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8 Regis Alumni News
We want our students not only to succeed academically, but to aspire to and achieve
positions of leadership in their schools and communities. So they learn about Ignatius
of Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Peter Claver—the early Jesuits who founded the Society,
used their skills for the service of others, and took great risks to spread the Gospel.
OR: How are the REACH students chosen and how many are there in the program?
CD: Teachers, principals, pastors, and community leaders have the authority to
nominate Catholic fifth graders who are getting all “A’s” on their report cards, score
in the top quartile on their standardized exams, qualify for a reduced or free school
lunch through the federal school lunch program.
More intangibly, we’re looking for students who have the desire and the interest to
challenge themselves—kids who want more; who have some adult encouragement to
become successful; who are looking for something new, something better.
Our best “recruiters” are our mothers, and parents of current REACH students. I
remember 2 years ago, when the mother of one of our accepted summer candidates
began to have doubts about sending her son away for three weeks (this is a huge
step for parents!). Since she speaks Vietnamese, I couldn’t speak to her concerns. The
parents of an older boy in her son’s school, who is a current REACH member, spoke
to her, and convinced her the night before we were leaving for Scranton that her son
would be ok, and, in fact, thrive in the program. What astonished me, however, is that
these parents didn’t speak Vietnamese either—they spoke Spanish! But it was what I
call “mother language”—one mother speaking to another; that’s what persuaded her.
Now both the boy and his younger brother are REACH students.
Many Regis parents and alumni who work in public and Catholic schools have been our
eyes and ears—calling me to tell me about their students. It’s truly been a community
effort to find these students and tell them the Regis and the REACH story.
OR: How many students does REACH serve?
CD: There are currently 98 students in the program, from every borough, Long
Island and Yonkers. They attend 66 different schools, and represent over a dozen
nationalities, cultures and ethnicities.
In the first class, 34 candidates successfully completed the first summer, and 30 will
graduate from the 8 th grade this Spring.
Their resilience and hard work is contagious and inspiring. No stranger to all of the
problems of poverty—e.g., higher rates of incarcerated family members; victims of
violent crimes; unemployment; inadequate housing; etc.—they have managed to keep
their grades high, and achieve tremendous success.
OR: How is a given REACH student’s progress monitored?
CD: We instituted our own regime of standardized tests that revealed remarkable
progress. Despite the fact that generally, middle school scores tend to stagnate, our
class averages were skyrocketing—from the mid-70 th national percentile, to the mid-
90’s. Each student is assessed in every REACH class he takes; and we monitor every
report card that a student receives from his school, since students must maintain 90
averages or above in all classes. But positive reinforcement is important too, and we’ve
been known to give McDonald’s gift certificates to kids who’ve pulled their grades up.
OR: The first class of REACH students took their high school entrance exams this year.
What were the results?
CD: The message we give to all our students is that the purpose of REACH is not to