Twins Adriana and Andrea Reyna head into class, books and notes at the ready.

A Jesuit-inspired school opens in Palm Desert, California

by Maureen Ryan

Coachella, a lake-filled valley tucked between mountains in Southern California's interior, is blossoming. With its mild climate and idyllic setting, wealthy retirees and migrant workers alike have come to call it home, and more families are arriving all the time. In the valley, Palm Desert is one of California's most rapidly growing cities. Census data suggest the population doubled in the first half of this decade. All in all, it's a good place to raise a family. And lately, it's also a good place to get a Jesuit-inspired education.

It hasn't always been. Though the Coachella Valley is over 20 percent Catholic, and projections are that 43,000 more Catholics are expected to move there over the next fifteen years, there was no Catholic high school in the area. Sensing that there was a growing need in their community for parochial education, two mothers, Lori Tiedeman and Kim McNulty, decided to start one of their own. They began their campaign in 1999. As community support for the idea grew, they approached the valley's Catholic diocese for help, but there were no "spare" priests for the project. The Jesuits, too, had no resources available to undertake the task. But one of the organizers was a long-time friend of Ed Hearn, then the principal of the Jesuits' Brophy College Prep in Phoenix. The organizer asked Hearn to help guide the group. After a few fruitful meetings, during which Hearn says he was "nudging" them towards the idea of a Jesuit-style school, he invited them to visit Brophy to see the Ignatian model of secondary education in action.

it was the parents themselves who first sought each other out, organizing around their shared belief in the importance of Catholic education for their children.

As part of the Jesuit notion of cura personalis, students are encouraged to take part in a wide range of extracurricular activity, from sports to volunteering.

The tradition

The centuries-old tradition of Jesuit education has proven remarkably successful. In the sixteenth century, Ignatius and his followers forged a new educational model from the core tenets of their faith. They believed in care for the whole person, called cura personalis, emphasizing spiritual, emotional, and intellectual well-being. This was best achieved, of course, by a rigorous and well-rounded curriculum that included philosophy, arts, sciences, languages, and rhetoric as well as activities such as sports and community service.

So when Hearn opened them up to the idea of a school in the Jesuit tradition, it was inspiration enough. Energized by the model they saw at work at Brophy, the group proposed something radically new: the first Ignatian-style high school in the country, endorsed by the Jesuits' California Province but run by laity.

Since then, the California Jesuits have been close at hand to help them plot their course. The parents formed a board of directors and began to secure funds. Land for the campus--almost 100 acres--was donated by a charitable foundation, and with other donations and a scholarship fund, they broke ground on Xavier College Prep in 2005.

First day

The school opened in the fall of 2006; 50 students made up the inaugural class. While none of the seven teachers on staff are Jesuits, principal Chris Alling and assistant principal Mark Granger had experience at Brophy Prep. Before they set foot in the school, they immersed themselves in Ignatian spirituality, from the Spiritual Exercises to cura personalis and back. To maintain the Jesuit connection, the teachers now meet for a weekly prayer group, discussing their trials and strengths as Ignatian educators.

The typical freshman schedule, according to the Xavier Prep web site, includes religion, English, biology, history, foreign language, art, and phys ed, not to mention the opportunity to take part in extracurriculars such as community service trips, clubs, and sports teams. There are two prayer breaks daily, during which students are encouraged to reflect on their day and give thanks for its blessings. They hope all this will instill in their students the Jesuit ideal Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam — to the greater glory of God.

The Jesuit Secondary Education Association, which comprises 51 Jesuit high schools in the United States, ruled last year that a school endorsed by a province could become a member, and it seems that Xavier will apply in the near future. Until then, Xavier is still welcomed as part of the Jesuit education community. This includes, according to Fr. William Muller, SJ, the assistant for secondary education at the California Province, "meetings with the [Jesuit] schools' presidents, principals, superiors, and board chairs, the Ignatian orientation for new faculty and staff each fall, and the yearly colloquium on the ministry of teaching."

Xavier Prep started out with just freshmen, adding a new class each year. The first students will graduate in 2010.

