Salesianum, saw the Nativity model as a way of reviving the idealistic heritage. In a furious nine months from January to September 2003, he prevailed upon a local developer to donate a health club for the school building and enlisted Salesianum alumni, corporate benefactors, shopkeepers and Eagle Scouts to overhaul the saunas, lockers and aerobics studio into fully furnished classrooms, offices and cafeteria.

The first 15 pupils, divided between fifth and six grades, enrolled shortly after Labor Day. This fall, the number grew to 28 with the expansion into seventh grade and a budget of $478,000. Ultimately, Brother Ogden sees Nativity reaching a maximum of 55 to 60 in grades five through eight. And despite the undeniably affecting story of the school's founding, he said, "My theme song is that it doesn't happen overnight."

Hiree Peoples, one of the initial pupils, came with fairly typical baggage. He was being raised by a grown cousin, who had inherited him from a grandmother, who had stepped in when both of the boy's parents fell into drug problems. Since the grandmother lived in Philadelphia, Hiree had been going to a charter school there and coasting on obedient behavior without actually learning very much.

THAT kind of bargain didn't work at Nativity, not with class sizes below 10, not with required study hall, not with all those Latin declensions, not with a required reading list of a dozen novels a year. By December 2003, Hiree was struggling so badly and resisting so vigorously that his cousin and guardian, Belinda Cridell, decided to augment Nativity's discipline by denying him any Christmas presents.

Something changed with Hiree, Ms. Cridell said, when he went to a required monthlong session last summer, held outside Wilmington at a Catholic college. His first marking period this year showed four B's, an A-minus, and a C-plus, albeit alongside a D-minus in math.

"Some mornings I'm still in the shower," Ms. Cridell said, "and Hiree's already in the car, ready to go to school."

The temptation in discovering a school like Nativity Prep and a system like the Nativity Network is to look for easy ways to copy them. Certainly, these schools offer a replicable model of rigorous curriculum, unstinting standards, small class size and individualized attention. But there is something else, something more ineffable, something that can't be learned at a workshop or in graduate school.

"It sounds syrupy, but this school is about unconditional love," said Ciro Poppiti, a graduate of Salesianum High and Princeton University who teaches civics at Nativity Prep as a volunteer. "You can see in the kids' eyes, this sense of, 'Why do these people care about me? These white people? Do they want me to become a priest? Is this a secret seminary?' And then, gradually, they realize this is a gift. The only strings attached are to study hard and respect others. You do that and you keep getting the gift."

San Jose/Valley
Posted on Wed, Jun. 02, 2004

Taking next big step

By Larry Slonaker
Mercury News

When you visit Sacred Heart Nativity -- a middle school in a poor neighborhood near downtown San Jose -- students will look you in the eye. They eagerly offer to shake hands. In one classroom, they rise all at once and say in unison, "Welcome, friend!"

It's like you took a wrong turn off Guadalupe Expressway and drove straight into 1940.

On Friday, the school that stresses social skills and a back-to-basics curriculum for disadvantaged youths will have its first graduation. Thirteen eighth-graders will be honored for completing a program to prepare them for the rigors of college preparatory high schools.

Brian Zuniga is one member of that tightly knit class. He has transformed himself from a fifth-grader who struggled at school into a self-confident student headed for Downtown College Prep in the fall. He described himself as both "excited and nervous" about life after graduation, when his classmates will scatter to several different high schools.

"We'll miss being together," he said, "because that's been the routine for three years."

They have packed a lot of routine into those years. The school -- which is run by a Jesuit priest, but which accepts sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders of all faiths -- demands a strong commitment from the boys and their parents. The school day starts at 7:30 a.m., and the students don't leave until completing a homework session at 6 p.m.

They also are required to attend school two Saturdays a month, and three weeks of summer school. And they are expected to show up for every school day.

Asked how he deals with all that, when other kids his age are home watching TV or playing soccer by 3:30, Brian shrugs it off. "I'm comfortable with it. Work comes first."There will be plenty of time for fun, he says, "after you do the work.''

Tuition is $40 a month. Classes are very small, and the school focuses on reading, writing and math.

Sacred Heart's philosophy, according to its president, the Rev. Peter Pabst: "We bombard them with love, we bombard them with education, we bombard them with structure. And they thrive on that.

"Gabriela Jaime's son Jorge has thrived well enough to be offered a scholarship at Bellarmine College Prep, one of Silicon Valley's premier college preparatory schools. "We don't even have to wake him up in the morning to get ready for school," she said. "He gets up himself."

And if we make a doctor's appointment, he complains -- 'Why did you have to do it during school?'"

School's beginnings

Pabst started the school three years ago, in a building that housed the former Sacred Heart parish school, which closed in the 1970s. Using a model that Jesuits have employed elsewhere, he started with a core of 20 at-risk boys. He sought students whose family income was low enough to qualify them for free meals; who lived in neighborhoods where gangs were active; who tested below the 50th percentile; and whose parents spoke a language other than English.

