NativityMiguel Network of Schools Organization History

Website link: www.nativitymiguelschools.org

Schools within the Network are patterned after the Nativity Mission Center which opened its doors in 1971 to middle school aged Latino boys growing up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The school was started to provide these boys – many of whom were new to the country – with an educational program that would help them excel academically, socially and spiritually.

Because many of the boys were testing two and three grades below their grade level, the teachers at Nativity Mission developed a new approach. The school day was lengthened, almost doubling the amount of time the boys would be in school were they in the local public school. A commitment to maintain a low student to teacher ratio ensured time for one-on-one instruction. The summer camp which the center had been conducting was incorporated into the school curriculum, and, most importantly, Nativity made a commitment to follow their young alumni through high school and even on to college. The effectiveness of the NativityMiguel model has inspired educators across the country dedicated to reaching our underserved youth to open schools. By the late 1980s, schools patterned after the Nativity Mission Center began opening.

In 1993, the Christian Brothers opened the first Miguel School in Providence, Rhode Island. These Miguel schools shared many of the same attributes and approaches of the Nativity school. The NativityMiguel Network was born of a merger between the two networks.

The NativityMiguel Network of Schools was established in July, 2006, to guide and strengthen the development of a growing network of schools that are designed to provide families struggling in impoverished neighborhoods with a high-quality school choice for their children. Currently, the Network is comprised of 65 schools serving more than 4,500 students in 27 states.

Approximately 89% of the students attending NativityMiguel Schools qualify for the Federal Government’s Free and Reduced Cost Lunch program. An indication that a family is living at or near poverty. 51% of the students are African American, 39% are Latino and 10% are other.

Noting that many inner-city schools have dropout rates of 50% or more, the NativityMiguel model schools succeed where so many others fail. "Ninety-two percent (92%) of our students graduate from high school, as compared to the national rate for African-American and Latino students of 55%. The four-year dropout rate for the network's high school graduation class this year was 6 percent, and 96 percent enrolled in a two- or four-year college this fall."

Our schools provide a safe place to learn, and keep the students away from the dangerous influences on their neighborhood streets.

San Miguel (1854-1910)

Francisco Febres Cordero was born into a family that has always been prominent in Ecuadorian politics. Crippled from birth, he had to overcome family opposition to realize his vocation to be a lay religious. Brother Miguel was the first native of Ecuador to be received into the Institute. Miguel was a gifted teacher and a diligent student. When he was not quite twenty years old, he published the first of his many books, a Spanish grammar primer that soon became a standard text. In time, his research and publications in the field of literature and linguistics put him in touch with scholars all over the world and he was granted membership in the National Academies of Ecuador, Spain, and France. Despite high academic honors, teaching remained his first priority, especially his classes in religion, preparing young men for First Communion. His students admired his simplicity, his directness, his concern for them, and the intensity of his devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary. In 1907 he passed through New York on his way to Belgium where he had been called to translate texts into Spanish for the use of the Brothers recently exiled from France. His health, always delicate, Miguel did not easily adjust to the rigors of the European climate. Transferred to the junior novitiate at Premia del Mar in Spain, during a revolutionary outbreak in 1909 he supervised a dramatic evacuation of his young charges to the safety of Barcelona across the bay. Shortly after they were able to return, he contracted pneumonia and he died at Premia, leaving behind a remarkable reputation as scholar, teacher, and saint.

Born at Cuenca, Ecuador – 7 November 1854
Died – 9 February 1910
Beatified – 30 October 1977
Canonized – 21 October 1984