City’s private schools infuse academics with Christianity

By Bill Sontag Feature Writer Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.-- William Shakespeare, “Henry VI”The historic neighborhoods of south Del Rio frame the campuses of the city’s two oldest private schools, sited barely five blocks apart on tree-shaded streets.  There are at least five private schools in the city, but these are the still-thriving pioneers.They are separated by South Main Street’s commercial corridor, and 444 years of diverging church dogma, teaching and tradition.  But both Sacred Heart Catholic School and St. James Episcopal Day School have historic roots here, yielding distinguished records of civic and business leaders.Sacred Heart Catholic School  Known to generations as Sacred Heart Academy, the school was established 106 years ago in a small wooden building near the Madre Canal of the city’s historic irrigation system.The current two-story building, 209 E. Greenwood St., arose in 1929, and now accommodates a student population of 243 students, pre-kindergarten (three-year-olds) through eighth-graders.  Principal Aurora Guerra continues a family tradition of academic leadership, preceded there by her husband, Billy Guerra, teacher and principal, now Del Rio’s assistant city manager.Guerra cherishes the recollection of her four years as principal, but misses the classroom, though she still teaches reading and develops curricula as time permits or necessity dictates.  “I love it.  At times it feels like the biggest challenge of my life, but I still love it,” Guerra said.Despite the kaleidoscopic trials of day-to-day management and supervision, Guerra reserves her most profound concern for those who strive to directly nourish her young charges.  “Actually, it’s harder for parents and teachers to teach kids these days, with all the influences that surround us all now,” Guerra said.“It really does take a whole little village to bring up a child now, but it’s wonderful to be able to teach them moral values.  We spiral that around them, and it’s more like doing God’s work,” she added. “It’s having eighth graders – right here – and being able to grab them by the soul and the heart, and say to them, ‘Look, you just can’t do that!”Gone are the days of austere nuns ruling Catholic schools with stern demeanor and slaps of a ruler, the atmosphere that still causes many parochial school veterans to think of graduation as an escape from tyranny.  Speaking glowingly of the faculty, Guerra said, “We have two nuns and the rest are all laity, and they’re all wonderful.”Class sizes are no more than 25 students at Sacred Heart, and teachers are often assisted by teacher aides.  Guerra’s proud of the school’s attendance rate, but said the record is flavored with pragmatism.  “We really don’t have that many absences, because the parents are paying for it,” Guerra chuckled.But, as with most private schools in Del Rio, parents play vital, active roles with their children as Sacred Heart enrollees.  The school’s motto, “Where the best get better,” Guerra said, shines on parents, students and teachers.  “They’re all doing the best they can, but we can all do better,” she explained.Parents can “do better” at Sacred Heart and receive tuition reimbursement in the process.  “Every family is required to perform 20 hours of volunteer service at the school, and it can include simple things like working on bulletin boards, painting, special projects, helping out with our festival, or working with the Parent Teacher Club,” Guerra said.Helping with logistics of transportation and food on field trips is also ripe material for parental assistance, Guerra said, as is securing donated items to embellish the school.  After the 20-hour obligation is expunged, additional accumulated hours of volunteerism can secure prorated tuition reimbursement.Eighth-graders are inculcated with this volunteer ethos, too, required to also donate 20 hours of time to the community, including nursing homes, San Felipe Creek cleanups, working at shelters in Ciudad Acuña, or helping to maintain their own school campus.On the academic side, Sacred Heart fielded 14 junior high students in the Citywide Science Fair, sent 11 to the regional fair in San Angelo, and was honored by six who qualified for the statewide science fair in San Antonio.The school is also active in state University Interscholastic League competitions, including half a dozen who qualified for the State UIL meet held in San Antonio last year.  Sixth-grader Austin Alderete placed 16th for science among 160 competitors.In the classroom, each Sacred Heart student's progress is gauged with the Stanford Achievement Test, which, according to Guerra, also helps target areas of curricula that need strengthening.  