Heidi Klosterman, 30, a graduate support counselor at St. Cecilia Academy in south St. Louis where, through ACCESS Academies, she helps students prepare for college prep high schools across the region. St. Louis Post-Dispatch article
The St. Louis NativityMiguel Scholarship Dinner honoring Blanche M. Touhill on Wednesday, June 8, will raise scholarship funds to benefit graduates of St. Louis’ seven NativityMiguel middle schools.
Organizers hope to raise $350,000 to support tuition scholarships for more than 250 high school students who have graduated from the urban NativityMiguel schools and are attending a participating college-preparatory high school in St. Louis. Download News Release.
Middle school program targets economically disadvantaged students for high school success. Nerinx Hall student Jenny Carillo credits much of her high school success to St. Cecelia’s Academy, an ACCESS Academy school. Suburban Journals article
When a child embarks for the first day of school, it begins a journey of aspirations. But what are the odds those aspirations can be met in an elementary school system in which 75 percent of the students, most minority children, qualify for national poverty programs; or when 64 percent are being raised by only one parent; or where many, when the school day ends, return to neighborhoods with the highest crime rates in St. Louis? Conventional wisdom says “not good,” especially when those students hit a brick wall called middle school.
And yet, aspirations are on the way to being fulfilled today at four schools in St. Louis — Central Catholic School & Academy, Holy Trinity School & Academy, The Academy at King of Glory Lutheran School and St. Cecilia School & Academy — through a rigorous program that is turning middle school into an academic launching pad. The results achieved to date by non-profit ACCESS Academies at these schools are truly remarkable, with 96 percent of ACCESS middle school graduates accepted to college-preparatory high schools. Even more significant is that 92 percent of the first class to complete the three-year ACCESS curriculum graduated from high school within four years; 82 percent of all ACCESS graduates are now enrolled in college or post-secondary programs. St. Louis Post-Dispatch article
