Five Lessons from 125 Years of Cleveland’s St. Thomas Aquinas School

This year, St. Thomas Aquinas School on Cleveland’s near east side celebrates its 125th anniversary. The vintage building contains classic elements that many Catholic school grads across the country would recognize: high ceilings, the scents of wood and floor polish, hard-working teachers and parents whose firm, warm instructions bounce off the tiled walls. Yet for all the timeless feel, the school’s history is dynamic—and it has powerful lessons to teach those of us who are fans of Cleveland, of urban communities, of Catholic schools, or of all three.

1. Catholic schools’ power to strengthen communities propelled their heyday.

St. Thomas Aquinas parish became the “Irish Cathedral” of Cleveland and helped accelerate the growth of the neighborhood around it. By 1950, it served over 2,000 families, and it spawned the founding of other parishes to meet the growing need. As Notre Dame’s Prof. John McGreevy notes in his study of the Catholic parishes’ impact on the development of American cities—Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North—Catholic congregations built more than churches; they erected schools and housing for religious orders to staff them, which “anchored Catholics to particular neighborhoods” in ways that other denominations did not.

Educational and social offerings as well as religious services ensured that immigrant families and their descendants had a place where they belonged in a new country not always welcoming to newcomers, particularly Catholic ones. Catholic schools in our own day can tap into this historic power by fostering belonging along with knowledge, skills, and faith. Current St. Thomas Principal Rachael Dengler, parents, and the school’s staff are doing just that: offering an expanding number of community activities, like their dad’s group.

In a culture that can be both individualistic and lonely, Catholic schools that act on our beliefs that we are made for each other—that are lives are fullest in community—can offer what few other types of schools can.

2. Catholic institutions played an often-overlooked role in the histories of cities and of striving African-American families.  

By the late 1940s, St. Thomas parishioners included not only European-American immigrants and their descendents but African-American families who were part of the Great Migration. The school integrated years before Brown v. Board made segregation unconstitutional, and prominent Black Clevelanders—like insurance company founder M.C. Clarke—joined the parish.

Yet a student can be enrolled without being truly welcomed. As Sr. Dorothy Ann Blatnica, VSC, notes in At the Altar of Their God: African American Catholics in Cleveland, 1922-1961, “The struggle of African American Catholics to become a vital part of the American Catholic Church is as old as the story of slavery in America itself.”  Her history of the city’s Black Catholics includes the challenges of families moving into St. Thomas Aquinas to be fully accepted in the school and parish community. M.C. Clarke, for example, was denied entry into the Knights of Columbus. Yet according to former associate pastor Fr. Edward Camille, St. Thomas’s Black families soon “assumed leadership in the parish and became involved in all aspects of parish organization. These same individuals support and foster each other’s personal lives as well.”

Fr. Camille also notes that even as racially driven fights among teenagers broke out in nearby Rockefeller Park, “the parish school became one of the most effective means for the children to become acquainted with those of other races.”

The ideals of our faith can equip Catholic schools to become instruments of building the beloved community, even as we grapple with the same social pressures that all schools experience.

3. American communities are constantly shifting—and our schools must shift too.

In Surrogate Suburbs: Black Upward Mobility and Neighborhood Change in Cleveland, 1900-1980, Georgia Tech Professor Todd Michney traces Black Clevelanders’ migrations up from the south, into zones of Cleveland artificially restricted by racist housing practices, and then out in stages to suburbs. Along the way, he recounts, Black families participated in a vibrant array of civic groups—from informal block clubs to more formal neighborhood associations—and leveraged the power of community relationships to solve problems and advance each others’ interests.

Yet while many longtime St. Thomas parishioners saw new neighbors as fellow churchgoers pursuing the same goals, others saw threats. Indeed, the parish saw a concentrated wave of “blockbusting”—the insidious real estate practice of spreading rumors of growing disorder and impending home sales nearby to get home owners of both races to sell fast and cheap, and then turning around to rent properties at an inflated rate to Black newcomers with limited options due to discriminatory housing practices. In fact, blockbusting in the St. Thomas parish community was so pronounced that Prof McGreevy uses it to exemplify the practice in Parish Boundaries.

St. Thomas pastor Fr. John A Clark, appointed in 1958, fought the practice hard—visiting thousands of living rooms to persuade parishioners to stay. Bishop Floyd Begin encouraged him and others, asserting that “It’s good Catholicism, good Americanism, and just good common sense to work together as good neighbors to make your community and city the best in the world.” But families of both races moved out, and from a high of 2,000 families in 1950, St. Thomas declined so rapidly that by 1975, the church was condemned, demolished, and not rebuilt.

