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Happy fifth for Seton Academy
1. Dorchester Reporter
http://www.dotnews.com/seton%20acad.html
Happy fifth for Seton Academy
March 27, 2008
Seton Academy students Cindy Ly, Ashleigh Higgins, Andrea Cabrera, Ashley Rondan. Photo courtesy
ESA
By Katherine McInerney Special to the Reporter
Elizabeth Seton Academy in Lower Mills will celebrate its fifth
anniversary March 29, honoring five women who uphold the ESA
mission of Education, Service and Achievement.
The school opened in 2003 when rising costs, changing
demographics and declining enrollments forced Monsignor Ryan
Memorial High School to close its doors after 85 years. Alumni were
unwilling to close the door on local girls who they believed would
benefit from single gender education rooted in the Catholic faith.
A board of directors was formed, said founding member George
Asher, who originally suggested the creation of a new school to
2. replace MRM.
"It was kind of a bold thing," he said, since the last Catholic high
school to be founded in Boston was Ursuline Academy&emdash;now
located in Dedham&emdash;in 1946. The board decided to the new
girls' school in the spirit of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax founded
by Elizabeth Seton.
Elise Rae of Dorchester, now a junior at Manhattan College in
Riverdale, N.Y., was a sophomore at MRM when it closed. She
worked closely with the alumni board to get ESA off of the ground,
rallying the community and her peers around the new school.
"Thank god ESA opened up," Rae said, who found other schools in
the area "too big and too impersonal…It was important to find a
small, close-knit school where you felt like you could be you and
that's good enough," said Rae, who will be one of the five honorees
at the anniversary celebration.
Research has shown the benefits of all-girls education, said Dr.
Maureen White, principal of ESA. It produces a student that is much
more secure, "someone that is able to raise their hand and take risks
because they don't have the other sex there," White said. The goal for
her students is that they will "find their voice so they are able to
advocate for themselves, form opinions, speak up, and do that with
confidence."
"People really only notice girls when they're pregnant or on welfare,"
said Bridget Rice, trustee and chair of ESA's advancement activity.
But "some of ESA's girls are really breaking a lot of barriers and
overcoming obstacles."
One hundred percent of ESA graduates have gone on to college, said
Asher, and most of them were the first in their families to do so.
Many come from single-parent homes and streets that are
3. accustomed to violence.
"Some girls, when they go home, they don't go out at night because
of the neighborhoods they come from," White said, adding that one
student was recently said her morning prayer for her neighborhood to
be safe again after a double homicide.
ESA's student body is made up of 100 girls from the greater Boston
area - 44 are from Dorchester, eight from Mattapan. Other students
come from Hyde Park, Roslindale, South Boston, Roxbury,
Cambridge and Brockton, among others.
White said the biggest struggle for the school so far has been finances
since they offer subsidized tuition and 55 percent of students receive
additional financial aid. Tuition at ESA is around $5,000, about half
of what is charged at other Catholic high schools in the area,
according to Asher. As an independent school, they receive no
funding from the Archdiocese of Boston and rely on grants,
donations, and assistance from the Catholic Schools Foundation and
the Yawkey Foundation.
"Affordability is a resonating theme for us," Rice said, recognizing
education as "the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and opening
doors to everyone." Sixty percent of ESA students qualify for the free
lunch program, Rice said, which is based on low family income.
ESA's endowment will be launched at the anniversary celebration
taking place at the UMass Boston Campus Center. White said they
hope to bring in money to expand after school programs and
extracurricular activities. "To be able to have a state of the art
professional high school we need to raise a lot of money," she said,
though she's not worried. "Everyone is so passionate about this
school. When I bring in an adult interested in all girl education, the
students sell the story. They are so wonderful, so enthusiastic, so