They also had to have a parent committed to the long school day and year.Of the original 20 students, seven left. Some proved to be special-education students, whom the Sacred Heart faculty was unqualified to help. Some decided the school's rules were too severe.

And one ended up in the headlines.

James Ortega now resides in a Santa Clara County juvenile detention facility. He is accused of slaying two youths in January at an East San Jose fast-food restaurant. At 14, he is the youngest person ever to face homicide charges in the county's adult criminal court.

James had lasted only eight weeks at Sacred Heart. He is remembered as a troubled but respectful youth who left after a period of heavy peer pressure from gang members outside the school. Pabst winces at the memory.

"I always hate to see a kid leave," he said. "When James left . . . well, I didn't start a school to have kids leave.

''In addition to the 13 eighth-graders, the school has 38 boys in the sixth and seventh grades. Administrators now are interviewing applicants to fill 25 slots in next year's sixth-grade class.

The school is funded by the Jesuit order, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, and endless fundraising by Pabst. Sometime down the road, he hopes to start a similar school for girls.

Teaching social skills

For now, the boys are challenge enough. From the start, Sacred Heart tries to refine their social skills and manners. Every morning faculty members are out at 7 to greet the students, and the boys are expected to return the courtesy. "It's a long day," Principal Kevin Eagleson said with a laugh. "You have to be able to like one another.

"But students also are taught to like themselves. Modesta Piceno says that before her son Jesus entered Sacred Heart, "his self-esteem was very low.'' Now, he too is headed for Bellarmine in the fall. The experience, she says, bolstered not only his grades, but also his personality. "He's more confident now.

"Confidence is abundant at the school now. But the question remains of how well it will carry over into the next stage of the boys' lives. Several students are going to Bellarmine, which has 1,000 students. Another is going to Archbishop Mitty, whose students number more than 1,600.

"They've always had a small group to support each other,"Eagleson said. "Now they've got to jump in" with hundreds of strangers. He frankly admitted he worries about how well some students will do at the next level.

"I need them to return in four years and say they're going on to college," he said. "Then we'll finally be breaking that cycle of poverty.''

Contact Larry Slonaker at lslonaker@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5809.

Innercity Kids Thrive On Education

Jan. 21 -- This story is about a school that's one of a kind. It's a place where inner city boys can get a private school education for just $40 a month. In Assignment 7 , Elizabeth Bermudez shows us a San Jose school that's turning at-risk boys into fine young men. It begins the moment they arrive, a feeling that the staff at Sacred Heart Nativity academy cares about each and every student. From the handshake at the door to the breakfast each boy is served before classes even begin.

It's important these 6th, 7th and 8th graders start their day out the right way. For starters, this is not your ordinary junior high. Of the 59 boys who attend school here, most come from the Washington and Gardner neighborhoods which are a couple of the poorest in San Jose.

The school sits right smack in the middle of three gang areas. When most boys enter here, their math and reading skills are below average.

Father Peter Pabst, principal: "This is a nice haven for them to come and have quiet time and do the work they need and to be the excellent kids they can be."

One of those kids is 13-year old Jesus Piceno. Today, he's a model student of his 8th grade class, but that wasn't always the case.

Two years ago, Luis was attending public school and struggling in his classes and among his peers.

Luis Piceno, 8th grader: "Over there they're too violent. They don't care about studying or doing anything that'll take them places."

Piceno, parent: "My son was very low in math and I talked to the principal when my son come to this school and tell him that my son has a problem with math and I want to know if you guys can help him and now he's the second student in math."

Piceno attributes his son's success to the high demands here at the academy. A typical school day begins at 7:30 in the morning and unlike most schools, lasts well into the evening.

The boys usually leave school around 6 p.m. after a couple of hours of study hall and some one-on-one tutoring.

"We bring 'em in two Saturdays a month for tutoring work and then we have a mandatory three week summer school and a three week summer camp for the kids. So it's an 11 month school year, so they don't have much time to get into trouble, but they have a lot of time to learn."

You'd think a more than 10 hour school day might be tough on these boys, but the school has a 98 percent attendance rate and the kids seem to love it.

Adolfo Gomez, 6th grader: "When I got home from my first day I wanted to go to sleep so I can wake up faster and go back to school."

Juan Romo, 8th grader: "There's smaller classes and the teachers focus more on you."

And with focus on the boys, the hope is they'll succeed in the classroom and in life.

The academy is hoping to start a school for girls as well. Tuition is $12,000 a year, paid for primarily through donations.