It is intriguing to consider what the American urban landscape would look like today if efforts like Fr. Clark’s and and a core of St. Thomas families had succeeded in maintaining robust, economically and racially diverse parishes in the heart of cities across the country. As we celebrate the powerful community-building of parishes like St. Thomas in their early decades, we must also look to the vacant lot next to the school—where the church once stood—and hear a call coming from its past to build communities a little differently moving forward.

4. Resilience—and redemption—comes from broadening our communities.

Yet St. Thomas Aquinas School has outlasted even the parish that created it. That has happened in large part because St. Thomas persisted in doing what few other neighborhood institutions can: offering a sense of community, anchored in values and shared aspirations, just as it did in a bygone era. Jeff Allen, a dad active in the school’s dads’ group, comments that the school is “becoming a community center”—just as it was founded to be 125 years ago.

That community is welcoming of children of other denominations, and it is not alone. In 1970, just three percent of students in American Catholic schools were not Catholic; now, over twenty percent are non-Catholic. The universal Church has broadly appealing institutions right in neighborhoods that could use them the most, and a wide array of families are seeking them out.

The founder of Partnership Schools in Cleveland, Rich Clark, also brought to the school a wider community of supporters who want to see the neighborhood and the city’s tradition of working-class Catholic schools continue to thrive. And the network is expanding and strengthening ties with more of Cleveland’s exceptional high schools. This expansion of St. Thomas’s community provides what sociologists call both bonding and bridging social capital. Striving to be as energetically welcoming as we are unapologetically Catholic also helps us heed our Gospel call.

5. Public funding for school choice is essential—and insufficient.

In 2020—more than two decades after Cleveland and EdChoice Scholarships put Cleveland in the vanguard of the school choice movement—the announcement went out that St. Thomas Aquinas School was closing, only to be reversed just weeks later when the Diocese announced that the school would stay open and become a Partnership School. The school’s near-closure is a cautionary tale for the growing number of places across the country where parents are now able to access public funding for school choice.

Vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and education savings accounts all offer new possibilities for parents—and Catholic schools. But over thirty percent of Cleveland’s Catholic schools closed after scholarships became available. In part, that’s because the initial funding was insufficient—and still falls far below that of charter and public schools.

Yet schools also need more than state funding to serve students well. In addition to philanthropic investment, new forms of support are vital, particularly to serve students coming to us from other sectors, who may have learning gaps or school culture shifts to navigate. By finding creative ways to provide comprehensive supports like teacher coaching, curriculum guidance, and leadership development to schools like St. Thomas, we can answer one of the critiques of universal school choice: that it benefits the poor less than others. In the process, we can reinvigorate urban Catholic schools, the largest potential source of school choice seats in many low-income communities.

The Good of the Other

St. Thomas Aquinas–the school’s patron saint–defines love as “desiring the good of the other.” In the final analysis, it is love that has helped St. Thomas persevere. Generation after generation of community members have willed the good of other people’s children at the corner of Superior Avenue and East 91st Street. Jeff Allen, St. Thomas dad and volunteer, has said about the students: “They aren’t my kids—but they are all my kids.” If enough of us see the children of St. Clair-Superior and neighborhoods like it the same way Jeff does, then schools like St. Thomas can thrive well into their next century and more.

“At St. Francis, I feel like I can be myself”—A Mother and Daughter Reflect

We often say that Partnership Schools are more than classrooms; they are communities. Recently, one mother-daughter duo—mom Je’Nice and sixth grader Je’Shauna—shared what the St. Francis School community means to them. 

In a few powerful words, they explained:

Je'Nice–Mom and Volunteer Cheerleading Coach

My child excels here. She brightened up when she came back to St. Francis. 

I like it for the structure; children need structure. They pray. They learn how to be respect­able. Some places are institutionalized, but St. Francis is warm, because they get to know the children individually.

There is an open door. The teachers and principal welcome parent involvement. Ms. Hanna (who became principal this year) really brought warmth to the school. The communication we need is there.

I have high expectations, and  the school supports them. I want to make sure my daughter graduates from high school, and want her to have the choice to go to college. I want her to be able to afford things, and also to be humble—a giver who shares, cares, and doesn’t look down on others. 

It is worth driving my daughter here!

Je'Shauna–Sixth Grader

This is the best school. 

We are cherished. We learn hard things. There is a higher standard of learning here, and I like it being more challenging. Right now in math, we are factoring. Today, it got easy.

We make people feel welcome. If there is a problem, the adults take care of it. I am happy when I come to school. It’s mostly fun. 

At St. Francis, I feel like I can be myself. 

