The San Juan Diego Middle School will host an Open House Saturday, Feb. 2, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. All are welcome to come and tour the school and become familiar with the programs it offers. San Juan Diego is at 1101 Douglas Ave. Enter through the parking lot on the corner of Douglas Avenue and Hamilton Street.

"I am an optimist," Archbishop Timothy Dolan told students at Racine's San Juan Diego Middle School earlier this week. "I think that San Juan Diego will grow and grow and get better and better."

Dolan's remarks, made during a visit to the Catholic school Monday afternoon, seemed appropriate for the fifth-grade social studies class he was addressing. The students were studying the difference between optimism and pessimism, and the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee talked to them about what they were learning and encouraged them to keep up the good work.

"We are counting on you," he told the students. "We need you."

Dolan's comments also seemed to fit within the context of Catholic Schools Week, an annual celebration of Catholic education which began on Jan. 27 and runs through today. As Catholic schools around the nation observed the week with a theme of "Catholic Schools Light the Way," they also faced the reality that many Catholic schools are dealing with declining enrollment and increased operating costs - some to the point of having to close their doors in recent years.

During the 2006-07 school year, 212 Catholic schools throughout the United States either closed or consolidated (36 new schools opened) and 223 did so the year before that, according to figures from the National Catholic Educational Association. Just last month, the Wisconsin Rapids Area Catholic Schools system announced that it will be closing two of its schools at the end of this academic year. In Racine, St. John Nepomuk and Sacred Heart schools merged last fall as part of a plan to keep both schools functioning, while St. Richard School closed at the end of last school year, due to declining enrollment.

New models

As parish schools face the challenges of changing demographics and towering expenses, they need to pay attention to new models for education, including the one that San Juan Diego Middle School is based on, Dolan said during his visit. As an independent Catholic school, one that is not supported by a parish, San Juan Diego is exceptional within the Diocese, the archbishop said. And its mission of providing a Catholic education for students from Racine's impoverished neighborhoods - enabling them to develop personally, socially, spiritually and academically - addresses issues that are important in Catholic education today, he said.

"Schools can no longer presume that they will get kids from the parish neighborhood," Dolan said. "More and more parents are finding it difficult to be able to afford the tuition costs."

Because San Juan Diego's primary goal is to serve children in poverty, the school does not charge tuition in the traditional sense. Instead, parents contribute $350 or $400 a year to help offset the overall cost of educating each student, which totals about $11,000, explained Laura Sumner Coon, the school's executive director.

Funding for the school, which acts as a non-profit organization, comes from grants (62 percent); individuals (33 percent), civic organizations (3 percent) and businesses (2 percent).

"When we started this school, it was really a walk of faith," said Sumner Coon. "We knew kids in poverty were not getting the opportunities they deserved. So we created a model that could change that. We didn't know, however, what the community would support."

A better place

That model - which focuses on small classes, individual attention and hands-on and thematic learning - has served the school well in its four-year history. In addition to its classroom learning, San Juan Diego nurtures its students by offering an after school curriculum that features a wide range of experiences; an evening study/mentor program where students can get help with homework; and a graduate support program, which gives guidance to SJDMS graduates throughout their further education.

The results are that San Juan Diego has a 95 percent attendance rate, with 56 percent of its students making the honor roll, according to Sumner Coon. Many of its graduates, who are enrolled in both public and private high schools in Racine, come back to the middle school once a week to work with their mentors.

Fabiola Diaz, the mother of two San Juan Diego students, said she has seen a tremendous difference in her children since they began attending there.

"My eighth-grader is reading at the college level, and my fifth grader's personality has just flourished," she said.

"We want to help our students discover the wonderful gifts they have, and help them learn how they can use those gifts to contribute to the world and make it a better place," Sumner Coon said. "If we can inspire kids to do that, that is what we need to do."

Creative thinking

Finding the funds to carry out its mission continues to be a challenge for San Juan Diego Middle School, which was founded by Michael Frontier with an affiliation with the De La Salle Christian Brothers. The school recently launched a Sustainability Campaign, the goal of which is to raise $400,000 to eliminate its startup debt and put it on solid financial ground.

Thanks to the generosity of the Racine Dominicans, they are already almost halfway to their goal. But with an operating budget of $750,000 for the current school year, many more dollars are still needed to serve the students. Without traditional parish support, the school has to look to other sources.

"We have to be very creative," Sumner Coon told Dolan during his visit.

Such creativity is something the archbishop said is necessary in developing new models for the future of Catholic education. Along with merging, consolidating and regionalizing educational resources, Catholic schools need to "think outside the box," as they are doing at San Juan Diego, he said.

"We need independent, creative, energetic generous people, who are still aligned with the church's mission," Dolan said. "When you get people like that together, it can be done."