The school is accredited by the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department and Accreditation Commission.Saint James Episcopal School Saint James Episcopal School  Sarah Maxwell was named principal of the white stucco buildings campus in May, only a few months following the 50th anniversary of the school’s founding in 1955.Maxwell was elevated from her position of vice principal at the school, 206 W. Greenwood, where shady, lush Greenwood Park is virtually the school’s “front yard.”  Her interest in science curricula put Del Rio on the nation’s map.  The weather map, that is.Seeing the potential for meteorology, an applied science, to instruct and integrate several subjects, Maxwell created a weather station linked to the Internet to broadcast facts, measured conditions and data about Del Rio’s weather to anyone who cared.San Antonio’s NBC affiliate television station WOAI and meteorologist Bill Dante cared, and the school’s data collections became frequent reports.  Now KENS 5, the CBS affiliate with VIPIR 5 “WeatherBug,” also uses St. James reports.  In the bargain, students monitor the computer-recorded and –transmitted data, all of which provide material for St. James teachers of science, math and environmental studies.The school’s slogan, “Where children learn to love, and love to learn,” is Maxwell’s touchstone for the tranquility and intense learning fostered in each classroom, facilitated in part with a student teacher ratio of 10 to one – 170 students, 17 teachers.The student body is diverse, too, Maxwell said.  About ten percent of the students are offspring of Laughlin parents, and another ten percent are from Ciudad Acuña.  “They’re all just great parents who really want a good education for their kids,” said Maxwell.  Both of those segments of the St. James student population are growing, though Maxwell believes more and more Laughlin children are being homeschooled.“I think we have a really good curriculum now, but we’re bringing in some consultants to help us improve it,” Maxwell told LIVE!  A mathematics consultant will aid the school by examining Saint James’ grading system in what Maxwell calls the “spiral” of math skills developed from grade-to-grade.But she sees the assistance as fine-tuning.  “Our math concepts grades are so high now because the kids really understand numbers, and our science program is very strong, too.  It’s all kit-based and very hands-on,” explained Maxwell. Social studies at St. James culminate – in all grades, first through eighth – in role-playing extravaganzas that bring history to life, within reason, of course.  “We have textbooks as references,” Maxwell said, almost apologetically, “but we use simulations as a big activity to help the kids really grasp the events they’ve studied.”The Civil War is explored in a month-long scenario of research, writing, costuming, and role-playing, including “building” a battlefield hospital, replete with ketchup for bloody realism.Other simulations include a typical one-room schoolhouse on the American frontier, recapturing an event in the American Revolution, following part of the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and creating an imaginary civilization on the surface of Mars.Language also receives emphasis at St. James.  Maxwell explained that Spanish is a must, and graduates of the eighth grade complete the credit which enables them to bypass Spanish I when they transfer to Del Rio High School.Recently, the school became the recipient of statewide grants in the Texas Science Collaborative program in which, as Maxwell explains, “They’ve concluded that hands-on science is the best way to teach kids.”  Kits of materials have been provided to teachers at K-through-sixth grade levels, and one science teacher at each school has been selected to coordinate the new thrust.The collaborative revolves around 126 hours of training to the science coordinator at St. James, who is also connected with all other coordinators in the broad Region 15 of the Texas Education Agency.  E-mail, message boards and a working network allow collaborative members to exchange ideas and report results measured in student performance.Monitoring of student progress and achievement at St. James is gauged with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), which Maxwell called “a better assessment” because it examines how far a student has progressed, not a measure of satisfaction at a pre-set level.“We don’t want to test for the minimum skills that TAKS [Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills] does,” Maxwell said.Numerous online school reporting Web sites address statistics and services regarding both of these fine schools, but LIVE! found most of them to be out-of-date, not reliable enough to recommend.For more information about St. James , call 830-775-9911, and for questions directed to Sacred Heart Catholic School, call 830-775-3274.