A Path to Progress Amid the National School Attendance Crisis

Last week, a student at St. Francis School in Cleveland threw a pie in the face of Principal Molly Hanna. The student was not defying authority; instead, she was defying a national trend. With perfect attendance for the month, the student, her parents, and the administration at St. Francis are making progress rebuilding attendance habits weakened across the U.S. during the pandemic. 

Last year, around one out of four American school children was chronically absent from school; in Cleveland’s public schools, just over half of students were chronically absent–missing ten percent or more of school days. According to research shared by the State of Ohio, students who are chronically absent are 65 percent less likely to read on grade level by third grade and a whopping 89 percent less likely to graduate on time. 

Partnership Schools’ chronic absenteeism was a bit better than the city’s public schools last year. Yet we knew with certainty that if we want our students’ academic achievement to improve, we must make progress on having them with us every day. So from Day 1 this year, our schools began an all-out push to improve daily attendance–an effort that hasn’t let up, even months later. That work is producing heartening results.

By mid-November, the percentage of students chronically absent dropped by a quarter compared with the prior year. We have routinely seen days when schools and families hit our target of at least 95% students present. 

Daily attendance remains a daily effort, and we are aiming for far better attendance. Yet we are heartened not just by the progress our schools are making so far, but also by the way they are making it—using approaches propelled by some of the unique tools a Catholic school network can bring to bear. Four factors are, we believe, instrumental to the progress:

  • Network/school collaboration: The network set ambitious, customized goals for each school’s attendance before the school year began, and then the school support team has worked with each school leadership team to find the most effective levers for improving results. From the beginning, the network-school collaboration has been anchored in research we analyzed together—including a finding that if a student misses two-five days in September, they are five times more likely to be chronically absent that year. 
  • Effective use of data: The network team is also supporting the schools with actionable data gathering and collaborative analysis. Together, the network-wide operations team helps schools monitor progress while also drilling into the data to identify families whose struggles with attendance may be flying under the radar. For example, every Friday, the network team and school leaders take a look together at a quick snapshot like the one above. The shared data helps prompt collaboration between the network team and school leaders—and among school leaders—on next steps for further progress or problem identification when new trends appear.
  • Clear, frequent, and urgent communication: Rachael Dengler shared that during the welcome-back activities for St. Thomas families in August, she and Dean Tali Collins talked with every family individually, sharing a copy of the attendance policy and the reasons why daily attendance is so important, discussing each family’s hurdles and plans, and then having each family sign a copy of the policy. The administration communicates weekly with families about how the whole community is progressing toward shared goals, and they follow up individually with families to work on problem-solving. All four schools have adopted similar strategies—and are seeing progress as a result.
  • Powerful relationship-building: By far the most important tool for improving attendance is proving to be relationships. As Principal Manager Nick Green explains, “In the past, following up with families when students are out was just a formality. We were just going through the motions.” Rachael Dengler shares one way that looks in practice: “no more robocalls.”  

Nick elaborates: “Now, our school teams are making calls with care and curiosity, making sure families know just how badly we want to see their children’s smiling faces in our building each day. Our leaders are meeting with families regularly and with urgency to intervene and prevent any further missed learning opportunities. They are sending the message that we love their kids and we all need them to be present and learning.”

Students holding monthly perfect attendance certificates
Just some of the Archbishop Lyke students with perfect attendance in October.

St. Francis principal Molly Hanna echoes the importance of relationships when it comes to finding the incentives that inspire students to keep up attendance. “We provided a McDonald’s lunch to students with perfect attendance for the month, and that wasn’t nearly as effective as other activities like the pie throwing or other activities that students get to do together. So we are adapting our rewards as a result. Our next one will be a surprise dance party. It’s free, and it gives students what they want the most: fun time together.”

It can be alarmingly easy to slip into chronic absenteeism; just two or more days absent a month put a student at risk of falling behind. The biggest challenges to regular attendance? “Transportation,” Rachael says without hesitation, adding that “we continue to see too that when one student is sick, a parent keeps all the children home—in some cases, so that older children can help with younger siblings who are sick.” 

Since the Partnership began, the three pillars of focus, excellence, and support have guided our work. In the case of attendance, all three pillars are essential. A relentless, network-wide focus on making ambitious progress, along with meaningful support from the network team for work that is best done by school personnel with the closest relationships with families—are helping us tackle attendance challenges that are as varied as the families we serve.

*Data in this post have been updated.

“Transforming love and truth”: Pope Benedict on Catholic Education

Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy is multifaceted, and it includes a rich vision for Catholic education. As those of us in the Partnership join Catholics around the world in praying for the repose of his soul, we have a unique way to honor him: as Catholic educators, we can take a moment to see our work as he did.

