Everyone pitches in to keep school going

National Catholic Reporter, March 31, 1995 by Robin T. Edwards

Editor's note: One of the greatest difficulties facing Catholic education is maintaining schools in inner cities, Following is a look at Sacred Heart School in Washington, where principal and. staff work sometimes double and triple duty to sustain this vibrant school.

WASHINGTON -- It does not take long after entering the doors of Sacred Heart School to realize that some of the best things in Catholic education money just can't buy.

In addition to traditional classes, students here learn lessons in hard work and dedication at just about every turn.

To the right of the entrance is the main office. The smiling lady, front and center, is the school secretary, Carolyn Dixon. She works all day, everyday, although she gets paid for only half of it. "I don't do it for the money," she said. "God knows I don't." Her first year here, she worked for free.

Not far away is the man at the helm, the principal. Reinaldo Almeida. His office, like everything else here, is plain and simple: Function takes precedent over form Typically, before the start of school each day, he is outside, dress shoes and all, picking up trash and sweeping the grounds. He also doubles as a gym teacher on Tuesdays, a school cook once or twice a week and a substitute teacher when needed.

"You've got to love this job," he said. "You've got to do it for the kids."

Discipline and afffirmation

One recent morning, Almeida led a visitor on a tour of the 70-year-old school, one of 16 Catholic schools in the inner city. Like a building inspector, he painstakingly acknowledges the blatant signs of old age: the huge crack in the wall, the rumpled and soiled orange carpeting, the leaky water fountain, the old paint job. "The boiler needs to be fixed, too," he said.

Like a proud father, he points out the good parts.

As he walks from classroom to classroom, he boasts about his teachers -- 12 full-time and four part-time. Their energy and enthusiasm is evident, at times they seem to be almost working the rooms. "She is just great, she is really good," he says of teacher after teacher. No job description would be appropriate for what they do, he said. On any given day, they are social workers, janitors, cooks or Good Samaritans. Some of them use their own money to buy special school supplies.

Along the way, he runs across the ones he calls "my kids." With their big smiles and matching dreams, they are the reason this place is still standing. There are little ones with pigtails and plaid jumpers and hanging shirttails and crooked neckties. And there are big ones with sort of grown up hairdos and plaid skirts and cracking voices and crooked neckties.

They are Sacred Heart students, 227 of them. Together they mirror the changing face of America, as more immigrants add their races, ethnicity and cultures to the landscape. Most of the students are from Central America and the Caribbean, but some of them have roots that extend to Africa and Asia.

These children make up a small part of the archdiocese's 3,695 students, 98 percent of whom are minorities. Sixtysix percent of the students in the archdiocese's 16 inner-city schools are non-Catholic. At Sacred Heart, 72 percent of the students are Catholic.

"This is one of the ESL (English as a Second Language) classes," Almeida said as he entered a classroom in which about a dozen or so pint-sized kids sat in little chairs at little tables. He seems especially proud. Under his leadership, the school became the first in the archdiocese to offer an ESL program.

When Almeida joined the school six years ago as a teacher, most of the students were African-american. Hispanics then composed about 12 percent of the student body.

"When I first got here, the archdiocese was not doing enough to reach out to Hispanics," he said. During that time the neighborhood was changing: More immigrants were arriving from El Salvador and Nicaragua. Almeida, a native of Cuba, took on the self-appointed role of "Hispanic advocate of the archdiocese."

Six years and a lot of outreach later, Hispanics make up 61 percent of the student body. And Almeida admits that he has some regret about leaving at the end of this year to pursue an advanced degree. "It worries me," he said. "Who is going to fill this void?"

Moving on, he stops by a preschool class. "Good mor-ning, Mis-ter Al-meida," they recite melodically, as if rehearsed. They are standing in two lines by the door, girls in one, boys in the other, preparing for one of their many trips to the bathroom. Each rests a forefinger on his or her lips. That means it's quiet time, Almeida explains. One little girl, a smile as wide as her face, catches Almeida's eye.

She is 5-year-old Ijeofa Anyanwu. He introduces her as the little girl who stops by his office just about every morning to give him a hug. She seems to relish his fond introduction and offers him a bonus hug.

At each successive visit, the children get bigger and bigger. "Did you comb your hair today?" he, shouts to a boy passing in the hall. "Where is your note?" he asks a girl trying to sneak in late for class. "Go get it." Discipline is a mainstay here,