Angelus News | May 17, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 10
On the cover: Emma D. and Roberto M. read during a class session at San Miguel School in Watts, one of 24 schools in lower-income areas across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles participating in the new Solidarity Schools initiative. On Page 10, Theresa Cisneros examines the program’s ambitious goals and talks to participants who describe its early success in creating a ‘culture of literacy’ among disadvantaged students.
On the cover: Emma D. and Roberto M. read during a class session at San Miguel School in Watts, one of 24 schools in lower-income areas across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles participating in the new Solidarity Schools initiative. On Page 10, Theresa Cisneros examines the program’s ambitious goals and talks to participants who describe its early success in creating a ‘culture of literacy’ among disadvantaged students.
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UNLOCKING THE DOOR<br />
TO LITERACY<br />
San Miguel Catholic School students<br />
Xaribel G. and Andres R. do<br />
classwork after reading as part of a<br />
new program designed to help kids<br />
improve in reading and math.<br />
A new, hands-on learning initiative is showing fast results for<br />
Catholic school kids in some of LA’s most disadvantaged areas.<br />
BY THERESA CISNEROS / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
At the start of the school year last fall, the group of kids<br />
who’d transferred from nearby public elementary<br />
schools to Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Oxnard<br />
were still learning English, and couldn’t read or identify<br />
certain letter sounds.<br />
But a few months later, something had changed. After 90<br />
days of personalized instruction, the students now know letter<br />
sounds, can read full sentences, and have a higher level of<br />
fluency.<br />
Such turnaround stories are the goal of Solidarity Schools,<br />
a three-year initiative aimed at helping students in disadvantaged<br />
areas with limited proficiency in English perform at or<br />
above grade level in reading and math.<br />
Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of 18 elementary schools in<br />
the Archdiocese of LA participating in the initiative, which is<br />
also present at six Catholic high schools in the archdiocese.<br />
It uses a common curriculum, intervention programs, and<br />
professional development to create a “culture of literacy” at<br />
<strong>10</strong> • ANGELUS • <strong>May</strong> <strong>17</strong>, <strong>2024</strong>
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