by admin | Jan 31, 2022 | Academic
The past two years have brought many challenges and CRSM educators have worked tirelessly to keep students healthy and learning in the classroom and at their corporate work-study jobs.
Recognizing the critical role that CRSM plays in student’s lives — academically, socially, and emotionally —became more and more evident as CRSM focused on reasonable steps to stay open safely beginning in June of 2020.
For Principal Mike Odiotti, part of his role over the last two years has been monitoring IDPH and CDC data as leadership planned the approach to school operations. With data indicating that the latest COVID-19 surge is ebbing away as quickly as it ramped up, Odiotti says, “I am hopeful this continues and that in upcoming months we will be able to do away with some of the mitigation strategies we have had to employ since reopening our classroom doors in June of 2020.”
When COVID-19 closed schools across the country, CRSM teachers and staff adapted, inspired by students who reminded them that we are a community of “grit” determined to succeed.
It’s been no small feat, the business of keeping 400 student-workers in school and on the job because many corporations are still working remotely and cannot have students come in for internships. But, through pivoting, innovating and firm resolve; 100% of students have been placed in jobs for the 2021-22 school year.
During the first year of the pandemic, CRSM modified its school schedule to allow students two full days per week of in-person instruction. In September last year, the entire student body returned to full-time classes. The all-school assembly, held at the beginning of this academic year, marked the first time in two years that students, teachers and staff were able to gather as a community. Although everyone was wearing masks, “everyone’s eyes were smiling,” said President Preston Kendall. “The air crackled with excitement – it just felt right, like a giant step toward normalcy.”
Despite the pandemic, CRSM students had many achievements:
- 99% of students earned a GPA of 2.0 or greater in the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year.
- 81% of students are at or above 3.0 or higher and are on the honor roll for the same period.
- We are again on-track for 100% of our seniors to be accepted into either a four-year college or university or to Arrupe College (a two-year program from Loyola University Chicago preparing students to eventually earn a four-year degree).
- 95% of our work-study partners expressed satisfaction with student performance, despite the challenges of remote work for many.
- Students and staff donated almost 1,000 community service volunteer hours during this fall semester: each monthly drive-up food distribution with Northern IL Food Bank serves over 500 families, in addition we pack thousands of meals weekly with the food bank and Feed My Starving Children and more.
by admin | Jul 26, 2021 | President’s Pen
In celebration of Cristo Rey’s 25th anniversary, “We Are CR” profiles will feature interviews with some of the many people who helped shape Cristo Rey Jesuit High School since its doors opened in 1996.
Preston Kendall was part of the founding leadership team for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in 1996. As Executive Vice President, he took on the role of CFO while directing Cristo Rey’s Corporate Work Study Program (CWSP). In 2004 he became the first full-time employee of the Cristo Rey Network. After helping open the first 19 network schools across the U.S., Kendall left the network to be part of the founding team of its 20th school, Christ the King Jesuit College Prep in Chicago. He ran the Corporate Work Study Program for both Christ the King and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School from 2007 to 2011.
Preston is now the President of Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep in Waukegan, IL, where he has served since 2011.
Why does Cristo Rey matter to you? / What does Cristo Rey mean to you?
Cristo Rey is important because it stands as a community committed to equitable access to a quality education. A bachelor’s degree is still the single most effective way for a young person to find upward economic mobility. Being denied access to a quality education simply because of family finances or a failing local school system is a social justice issue. Cristo Rey calls us to level the educational playing field so that our students can show the world just how talented they really are and make the world a better place.
In your opinion, what is the most important work that Cristo Rey has done?
Cristo Rey’s commitment to academic excellence while providing a unique professional work experience through the Corporate Work Study Program for every student provides a profound package of encounters that supports students on their journey to adulthood and become agents for positive change in their community and the world. They discover more about who they are, what they believe, and how they are living out those beliefs in the actions. Every young person should have that opportunity.
How do you see Cristo Rey in the future?
Cristo Rey is only going to become more prominent. Ripples created by a growing alumni base entering the workforce in positions of authority and influence will continue to spread nationally as they “pay forward” the opportunities they found through Cristo Rey.