The students

Still, with so much economic and social disparity in the valley, minding the Jesuit ideal of the preferential option for the poor might seem to be an uphill task. But Muller says that the school's founding board has always been conscious of the need for the school to provide for families of all income levels. From the start, he says, they were "clear about wanting a diverse school, wanting plenty of financial aid, [and] wanting to serve the families of the service sector."

Principal Alling agrees. He notes that the students "have parents who work in landscaping, who work in the fields during the harvest seasons, who are doctors, surgeons, entrepreneurs, artists, counselors. They come from the poorest corners of the valley and the wealthiest gated communities." Half of the students are Caucasian, the other half Hispanic or biracial. Forty-eight percent receive some need-based financial aid.

Giving back

"They come from the poorest corners of the valley and the wealthiest gated communities," says principal Chris Alling about Xavier's students, including Joe Pagano, Blake Steinke, and Connor Lennon.

No matter the background, all Xavier Prep students are taught the value of giving back to the community. A group of students heads into neighboring towns once a month or so to help deliver groceries to families in need. Students help out in all kinds of ways, from translating Spanish to organizing and bagging food for deliveries. Alling jokes, "The real payoff is when [the students] go to deliver the goods. That's when you get to watch the kids sit and squirm in an apartment smaller than their bedrooms as the family thanks them for helping."

But it is that moment of discomfort, he believes, that contains a kernel of revelation. "We try to show kids that the poor do not necessarily always want you to do it for them, to pay for it for them, to get it for them. Oftentimes, they want you to be with them, to carry the burden with them, to hunger with them, to eat with them, to be with them. This sort of service takes more time than it takes to paint a wall or deliver groceries."

Maureen Ryan is a 2006 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and Company magazine's assistant editor.

The future

Xavier is already having an influence in the Coachella Valley, but further, it has the potential to give a new twist to Jesuit education. According to Muller, there are talks of future Jesuit-endorsed or Ignatian-style schools in other places in the United States, but the conversations "are just that for the moment."

Xavier Prep's next big goal is raising funds to build a chapel and athletic facilities. The spirit of community engagement is strong here. After all, it was the families themselves that first sought each other out, organizing around their shared beliefs. As Muller says, this is real partnership, with Jesuits and laity "working together to pass on the Ignatian charism in new and important ways."

For more information go to www.xavierprep.org

Starting Them Early Jesuit high schools are creating middle schools for good reasons In 2004, St. John's Jesuit High in Toledo added a seventh and eighth grade in response to parents' desires for stronger middle-school preparation for St. John's college-prep curriculum. St. John's Jesuit Academy opened its doors that year to 50 seventh-graders and 50 eighth-graders. "These young men have the freedom to be themselves without the societal pressures of a co-ed environment," says Chris Knight, St. John's principal. "It also provides seventh and eighth graders access to resources a high school has." And the academy benefits the high school. "The middle school's size allows us to pilot programs that can later be applied to the high school," says Knight. "We piloted Chinese two years ago that started being implemented in the high school this year. Now we are implementing Arabic as a test program in the middle school before adding it to the high school program," he explains. The middle-and-high-school model is not new to Jesuit schools. McQuaid Jesuit in Rochester, New York, has seventh and eighth grades, while Jesuit High in New Orleans has an eighth grade, and Red Cloud High in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, has fifth through eighth grades. University of Detroit Jesuit Academy has been a feeder school for the high school for 30 years now. "This is the best prep for the high school," says dean Catherine Ermanni. The tough curriculum is balanced by a mentoring program—high school students help seventh graders transition both with academics and socialization. Service is part of the program as well. Loyola Blakefield Middle School in Towson, Maryland, offers its 240 sixth- and eighth-grade boys extensive service opportunities. "Our sixth graders do service work weekly at a nursing home," says principal Gail Kujawa. "In seventh grade they serve in a special education school, and in eighth work in a soup kitchen." Last fall, Boston College High added the Arrupe Division with 238 seventh and eighth graders (average class size: 20) because of the lack of educational options for them in the Boston area and because many of the schools with which it competes for better academic students already had grades seven through twelve. "The Jesuit ideal of cura personalis especially applies to the emerging adolescent," says St. John's Knight. "A middle-school environment in a Jesuit school encourages the total formation of young people in a critical time in their development." Gail Christie, St. John's Jesuit High, Toledo