Miracle in Memphis: reopened Catholic schools bring life back to inner-city neighborhoods

Drive southeast on Lamar Avenue here in Memphis and the story of America's urban core flashes by at 40 mph. You see a housing project now boarded up, fenced, awaiting demolition. You count six liquor stores within a two-mile radius, while offices that once housed professional services and locally owned retail stand vacant. Cars and SUVs pass around you, hurrying away from downtown toward Interstate 240, a loop highway that connects suburbs.

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Along the way, you might miss St. John Parish and the St. John Catholic School. Built during the late 1940s and early '50s, the facades are simple and sit several hundred feet back from the busy four-lane street.

But if you do see the school and catch a glimpse of a child in the traditional Catholic uniform rushing inside--then you've spotted the most hopeful sign that the 2700 block of Lamar Avenue has to offer.

In 1990, St. John Catholic School, which now teaches pre-K through sixth grade, was shuttered. It was another victim of the drain of Catholic families from the inner city, the decline of religious dedicated to education and the increasing cost of running elementary schools. The U.S. Conference Of Catholic Bishops estimates that between 1990 and 2005, 850 parochial schools closed, the majority in urban areas. Name some of the great American cities--Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Brooklyn, St. Louis--and all recently have closed or will soon close significant numbers of inner-city schools.

The trend is significant enough to earn a mention in President Bush's 2008 State of the Union speech: "Sadly, these [faith-based] schools are disappearing at an alarming rate in many of America's inner cities."

It's almost unprecedented for an urban parochial school emptied for a decade to once again ring with the voices of students and teachers. Except in Memphis, where St. John is one of eight "Jubilee Schools" brought back to the inner city since 1999. The solution was not a private school voucher system, government grants or even urban renewal. A large anonymous donation, given by a most unlikely source, started the comeback.

"You see the neighborhoods where our schools reopened starting to come alive again," said Mary C. McDonald, secretary of education and superintendent of schools for the Memphis diocese. "We didn't follow progress, we felt progress could follow our Catholic schools."

The schools were named by Memphis Bishop J. Terry Steib, who wanted to see the revival begin in the Year 2000, a Jubilee Year. The reopenings, which school advocates often call "the Miracle in Memphis," actually began a year earlier than planned.

"I've heard others from around the country say that if they could get the funding, they would do the same things we are doing," Steib said. "It didn't begin with funding. It began with a vision."

No child left outside

Tuition for St. John is $3,000, just like any other school in the diocese. But no student is ever turned away because the parent can't afford full tuition. Millions of dollars in scholarships have been raised in Memphis to assure that. In fact, 95 percent of the Jubilee students receive tuition assistance.

"Every parent here pays some part of the tuition," said Teddie Niedzwiedz, principal of St. John. "Even if it's just a little bit each month. There's pride in that--that you are helping your child attend this school. But we would never turn a student away because of inability to pay."

So far the open-door policy has not led to long waiting lists. In fact, many of the schools continue to recruit students, still selling the concept of Catholic education to non-Catholic families. McDonald said educators have learned that all of the help you can provide to children won't matter if the parents aren't enlightened along with their child. And so they've directed efforts to lift the parents up as well.

Last year the Jubilee Schools were able to reopen their own kitchens--after using Meals on Wheels for the first eight years. Not only did this allow the schools to manage their own food costs, it also provided a special opportunity to employ some of the student's parents.

"It's been a blessing to work here," said Elmerie Rosser, assistant cook at St. John School and mother of a fourth-grader. "I can be close to my daughter and I received training that might help me again some day."

These kinds of initiatives are essential to the child's development, McDonald said. Jubilee Schools also offer parents training in literacy, job-seeking, health and wellness.

"We can provide the students with the best education," Niedzwiedz said, "but if it's not reinforced at home, it makes everything harder."

It is that pitched battle for children's lives that convinced Sr. Grace Saia, of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, that St. John must be a year-round school when she was charged with opening the school in 2000. Other Jubilee Schools are considering a similar move.