What advice to you have for the students of Cristo Rey?
Cristo Rey is a gift. Cristo Rey opens doors but you have to walk through them. It is totally up to you. Not everyone has the same opportunities; make the most of them and find ways to create similar opportunities for others.
What is your best memory of Cristo Rey? / Do you have a message or story to share?
One valuable lesson I learned at Cristo Rey involved a student who struggled at her jobs. She ended up being fired twice and, from my perspective, was not making much progress. Concerned that she really didn’t want to be a Cristo Rey, I thought we should ask her to leave. The CWSP staff came to me and said they really thought she was turning a corner and we should give her another chance. I reluctantly agreed still thinking she would never make it. But she did and finished strong her junior and senior years. The last time I saw her, she had graduated nursing school and was giving me a flu shot at a Cristo Rey health fair. Never underestimate the ability of young people to grow and flourish with the right people and supports around them!
by admin | Jun 30, 2021 | President’s Pen
June at CRSM marks significant endings and beginnings. No sooner did we say goodbye to the class of 2021 at an in-person graduation – the first in our new gym – than we greeted our incoming 9th graders to their first week of training and assessments for the Corporate Work Study Program. In some ways, it felt like we were climbing Mount 2020-2021 all school year, finally summiting it at graduation, only to look out from the great heights we achieved to see Mount 2021-2022 looming even higher before us.
The year ahead is shaping up to be something much more like a pre-COVID experience, at least academically. We are planning to hold all classes in-person starting in August and, as of today, 83% of all returning students have received at least their first vaccine dose. That is a significant number given that only about 59% of people in IL have received at least their first dose. Families are already on notice that we expect 100% of students to be vaccinated by the start of school. That also means that 100% of student-workers going to work will be full-vaccinated.
Unfortunately, even as we plan for a much more normal looking school year, the Corporate Work Study Program (CWSP) is not experiencing the same rapid recovery. Only about 30% of our business partners have signed their job contracts for students to come to work in the coming year. That is the precise number of committed jobs we had at this time last year before vaccines!
So, we are preparing to start the school year with many students out of work. As we develop those plans, we are also hoping they will be an unnecessary contingency – we are hoping that our business partners will have their employees – and our students – returning to work by the end of summer. We are already hearing some of our larger partners discussing timelines and protocols for in-person work that will allow our student workers to re-engage with professionals in their workplaces but, many are not in a position to commit to hard dates. We are praying hard that the majority of our students will have a CWSP experience this fall that, like their academic experience, will look a whole lot more like it is meant to be – an experience of building relationships and contributing in adult business situations while also earning nearly 60% of the cost of their college-prep education.
Students have really missed the work study experience since lock-down and many are yearning to return to being with their coworkers and supervisors. This unique and transformative experience is so elemental to our educational model, we have acutely felt its absence – feeling we were not fully ourselves as a school for the last 15 months. While 25% of students worked remotely during COVID this past year and another 15% worked in-person, the absence of 60% of our jobs took a toll on the school beyond simply having students out-of-work. We have had to adjust our finances to make up for the loss of work study revenue and focus on growing the number of charitable donations. So many people have stepped up, knowing we have been fighting the economic fallout of lockdown with our formidable CWSP arm tied behind our back. Thank God for our donors and friends who recognized our predicament and helped us through.
The important message is that we are not out of the woods yet. The return-to-work is taking longer than we dreamed and will likely continue through the end of this calendar year and beyond. If anything, the biggest lesson of this virus has been that I consistently underestimated the time we would be battling it. When we shut down in March 2019, I sincerely thought it would only be for a few weeks, then as reality started to set in, I thought we would be back in-person for the 2020-2021 school year. It really was not until August of 2020 that I fully realized we could lose another entire school year.
