Jesuits to open high school for low-income families - Nation - Brief Article

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 1, 2002

Jesuits and business leaders in Denver plan to open a new coed high school next fall to serve low-income students, combining traditional education and on-the-job white-collar experience with tuition assistance. "This program will reach students who never see an office or a desk," said Richard Campbell, president of the board of the school.

The school will be housed in what was a Denver archdiocesan high school--first called Cathedral then Central Catholic--which closed years ago. The new school has been incorporated as Arrupe Jesuit High School, named after the late Spanish superior general of the order, Fr. Pedro Arrupe.

Arrupe Jesuit will recruit businesses for entry-level jobs for students to fill on a rotating basis. Students will attend classes four days a week, necessitating a longer school year. The fifth day each week they work at their jobs. Each student's salary pays about 70 percent of the $8,000 annual tuition.

The Arrupe Jesuit High School model was inaugurated in 1996 as Cristo Rey High School in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, a virtually all-Hispanic poor community of more than 500,000 on the city's southwest side. It opened with approximately 100 students and now has more than 450 in all four high school grades.