Three Schools in Two Cities to Join the Partnership

Our Partnership community is growing!

This week, Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas announced that two schools in the heart of the city—Rosary Cathedral and Queen of Apostles—will become Partnership Schools. Bishop Edward Malesic of Cleveland also announced that Holy Name Elementary will become that city’s fifth Partnership school.

We are thrilled for the opportunity to bring the ambition we have for children and Catholic education to these three striving communities at a crucial time. School choice policies are expanding—a crucial step toward educational equity for working-class families. At the same time, the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing American students is widening. Partnership Schools’ work places us right at this intersection of increasing opportunity and growing need.

The need for high-quality school options is particularly urgent in Toledo and Cleveland, where both cities have announced that many public schools will be closing at the end of this school year.

The Yass Prize Alumni Award is providing funding to kick-start the work of serving more students. The award inaugurates the Partnership’s National Expansion Fund, an effort to leverage local support and national philanthropy together on behalf of children in low-income communities and the Catholic elementary schools uniquely well-positioned to help them flourish—schools like Holy Name, Rosary Cathedral, and Queen of Apostles.

These three parochial schools have anchored their neighborhoods and propelled social mobility for generations. Holy Name has served Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood since 1864. For most of that time, it was run by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Queen of Apostles—the oldest continuously operating school in Toledo has served the city’s Old South End since 1876, and Rosary Cathedral—has served the Old West End since 1914. A vigorous local effort, the Center City Ministry of Toledo, has kept the schools open while so many others closed. The Center City Ministry will become Partnership Schools of Toledo in the months ahead.

These are schools where generations of families have seen their values reinforced and their dreams for their children set on a path toward fulfillment. We are both humbled and exhilarated to help new families find trajectory-altering education and strong communities in all seven schools we will now serve.

Partnership Schools Named Yass Prize Alumni Award Winner

The Yass Prize has announced that Partnership Schools is the recipient of one its first Alumni Awards. The transformative award will enable the network to expand to include additional schools.

The Partnership Schools network exists to help children in low-income communities beat the odds and flourish, and this award is a powerful step forward in our effort to serve more students.

Sixteen organizations are among the Alumni Award winners, and the Yass Prize is investing over $20 million in the group. Partnership Schools is the only school turnaround organization to receive the award. 

The Yass Prize, which has been granting awards for educational innovation over the last five years, is funded by Philadelphians Janine and Jeff Yass. As the Yass Prize organization states, the award is more than an annual prize; it is “a movement to find, reward, and expand outstanding organizations across every sector and state, fostering partnerships that accelerate impact with the speed and urgency students deserve.” To date, the Yass Prize has distributed over $60 million to educational organizations—public, private, and charter schools, as well as support organizations and ed tech innovators.

Partnership Schools were recognized by the prize in 2021 before receiving this alumni award. Other Catholic Yass Prize honorees include the Cristo Rey Network and Chesterton Schools. Additional Northeast Ohio schools recognized by the Yass organization include Dreams Academy in Akron. 

The award funds provide significant momentum for the Partnership’s effort to impact more students by assuming management of additional schools in coming years, with a focus on Ohio. Kristen Gengaro, our executive director, explains, “Ohio has led the nation in offering school choice funding. Partnership Schools’ work puts us right where the expansion of school choice meets an unmet demand for high-quality educational options in working-class communities.” 

The four schools currently in the Partnership network include St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis in St. Clair-Superior, Archbishop Lyke in Lee-Harvard-Miles, and Metro Catholic on the near west side. 

Our Cleveland schools are a proof-point of what is possible when urban Catholic schools get the support they need to serve their communities. For example, in January of 2020, St. Thomas Aquinas announced its closure due to low enrollment before getting a second chance with the Partnership model. Enrollment has risen by over 30 percent in the last five years, and as Principal Rachael Dengler says, “We are still uniquely St. Thomas, a 125-year-old St. Clair-Superior community anchor. But we are becoming an even stronger, even more impactful version of ourselves as a Partnership school.” This year, when Cleveland public schools has announced a wave of closures similar to those Catholic schools know all too well, St. Thomas is open and ready to serve more students as an anchor in the neighborhood, thanks to past support from visionary donors.

“There is so much talent, resilience, and drive in the families and neighborhoods we serve, and we’re eager to help more children and communities flourish,” says Kristen.

The Partnership model, which began in New York in 2013, has evolved in Ohio’s unique school choice ecosystem. The network even received support from the Yass Prize last fall to share lessons learned in Ohio with Catholic schools in Texas, where public funding for parental choice is launching this fall, over twenty years after it began in Cleveland.

We are profoundly grateful to Jeff and Janine Yass and the Center for Education Reform for believing in our students, the communities we serve, and the vision we share of joyful, excellent, faith-filled schools that are an option for any family who seeks them, regardless of income.