In efforts to expand Catholic education in the Pomona Valley, archdiocesan department of Catholic Schools' officials recently announced a new two-campus partnership model which will result in four schools serving preschoolers through secondary students.
St. Madeleine Elementary School and nearby all-girls' Pomona Catholic High School are partnering together to create "a new vision" of Catholic education, according to administrators who spoke to a large gathering of parish school parents attending a Feb. 18 midweek evening meeting held at the church.
Each campus this fall will have two schools: St. Madeleine will have a new preschool early learning center in addition to grades K-5; Pomona Catholic will be the site for the new co-ed Pomona Valley Catholic Middle School as well as the existing all-girls' high school.
"This is an exciting time for Catholic education in Los Angeles," said Pat Livingston, archdiocesan superintendent of elementary schools. "We are helping so many schools think up new and creative ways to offer the best in quality Catholic education for their students. We are doing this with St. Madeleine in a most wonderful way in Pomona."
St. Madeleine principal Adela Solis, who will continue as principal for the parish school and the new Pomona Valley Catholic Middle School at the Pomona Catholic site, told the parents she was proud to be part of a new archdiocesan educational model partnering an elementary school and a high school campus. "This is something completely new and this is going to be a first," said Solis.
Plans include opening an early learning center for three- and four-year-olds at St. Madeleine this fall which will eventually be expanded to include two-year-olds. The move of the sixth, seventh and eighth graders to the new Pomona Valley Catholic Middle School, which will be located in currently unused space in the high school building's west wing, will create space for the preschoolers at St. Madeleine and also free parish school classrooms for a possible computer lab and art room.
"It's a way to serve more students, maximize all the space and have an accelerated program at the middle school," Livingston told The Tidings before the parent meeting. Benefits of the elementary/high school partnership include enhanced curriculum, extracurricular activities, partnerships with Catholic high schools and local universities as well as priority Catholic high school entrance admissions.
"We are so pleased at Pomona Catholic High School to be a part of this new vision," said Kimberlee Gazzolo, principal at Pomona Catholic High School. She said administrators are looking at offering accelerated math and language arts programs at the middle school, such as algebra I and Shakespeare. Students will also be able to take advantage of the high school's biology and chemistry labs and possibly enroll in Spanish and French classes.
New extracurricular activities being planned include academic decathlon, a middle school journalism program and a music enrichment program in partnership with all-boys' Damien High School in La Verne. "Our hope is that, once people are aware of the great middle school we will have, our enrollment will increase to the point we will have double classes," said Solis.
Parent reaction to the plan was overwhelming positive. "I think it's awesome," said Vickie Duffy, who has children enrolled in sixth and fourth grades at St. Madeleine. "My middle school daughter is going to just love it. The school right now [at 160 student enrollment] is just too small to interchange classrooms, [which] has been my daughter's main complaint.
"And I also love the [addition] of the early learning center. Catholic schools have needed this for a very long time. I just wish my children were little again so they could participate in it."
Eydie Grinage, who has a daughter in sixth grade, said she thinks the middle school move to Pomona Catholic is "fantastic…. It's going to increase that Catholic identity starting from the very young. And, it's also going to bring us together as one family in the community as Catholics."
"I am absolutely excited. It's given us a new hope for the future of Catholic education in the Pomona Valley," commented Father Alex Aclan, pastor of St. Madeleine, who, as school chaplain, will regularly visit both campuses.
Sacred Hearts Father Pat Travers, principal of Damien High School, said the two-campus, four schools plan will widen opportunities for Catholic education among parishioners in the area, including families at Sacred Heart Church in Pomona which closed its parish school some years ago. "I see it as a new spirit, a whole new attitude --- a brand new springboard for Pomona," said Father Travers. |