Here we are in August 2021 and we are still slowly, slowly just starting to come back. I am reminded of a prayer from the Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin:
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so, I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”
We can’t force a come-back, we must let things unfold at their own pace. Many people are still grappling with the pandemic, the vaccine, and – let’s face it – the psychological as well as physical toll this has taken on so many. As CRSM enters the 2021-2022 school year, we believe God’s hand is leading us and we seek solace during this time of suspense and incompleteness in the idea that God is laboring with us during these times and that the future holds great goodness and grace for all of us. We just have to be patient and believe.
by admin | Apr 22, 2021 | President’s Pen
On May 1 we will hold our annual Founders’ Dinner. The event will be virtual and last just over 20 minutes – but those minutes are jampacked – we have alumni, students, and others sharing uplifting stories. Fr. John P. Foley, SJ will also be joining us since 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the Cristo Rey movement; the silver anniversary of the opening of our sister school, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago – the first of now 37 Cristo Rey schools nationwide and growing.
Appropriately, the theme of the Founders’ Event is “Silver Linings” and it is all about finding bright spots of light and hope during this dark and cloudy pandemic. Not surprisingly, the bright spots for CRSM are our people. Tough times bring out the best in some people. Our Principal Mike Odiotti has been quoting the famous coach, John Wooden who said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” Attitude is such an important factor in our ability to endure, survive and prosper in the face of challenges or disappointments.
I am so proud of how our school – students, faculty, staff, donors, and Corporate Work Study job partners –has collectively responded to the COVID crisis. They really have embodied the term “Persons for Others,” people who turn outward to be present and assist those around them, rather than turning inward in despair.
In order to have silver linings, there must be clouds. Darkness makes any light seem even brighter. Goodness shown in bad times is valued even more, precisely because of its rarity. Our Campus Minister Jim Dippold has been and continues to be an absolute hero over this last year. He has shown himself to be one of the silver-est linings amid all the virus fallout, organizing food distribution drives with the Northern Illinois Food Bank and rallying our student volunteers. The distribution events continue every other week in our parking lot – feeding 1,000 families at a time. It is both heartbreaking because so many people are in desperate need and heartening because we can do something to help. Jim sets a wonderful example by staying focused on what we can do rather than what we cannot.
Another area where CRSM is shining is in being able to host vaccine clinics for the greater community. We are so grateful to all our donors who made our current campus possible. Without the large parking lot and the beautifully finished inside space of the old Kmart, our efforts to assist would have been greatly curtailed. Over the last couple months we hosted events that allowed 2,500 first-responders, healthcare workers, essential workers, and persons over 65 years to get both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Starting just last week and running every weekend until August, we partnered with the Lovell Veterans Hospital and Naval Station Great Lakes to provide enough Moderna vaccines for almost 14,000 veterans and their caregivers, active duty personnel and their families, and base workers to get immunized.
A number of articles have come out recently discussing the mental health traumas that people are experiencing during the lockdown, especially teenagers. Many CRSM students are expressing feelings of increased depression, heightened anxiety, concern for their families’ health and welfare, and loneliness. They are not alone. Our faculty and staff are experiencing much the same.
Being able to make the best of COVID by serving others in need and supplying vaccines to combat the virus are a couple ways we can try to fight off the negative toll of this pandemic. They are by no means a cure but they help strengthen our mental resilience.
The Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda wrote, “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” One of the gospel readings following Easter Sunday recalls how two disciples are walking to the town of Emmaus, completely demoralized after Jesus’ crucifixion and death and disillusioned that this human manifestation of Christ died after promising eternal life. They meet a man on the road who feigns no knowledge of Jesus. As the disciples describe Jesus’ life and teachings to the stranger, the fire Jesus sparked in their hearts when he was alive is rekindled. That evening they invite the stranger to supper and, in the breaking of the bread, they recognize that this stranger is Jesus risen from the dead. As soon as they recognize him, he disappears from their eyes. We are those two disciples. COVID has brought suffering and demoralizes us but in small gestures like food distribution, vaccines events, caring for one another, we have the opportunity to recognize God at work through us, in us, and with us. In those brief moments, we are invited to rise above the suffering and remember that we belong to one another.