Mother/daughter team helping fledgling Sacred Heart Nativity School take wing

By Anne Ward Ernst

Mary Sue Caillat, with four boys in tow—each uniformed in khaki pants and green sweatshirts with gray collars—walks the stretch of hallway, poking her head in each doorway in search of an unoccupied classroom. Caillat's daughter, Kasey, booted them from the last room in which they were working, sending them in search of a new place to sit.

"This happens all the time. We become vagabonds," laughs Mary Sue, as she and the boys find an empty room and settle in.

Along the way, other boys are smiling and waving at Mary Sue. One comes out from a classroom to get a hug.

"Hi Mama," he says.

But he is not talking to his mother. He is talking to the mother of one of his teachers, Kasey Caillat, who teaches language arts and math to sixth-graders, and Spanish to all three grades at Sacred Heart Nativity School.

"The boys call her 'Mama Caillat'," Kasey says. "She's nicer than me."

Kasey, who was raised in Almaden, is in her second year teaching at Sacred Heart Nativity. Her mother, Mary Sue, still lives in Almaden and volunteers at the school as a tutor. The pair worked together in the same manner at another Catholic school prior to Kasey moving on to Sacred Heart Nativity.

"I was told if you have Kasey, you also get Mary Sue too," says Father Peter Pabst, president of the school. "It's a package deal."

Mary Sue tutors students at the all-boys school located in the Washington/Gardener district of San Jose every week, helping them with various lessons as assigned by Kasey.

Posted in all the classrooms are reminders of expected behavior from the boys: respect each other, listen, follow directions, participate, and no talking while others are talking.

The school, sponsored by the Jesuits, Sacred Heart Parish and the Diocese of San Jose, opened in August 2001 and has a mission to educate "socio-economically disadvantaged boys" in grades 6 through 8.

Most of the students are Latino and live in the surrounding neighborhood, and most of them also are at risk of falling victim to one of the three active gangs in the area, or feel pressure to join a gang, Pabst says, adding "We lost one kid to a gang. He brought two knives to school and we had to ask him to leave."

On a particular Monday, as Mary Sue is going over a daily language review—including discussion of differences between similes and metaphors, suffixes and prefixes, and vocabulary words—some visitors stop by in the classroom across the hall. The 20-plus boys stand and face their guests simultaneously greeting them: "Good morning Linda and Frank."

Students are taught to introduce themselves, making eye contact as they shake hands with their guests. The school's program is rigorous, requiring the boys to be at the school from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with a reprieve on Fridays, as they are released at 3 p.m. In the mornings they have breakfast together—breakfast and lunch are both provided by neighboring Martha's Kitchen—and in the afternoons they do their homework, often assisted by tutors such as Mary Sue, retired Sisters, or volunteers from local high schools or universities.

Kasey asks an aide to go over the vocabulary lesson as she steps out of the room to call Mary Sue. Several hands go up each time the aide asks for volunteers to read aloud vocabulary words such as "despicable," "perseverance," and "scarcity."

'Mama Caillat' is on her way to Sacred Heart Nativity from her job in the administrative offices at Holy Spirit School on Redmond Avenue. Though Holy Spirit is not affiliated with Sacred Heart Nativity, Mary Sue says her employers have been "very supportive and generous" in allowing her to steal away from her job once a week to tutor the boys.

When Kasey returns, she informs the "gentlemen" of their homework assignments for the day. They pull out Bellarmine calendar books write down the list. Bellarmine College Prep accepted five of Sacred Heart's first graduating class last year. Of a total of 13 graduates, four were accepted to Arch Bishop Mitty, and four went on to Downtown College Preparatory or to public schools, Pabst says.

The school enjoys a 98.2 percent attendance rate, which Pabst, Mary Sue and Kasey all agree is because the boys love being there.

"We shower them with structure. We shower them with education. We shower them with love," Pabst says, adding the student's parents—most of them are immigrants from Mexico—are involved and just as dedicated.

"The parents are awesome," Mary Sue says. "They tell their children, 'This education is for you.'"

Tuition costs to parents are $40 a month, but that covers only a fraction of the costs so the school relies on private donations for funding. And it is funding that is slowing down plans to expand the program to include girls.

"It's always been our mission," Pabst says.

Thanks to a generous donation by an 83-year-old Los Osos, California, woman, who read about their mission in a periodical, Pabst says they are about halfway to their financial goal. He's hoping another benefactor will come along or that a dinner auction, planned for Feb. 26, will help them reach their objective.

Until the girls arrive, which could be as early as next school year, Mary Sue continues working with the just the boys as they do some reading of their own. Currently they are reading one her favorites Louis Sachar's Holes.

In chapter 36, she stops them for just a moment and says: "I love that sentence. 'When you spend your whole life in a hole all you can do is go up.'"

"It's kind of like what you boys are doing, going up."

For more information on Sacred Heart Nativity School visit www.shnativity.org, or call 408.993.1293.

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