New President Appointed

St. Martin de Porres High School, the first new Catholic high school in Lake County in 40 years, recently announced it has named R.J. McMahon as its first president. The school also announced the formation of its board of trustees. St. Martin de Porres is a four-year college preparatory high school modeled on the highly successful Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood in which students participate in a corporate internship program to help defray the cost of tuition.

McMahon, a graduate of Boston College and Loyola University’s MBA program, is himself a product of Chicago-area Catholic elementary and secondary schools; he attended St. Luke School in River Forest and Fenwick High School in Oak Park. He is an adjunct professor of business at Dominican University in River Forest and is formerly executive vice president of development for Central Baptist Family Services of Chicago. McMahon will lead St. Martin de Porres’ faculty, staff and students in preparing for the school’s August 2004 opening in the former Social Security building at Genesee and Washington streets in downtown Waukegan.

Corporate Internship Program

• Work will be part of the education of each student. As part of the Corporate Internship Program, students will work with firms in a variety of professions, including accounting, financial services, health care and communications and will perform basic entry level clerical or data processing jobs.
• A typical student will attend classes four days a week and work one day a week at a sponsoring corporation, allowing the student to earn approximately 75 percent of his or her tuition. One full-time entry-level job will support a team of four students.
• The employer contracts with the school to provide tuition. The individual student receives no pay. The wages earned go directly to the school.
• The family of the student will pay approximately $2,000. The employer will pay $6,000 per student. Additional fundraising will provide for other needs of the school.
• The 2004-05 academic year will enroll approximately 160 freshman and sophomores and the new school plans to add other classes the following year, for a maximum enrollment of 500 students.
• Students will be transported to their jobs via school-sponsored transportation.
• To date, more than 30 corporations have made commitments to employ students. More are expected to join the program in the near future.

Curriculum

• St. Martin de Porres will be a Catholic, college preparatory, co-ed high school.
• The rigorous and innovative curriculum will educate the student about the work world as well as prepare the student for college.
• Students will qualify to attend St. Martin de Porres High School based on financial need, motivation, commitment to the mission of the school, residency in Lake County, and the desire to go on to college.

Funding

• A group of lay and religious volunteers, with a grant from the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation of Menlo Park, Calif., conducted a feasibility study for a Cristo Rey model high school in the Waukegan area.
• The study concluded that there is a need for affordable, quality, Catholic, co-ed, college-preparatory education in the Waukegan area.
• In addition to funding the feasibility study, the Cassin Foundation has provided $750,000 to support the initial leasing of space, administrative salaries and expenses associated with development of the school’s curriculum and innovative Corporate Internship Program.
• Additional fundraising, led by the Board of Trustees, will be used for capital expenses, including a new building to house the total anticipated enrollment in the future.

Planning

• The school initially will be located in leased space in a building in downtown Waukegan. Two floors of the building will be renovated to accommodate the high school. Long-range plans for the school location are under consideration.
• The hiring of staff and administration will begin this summer.
• Applications for new students will be accepted this fall.

St. Martin de Porres

• Members of the Advisory Committee, sponsoring religious congregations, Board of Trustees and the community selected the name for St. Martin de Porres High School.
• Martin de Porres, the first African-American saint, was born in Lima, Peru, in 1579, and was the son of a Spanish nobleman and a young freed African slave. Martin de Porres grew up in poverty in Lima and apprenticed himself as a child to a surgeon-barber from whom he learned to care for the sick. He later entered religious life as a Dominican brother, established an orphanage and children’s hospital for the poor and became known for his tender care of the sick and for his curative skills. St. Martin de Porres is also known as the Patron Saint of Social Justice and Education
• Martin de Porres was canonized in 1962 by Pope John the XXIII and is today a compelling role model for many in service to the church.

Cristo Rey Model

• The Cristo Rey Network is a national association of high schools that provide quality, Catholic, college preparatory education to young people from low-income families who otherwise could not afford such an opportunity.
• Member schools have their own identity but are characterized by a curriculum that is tailored to the students’ needs and by the unique Corporate Internship Program developed in 1996 by Cristo Rey Jesuit High School of Chicago, through which each student finances the majority of the cost of his or her education.
• In addition to St. Martin de Porres High School, Cristo Rey model high schools currently operate in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; and Los Angeles, Calif.
• For more information about the Cristo Rey model for high schools, visit www.cristoreynetwork.org.