Yes, many flowers have been cut and, yes, many clouds still hover over us; but spring is coming, COVID can’t stop it; there are silver linings to be found; and God is with us even at this very moment – inviting us to reveal him to others in small gestures of love. God bless you and yours during this wonderful season of hope and thank you for supporting CRSM. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
by admin | Apr 1, 2021 | President’s Pen
This week we modified our school schedule to allow students two full days per week of in-person instruction for the remainder of the school year. Freshmen and Sophomores responded very favorably to the expansion with about 60% and 62% respectively opting to come in; the response from Juniors (34%) and Seniors (16%) was a bit more disappointing. Someone asked, “Can’t you simply demand everybody come back for in-person classes and not give a full-remote option?” The question reminded me of a scene from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novella, The Little Prince wherein the title character of the famously illustrated book visits various asteroids and planets, including Earth, and whose interactions and observations become a philosophical commentary on human nature and the meaning of life. In Chapter 10, the prince encounters a king:
For what the king fundamentally insisted upon was that his authority should be respected. He tolerated no disobedience. He was an absolute monarch. But, because he was a very good man, he made his orders reasonable…
When speaking about his authority over his subjects he counsels:
“One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform,” the king went on. “Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.”
The little prince then asks the king a special favor – will he order the sun to set?
“You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But, according to my science of government, I shall wait until conditions are favorable.”
“When will that be?” inquired the little prince.
“Hum! Hum!” replied the king; and before saying anything else he consulted a bulky almanac. “Hum! Hum! That will be about–about–that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight. And you will see how well I am obeyed!”
Demanding that all students come back to school in-person at the time of our own choosing would not be a “reasonable” command.
Our Principal, Mike Odiotti is legendary for using data to drive his decision-making. His first step to create possible class schedules for the remainder of the year was to survey our student body. The results are eye-opening: 47% of Seniors, 42% of Juniors, 24% of Sophomores, and 25% of Freshmen are needed at home to attend to younger siblings while parents are working or they are working themselves to help their families. How can CRSM command students to return to school when so many play vital roles helping their families make ends meet?
Realistically, we cannot expect more high school students to return to classes until they are relieved of babysitting duties. High schools need grade schools to reopen first. Over 75% of CRSM students attended public grade schools. It stands to reason that their younger siblings attend those schools. CRSM needs public grade schools to reopen before we can expect or demand that all our students to return to us.
Talking with business partners in the Corporate Work Study Program, the timing of their various return-to-work strategies depends on schools reopening. A huge proportion of employees are parents of school-age children. Is it “reasonable” to bring employees back to the workplace before children are back in school? The press, our elected officials, and even our educators are ignoring a simple formula: grade schools need to open full-time before high schools can open full-time before businesses can reopen full-time. Let’s identify the bottleneck and take steps to open the flow. The dominoes must fall in sequential order.
At CRSM, we consulted our almanac and we will not be requiring students to return to in-person classes until… Hum! Hum! Their families can afford it and it MAKES SENSE.
Perhaps, high school students and families from more well-resourced communities can find ways to accommodate full-time, in-person instruction while grade schools and businesses are still remote, but not so for communities like Waukegan and North Chicago that struggle. This pandemic is like being in the middle of the ocean during a huge storm: some of us are in enclosed, seaworthy vessels and managing fairly well; others of us are adrift in rickety dinghies, exposed to the elements and in real danger – facing life-and-death situations. Unfortunately, a family’s economic status is overwhelmingly the primary factor determining which boat it occupies. Many CRSM families are multi-generational, with higher instances of co-morbidities, and with parents or other family members designated as essential workers. They are fighting like mad to stay afloat and they need every family member on deck, including their CRSM students.
If we are truly here to accompany our students on their journey, to help them develop their God-given talents, and to create access and opportunities for them to shape their own futures, then we must listen to them. Anything else is myopic and ineffective. It recalls another quote from The Little Prince, “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”
Our students are telling us something. The pandemic rages on. Even as we are making progress, we must be patient. The only way we can come out of this pandemic successfully is by coming out of it together – ours must be a coordinated communal effort and it must now start focusing on our children. After all, let’s not forget… they are our future!
Thank you for supporting our students and mission. The Easter season is a time for hope and you supply CRSM with just that… HOPE!
