Third school is part of DNA, Jesuit priest says
Preschool for low-income, minority city kids follows middle and high schools
It seemed every morning the Rev. Bill Watters opened his newspaper, there was another story about the failing Baltimore city schools. It was the early 1990s, and student test scores were abysmal, funding was inadequate and school infrastructure was in disrepair.
Watters, a Jesuit priest, said the drive to foster education is part of his DNA. So he set out to open a school he believed would better serve Baltimore’s largely low-income, minority student population.
Then he started another school. And another.
“I really feel God has placed me here to make it possible to light a candle in the darkness,” said Watters, an assisting priest at Saint Ignatius Catholic Community in Mount Vernon. “There is a lot of darkness around, but I want to show there’s goodness in this world.”
His latest effort, the Loyola Early Learning Center, opened its doors to 18 two-year-olds on September 12. It will eventually serve children ages two through pre-kindergarten. Watters, 83, hopes it will follow the success seen at Saint Ignatius Loyola Academy, which has educated middle school-aged boys since 1993, and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, established in 2007. Both aim to provide disadvantaged students with a high-quality education. The high school boasts a 100 percent college acceptance rate.
Tuition for students at the new center is being covered by a team of benefactors who each committed to fund full $12,500 scholarships annually for three years. The funding model is similar at the other two schools.
Another group of twelve donors — Watters calls them the Twelve Apostles —
grade there. The school becomes a put up $250,000 each to get the early second family for its students, officials learning center up and running. say.
The building at the corner of St. Paul Attenoukon is one of five alumni and Madison streets required $1.5 million teaching at the academy this year. Watters in renovations. It once housed the Bell said their presence inspires students. Telephone Co. and now is home to Isaiah Wooden was a member of Saint colorful classrooms filled with books, play Ignatius’ inaugural class in 1993. He’s now structures and posters teaching the alphaa professor at American University with a bet, colors and shapes. doctorate from Stanford. He recently
“Father Watters has the vision to be joined the academy’s board of directors. able to look at the needs in the city and When Wooden first met Watters, the make institutions come to life to address priest looked at the young boy and asked if those needs,” said John Ciccone, president he knew about Isaiah the prophet. of Saint Ignatius Loyola Academy. “He told me it’s a big name and I have a
Jacquelyn Madison took her son, Aulot to live up to,” Wooden said. “We were gust, to meet his new teacher before the all supposed to do great things. That grand opening. August ran around the message was hammered in every day.” lobby, a miniature cartoon backpack Center administrators hope to grow strapped to his back, and tossed a football enrollment to nearly 60 children by 2019. with his older brother, Kolby, who just They plan to offer parents Saturday started fifth grade at Saint Ignatius. classes focused on topics such as nutri
Madison considers the opportunities tion, resume-writing and the importance for her boys to attend Jesuit schools free of of reading to children, director Erica charge “a blessing.” She’s a single mother Meadows said. who works as an EMT for the city health “Our goal is to really help the whole department. She was spending $235 family,” Meadows said. weekly on daycare for August. Research shows preschool participa
She sees her the education of her sons tion better prepares students for future as a way to “change the cycle” of violence schooling. Watters hopes the education that touches the lives of many young black young children receive at the center men in Baltimore. readies them for the Jesuit “educational
Madison lost a cousin to gunfire two ecosystem” he envisions beginning in years ago. He had been the only consistent early child care and continuing through male figure in Kolby’s life, she said, which Cristo Rey. is a role the 10-year-old boy now must fill The curriculums at the middle and high for his younger brother. school are rigorous. Saint Ignatius stu
Kolby has learned to tie a tie since dents attend for 9½ hours a day, 11 months starting at the Jesuit academy in Federal a year. Cristo Rey students also work one Hill, Madison said, as the boy puffed his day per week at a corporate internship at chest proudly beside her. companies such as T. Rowe Price and
“I just want them to grow up to be good Under Armour. men,” Madison said. “I don’t want him to Every student who graduated from the think the lifestyle of the streets is the only school has been accepted to college, said way.” Bill Heiser, its president.
Every child enrolled at the early The “ripple effect” Watters started by learning center is black, and would qualify opening these schools will be felt for for free or reduced-price lunch. At Saint generations to come, Heiser said. As the Ignatius, 92 percent of students are black. students continue graduating from college, Last year’s incoming class came from he said, they will be role models for their families with an average household inchildren and grandchildren to do the same. come of $25,000. “You could talk to literally hundreds of
Watters, who is white, said he is people who stand alongside Father Watcognizant of the Jesuits’ painful connecters and believe in his mission,” Heiser tion to slavery. In 1838, priests at the said. Jesuit-founded Georgetown University Watters sits on the board of each of the sold 272 slaves to help pay off the schools. With the opening of the new university’s debts. learning center, about 500 students will be
One way he believes Jesuits can make enrolled this year at a school started by restitution for the past, he said, is to “reach Watters. out to black brothers and sisters and say, There’s room for more, he says. Perhaps ‘We want to support you.’ ” an elementary school that would bridge
The sense of support for students the final gap. among Watters’ schools in Baltimore is “Three schools might not be enough,” what sets them apart from others in the Watters said. city, said Abraham Attenoukon, a Saint Ignatius alumnus who now teaches sixth