The Nativity School of Worcester

The Nativity School of Worcester

The Nativity School of Worcester is a model for all schools. It has its limitations, but it also has a pedagogy viable for children from Worcester’s working class neighborhoods. It strives to be “A Place Where You Can Be Good”, a place where children are removed as much as possible on a daily basis from the temptations of the streets and negative peer pressure. The School does this by requiring participation in after school programs, Saturday activities, and summer sessions.

This method of teaching works on several levels. The children have less distractions and worry. Their main concerns can then be directed toward academics and the positive reinforcements of peers and a highly motivated teaching staff.  A part of this is due to the relatively low class sizes which averaged no more 15.5 per class.

The Nativity School is a fully accredited private middle school and it has an academic curriculum that includes language arts, reading, mathematics, science, social studies, Spanish, and world religions and morality as well as a Renaissance program that includes drama, music and art classes that culminates in performances each semester.

It is a member of the Society of Jesus School Association; it is not a Worcester Diocesan school or a Worcester Public school. It is funded entirely by grants and donations. No money comes from the College of the Holy Cross, even though the Nativity School was founded through the efforts of the Jesuits from Holy Cross College. The School’s tenth annual auction fundraiser is scheduled to take place on April 10, 2015.

The Nativity School is located at 67 Lincoln St. near the intersection with Goldsberry St.  The building was a former Girls Club building. The Nativity School originally was located in All Saints Church on Pleasant St. and it moved to the new location a couple a years ago. There was a lot of speculation that it would move to the former Boys and Girls Club building on Ionic Ave.: that did not come to be.

The School strives to have a relatively low student to teacher ratio. These low ratios are an important part of the teaching methods of the Nativity School. Seen below is a breakdown of the number of teachers and their qualifications:

Total faculty/staff: 15

Lead Teachers: 4

Nativity Fellows: 8

Non-teacher administrators: 4

Number of faculty with graduate degree or in process of attaining a graduate degree: 100%

Adult to student ratio: 3:1

As a way of attract teachers the Nativity School has what it calls the Nativity Fellowship. It is a program that offers the chance for novice teachers to learn and practice their crafts and provide the students with their knowledge. Some of the benefits and incentives to the Fellowship teachers are room and board, stipends and insurance, graduate degree programs, transportation, Americorps Awards, and loan deferment.

For those readers who will be future teachers, Joel Kent, Business Manager, is the guy to contact for more information about the nativity Fellowship at jkent@nativityworcester.org or 508-799-0100 ext. 104.

When I worked at the College of the Holy Cross it was emphasized that our work must be of a measurable quality. The same standard applies to the Nativity School. It is not good enough for it to just say we have sixty-two students in the program; the outcomes are also important. An example of this standard evaluation is that for each graduating class at the Nativity School the students came in at grade level and after four years each class was above grade level. The graduating classes of eight graders were at the tenth or eleventh grade level. Other “measurable” results of the Nativity School’s pedagogy are one hundred percent of graduates were accepted into and receive financial aid to attend private high schools and seventy eight percent of graduates chose private high schools.  One hundred percent of the graduates have been accepted into four year colleges or specialized post-high school programs.

No school is perfect. The statistics do not show the retention rate of the accepted students. Some boys have dropped out of the Nativity School. President of the School, Alex Zequeira, said that the retention rate is improving. It was always above ninety percent and that it is now closer to ninety nine percent.

There is an economic ceiling for admission. All of the boys presently at the School are from a low income social economic environment and are eligible for free/ reduced breakfast and lunch. The tuition for each boy is fully covered by scholarship.  Enrollment is limited to boys from Worcester. The student body is composed of students from the following Worcester neighborhoods: Webster Square, Vernon Hill, Main South, Grafton Hill, Burncoat Street, Brittan Square/Lincoln Street, Belmont Hill, Lincoln Village, Great Brook Valley, Plumley Village, Columbus Park, Quinsigamond Village, Shrewsbury Street, Lake Quinsigamond, Beaver Brook.

Presently the admission policy for the School is limited to boys grades five through eight.  The President of the School, Alex Zequeira, explained that it is in the middle school years that boys are most likely to be affected by the adversities of an economic environment. The admission is open to boys of all faiths. There are discussions among the trustees about when to admit girls to the School. It is a disappointment that the admission of girls has not happened sooner.

The student body is diverse with the majority of the students being so called minorities.  The ethnic makeup of the student body is the following:

Hispanic/Latino: 44%
African/African-American: 35%
Caucasian/White: 11%
Other/Multi-Race: 5%
Asian:                                                                                                        5%

 There is a dress code: the boys are required to wear a dress shirt, tie and jacket. This reminded me of my years in parochial school in which the same dress code existed. I grew to dislike wearing a tie and only relatively recently began wearing a tie for my work. I think the boys will develop this same dislike of ties, but this dress code will allow them to see themselves apart from the adversity some must face daily. I coincidently ran into the President of the Nativity School at Abbie Lee’s restaurant. With him were students wearing a dress shirt and tie and a former student who dressed more causally. Maybe it was my imagination, but I perceived ties and dress shirts were not the clothing of preferable choice.

Of course it is not possible for Worcester Public Schools to emulate the Nativity School or that matter any private school. The Worcester Public School system has many students and there are other impediments such as contacts and politics.  I think that the model presented to us by the Nativity School could be done in the Worcester Public Schools in a pilot program, similar to the School for gifted children being set up in Doherty High School.  A middle school with a limited student population chosen at random or by the criteria found in the Nativity School could be set up in one of the Worcester public middle schools building. Of course the students and their parents will have to agree to mandatory after school programs, Saturday activities, summer sessions and a possible new dress code.

There are many people and programs that are helping children in somewhat an uncoordinated many in Worcester. There is a need to coordinate those efforts and a Nativity School model would be a possibly good way to focus those efforts.  It would provide a real life way of understanding what it would take to expand the Nativity School model to public school.  As one parent at the Nativity School told me, the education her son received at the Nativity School is something every child deserves an opportunity have.