Private school for low-income children arrives in Miami

When Hollywood resident Samara Quiñones was growing up in the Bronx, her single mother worked two jobs to pay for the family’s small apartment and her children’s education. She insisted that they attend private schools to get what she considered the best education possible.

So, her mom read in the newspaper about a new private school in Harlem called Cristo Rey, a school for low-income students with a unique way to fund: a professional internship program that allows students to earn a salary to pay their high school tuition.

Quiñones applied, was accepted and enrolled. Today, 12 years later, at 26 years of age, she has a master’s degree and is a counselor. Motivates low-income students in South Florida so they too can succeed. He is working to get Cristo Rey school to come to Miami.

“Cristo Rey prepared me not only for college and the work environment, but also for life,” says Quiñones. They taught me to always be present, to always take the next step and that one opportunity is followed by others. I was taught to always be a positive role model; and learned to give and to receive.”

The Miami school is scheduled to open in August 2020, but Quiñones and others are already working to spread the word to Miami students, parents and businesses that can offer internships to high school students. The location of the school has not yet been decided.

Cristo Rey is a network of nonprofit Catholic schools, which has 32 campuses nationwide, including one in Tampa. Although schools have a religious curriculum, students do not have to be Catholic to attend as long as they can legally work in the United States and their families are below a certain income level. This is determined using a formula that compares household income with city and national statistics, but the median household income for Cristo Rey students nationally is $35,000. Most of Cristo Rey’s students are Hispanic and African American.

The school also specializes in helping students who are behind in their studies stay in the study halls and to a rigorous curriculum, according to Rudy Cecchi, who served on the board of directors of Cristo Rey in New York and is currently working to establish the Miami.

Student tuition is paid through a combination of internship salary, vouchers or tax credits, private donations, and payments made by students’ families. The average family contribution nationwide is $1,000 annually, but students aren’t turned away if they can’t pay, Cecchi says.

Cristo Rey advocates and alumni promote the internship program, not only as a source of funding but also as a way for children from low-income families to learn professional skills and visualize themselves in jobs that require college degrees. According to Cristo Rey’s website, 90 percent of the schools’ alumni enroll in college, a rate 1.4 times higher than low-income high school graduates overall.

Quiñones says that, through her work as a counselor at Archbishop Curley-Notre Dame High School in Little Haiti, she has seen the need for mentoring low-income students, something Cristo Rey can provide.

“Cristo Rey led me to who I am today because of the importance of being successful and having high expectations, and having teachers who believed in us, staff who believed in us, having a workplace where they believed in us,” he says. Students from low-income families think they don’t have opportunities. They don’t believe in themselves.”

While Quiñones studied at Cristo Rey, he worked at a major law firm and investment company in New York, making photocopies, preparing presentations and taking minutes of meetings. All students are on rotation, so they work one or two days a week without missing classes.

Several important people have already expressed interest in helping the school in Miami get started and continue to operate. Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his wife have agreed to be honorary members of the board of directors, and several companies have said they will offer internships to students. Cristo Rey’s team in Miami is working to have 35 companies commit to the internship program before the school opens its doors.

Joseph Fernandez, president of operations at BNY Mellon in Florida, a global banking and investment services company, says he plans to employ some students as interns at the state offices in Miami, located on Brickell Avenue. The bank previously had an intern college student, who was a Cristo Rey graduate, and subsequently integrated her into the staff.

“People have commented in the past about the brain drain here, and it would be wonderful if we can create this connection where people want to stay and see the value of the different industries that we have here and do that by helping young people meet the challenges of the business world,” he says.

Victor Mendelson, president of HEICO, Inc., an aerospace and electronics company headquartered in Hollywood, says he is also excited to have his company join the Cristo Rey professional program. He says he and his wife donated $10,000 to the Miami school.

“I’m a Jew, so it’s not a religious issue, it’s about supporting people to help themselves,” Mendelson says; He adds that the programme also helps businesses. “I think it gives companies young, ambitious, diligent and serious people to add to their workforce, people who come from some degree of adversity, who don’t take their work for granted.”

Cecchi says the school aims to accept about 125 students into its first class, resulting in an enrollment of 400 to 500 boys across the school by 2024. He says the Miami school will likely have classes taught in both English and Spanish.

The Cristo Rey team in Miami has already begun surveying students and parents through forms distributed in English, Spanish and Creole to assess the needs of prospective students. Official recruitment and enrollment of students will begin in August 2019. Students who apply will go through a series of interviews that will serve to assess their willingness and balance the demands of Cristo Rey’s schoolwork.

Samara Quiñones, a student of Cristo Rey de Nueva York, with her two degrees from St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens. She works now for Cristo Rey School to come to Miami, to help others in need.

Source: https://www.elnuevoherald.com/