Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
September 11, 2002
ACE program an ideal fit for innovative north Denver school
Scholarship program provides school choice for low-income families
By Jack Bacon
The Alliance for Choice in Education and Escuela de Guadalupe were made for each other — not by intention, it just works out that way.
The Alliance promotes choice in education for children in low-income Denver families with tuition scholarships to private schools, and is especially interested in innovative programs. Escuela is based on innovation, established specifically to capitalize on the linguistic potential of children who already face the daily challenge of living in two languages.
ACE has the money and Escuela's parents need it. ACE wasn't founded for Escuela's benefit, but its program is an ideal partial solution for parents like those of Escuela children who can't afford a program that specifically addresses their greatest educational need.
Alex Cranberg, a successful oil and gas entrepreneur, founded ACE because his two young children were approaching school age and he perceived, along with a lot of other folks, that quality educational opportunity not only isn't equal, for many it isn't even available — especially if it costs money.
"Education is the most important thing government does," he said during a visit to Escuela de Guadalupe Sept. 3. "If they're not doing it, well, someone has to. ... The important thing is models — they're in the public and private schools in poor neighborhoods."
Escuela de Guadalupe, housed in the old St. Patrick Parish School at 3401 Pecos St., was conceived as a model fulfilling the education desires of parents living in the north Denver community. It opened three years ago with 40 children in kindergarten, first- and second-grade classes. It now enrolls 105 in kindergarten through fifth grade and intends to add a grade a year through eighth grade.
Principal Tony Vigil said the dual-language school is "focused on helping Spanish-speaking children learn English in an atmosphere where their culture and language are accepted."
"Often kids from this part of the city are marginalized, haven't done well in public school, drop out of school by the ninth or 10th grade or sooner," he said, adding that the educationally disadvantaged also include Hispanic youth who do speak English as their dominant language or know virtually no Spanish.
Vigil, a veteran of 20 years as a public school teacher and an administrator, left Denver Public Schools to direct Escuela, which teaches all the children in two languages, limits class size to 20 with a teacher and an assistant assigned to each, and requires student proficiency in standard curriculum at standard grade level — in English and Spanish.
He makes a couple of additional points: "Enrollment is pretty much first-come, first served" — the children aren't picked from the ranks of those who might be classified as "gifted"; and admission is controlled to the extent of maintaining a balance of "Spanish language-dominant" and "English dominant" children to make the bilingual mix as efficient as possible. (Whatever the "dominant" language, virtually all students are Hispanic, most of Mexican heritage.)
Students cover a day's material in three stages: in English, then in Spanish and vice versa with the English- and Spanish-dominant separated, and finally in both languages in mixed groups. Proficiency in both languages, orally and in writing, is the required goal for fifth-graders. The demand is such that Escuela operates on an extended day — 8 a.m.-4 p.m., and an extended year, summer vacation is five weeks, although some holidays during the year are longer than normal to allow time for a frequent custom, visits to extended families in Mexico.
It's a tough schedule, a quality program and it costs money, more than $6,300 per student a year to operate and the tuition cost is set at $3,100. Parents whose children attend are able to pay less than 15 percent — the rest has to come from assistance to school and parents. Escuela also pays teachers well; the goal is 90 percent of the Denver Public Schools salary rate.
"We literally don't have anyone who pays it (full tuition)," Vigil said.
"All families, regardless of economic circumstances, deserve equal access to educational opportunities for their children in grades K-12," ACE says. "Informed free choice is the engine that can drive excellence and achievement in both public and private education."
ACE scholarships pay 50 percent of a student's private or parochial school tuition, up to $2,000 per year for kindergarten through eighth grade, up to $3,000 for grades 9-12. Each scholarship carries a four-year funding commitment to a student who maintains good scholastic standing. ACE relies on individual schools to identify the children who need the aid, but once awarded, the scholarship belongs to the child — he or she doesn't have to stay in the same school to receive it.
ACE scholarships, 728 of them, have gone to students in 115 schools. The average annual family income of students is $19,515, a decline of more than $2,000 in the past year.
Obviously, ACE can't be the only resource for parents of Escuela students or its scholarship recipients elsewhere. It acknowledges that supplemental matching and financial aid programs at the various schools "are expected to substantially increase the amount of this benefit."
Escuela's requirement of parents is similar to ACE's expectation that families pay a share, whatever their economic situation allows. At Escuela, the supplemental resources include the Archdiocese of Denver, which leases the school building at a renewable rate of $1 a year, and substantial assistance from the Society of Jesus, which matches contributions to the Escuela de Guadalupe endowment up to $75,000. The endowment has reached $800,000.
The Jesuits, along with the Sisters of Loretto, were instrumental in establishing Escuela de Guadalupe. Jesuit Father Tom Prag said the project began when his provincial charged him and a few fellow priests to develop a model elementary school program to go with a middle school model the order had developed at 70 locations, a model that could be used for other schools.
"He asked three of us to get a house in the neighborhood," Father Prag said. They were to become familiar with the community and determine what the parents wanted for their children, "rather than, 'We know what you people need.'"
"We had no mission except to listen to people ... not to try to figure things out too fast," he said. "For about three years that's what we did. We said Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe, helped a contractor fix up houses near there ... "
"Some of our peers at Regis University and Regis Jesuit High School would ask, 'Tom what are you doing?'" he said. The result was a design for what became Escuela de Guadalupe, including asking for the old St. Patrick School building, which had been closed in 1969 and was being used by the archdiocese's Hispanic Ministry.
Father Prag emphasized that the Sisters of Loretto were also involved from the beginning — "They brought the educational element" — among them Sister Susan Swain of St. Mary's Academy.
A key element in both Escuela de Guadalupe and ACE is parent empowerment and involvement. At Escuela, parents must agree to assure the students maintain a 95 percent attendance rate and to dedicate at least five hours a week to their education.
Vigil recalled that one mother lamented that she couldn't contribute the time because she couldn't read or write.
"I asked her if she knew stories," he said. "She said she knew a lot. I told her to spend the time telling them stories."
For more information about ACE, call 303-573-1603. For more information about Escuela de Guadalupe, call 303-964-8456.
Contact Us