 A talk that the former pontiff gave in 2012 to teachers and professors in Washington, D.C. touches on many of the themes he returned to often in his career as a scholar and church leader. Among his insights:

  • Catholic schools are places to encounter “transforming love and truth.”

When students really come to know Jesus Christ in our schools, they are invited into a revelation of how they are loved by God, and how beautiful truth permeates creation. It is nothing less than this relationship with “the living God” that should animate our school days.

  •  The truth we teach is more than “factual data.”

Pope Benedict had long defended the existence of objective truth in a world that prefers subjectivity. He also called the truth of the Gospel “creative and life-changing.” He called this “performative” truth—so compelling that encountering it causes us and our students to grow and change.

  •  We should spend more time forming students for freedom.

In his years as a scholar, Pope Benedict grew concerned that the notion of freedom was being “distorted” in contemporary cultures. “Freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in—a participation in being itself,” he explained in Washington. There is no true freedom where there is not also faith in God, he asserted, and he reflected that “While we have sought diligently to engage the intellect of our young, perhaps we have neglected the will.”

  • Schools’ Catholic identity comes from how we are, not who our students are.

He declared that a “school’s Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction—do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear?” 

  • “No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”

Pope Benedict heard those voices suggesting either that the Church should concentrate on work other than that of schools, or that Catholic schools have little value for the wider community. He pushed back against both. “Do not abandon the school apostolate,” he urged; “indeed, renew your commitment to schools especially those in poorer areas.”

Our work, then, involves knowing we are loved by God, passing the truth of that love on to our students, letting it change us and the world around us, giving our students the tools they need to freely choose that love, and doing all of this for young people in marginalized communities. Seen this way—as Pope Benedict XVI saw it—the work of Catholic schools is a daily practice of hope in a world that could use more of it.

Celebrating Charism Carriers

When St. Theresa of Avila said that “Christ has no body now but yours,” she was pointing out a remarkable truth: holiness resides within of us and spreads through our actions.

That’s a call to action that each educator in the Partnership answers through their work. Yet in almost every one of our schools, there is a special person or handful of people who take on the work of faith formation in a particular way. And as times and religious practices change, they are evolving new ways to share our timeless faith. The work of two of them—Steve Kuilan at Our Lady Queen of Angels in East Harlem and Sr. Karen Somerville—offers some insights into what it means to be a charism carrier.

Their work couldn’t be more important, given two national trends. Last year, membership in a church community across the U.S. dropped below fifty percent for the first time. Yet Catholic school enrollment rose. Catholic schools have a new opportunity—and a new urgency—when it comes to cultivating the spiritual and religious lives of young people.

Steve Kuilan, Our Lady Queen of Angels, East Harlem

If you ask OLQA’s “Mr. K” what his role is now in his 29th year at the school, he’ll tell you that he teaches 5-8 grade religion and that he is also responsible for preparing students for the sacraments. His role is innovative and crucial because the parish attached to OLQA closed years ago. While some families attend nearby St. Cecilia Church, others’ only contact with a Catholic institution is their child’s enrollment at OLQA. As a result, Mr. K’s faith formation involves a significant effort not just with students but with parents. 

“There is a lot of false, misleading information that many have of the Catholic Church,” he explains. “For example, some families make a lot of assumptions, and for those reasons, their children don’t receive the sacraments. By contacting them and giving them resources within the faith, they begin to feel comfortable about allowing their child to receive the sacraments.” Mr. K adds that how he issues the welcome of the Church to parents is as important as the welcome itself: “I give them the facts in an environment that they know they won’t be judged, and we begin to break the cycle of incorrect information.”

The results speak for themselves: Last year, OLQA—a school with no parish feeding it—had 36 students receive their First Communion, 33 students get confirmed, and 12 students among all grades become baptized. And as principal Liz Nuzzolese notes, alums come back frequently to visit Mr. K, who is godfather and confirmation sponsor to countless students. One even reached out to the school last year from his first year at medical school to thank Mr. K for the impact he has had.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal who are in residence near OLQA certainly support the school in key ways, particularly with prayer services and liturgies. Yet it is Mr. K—a dedicated, faithful layperson, functioning within the nimble, local structure of a single Catholic school—who carries that work into day-to-day, sustained evangelization of students, their parents, and the OLQA community as a whole.

Sr. Karen Somerville, SND, St. Francis School, Cleveland

As a nun, Sr. Karen Somerville may fit a traditional image some have of those who form others in the faith. Yet she has adapted the traditions of this once-German Catholic school community to meet new opportunities, making her work as innovative as it is indispensable.  

Christian Dallavis, Assistant Superintendent of the Partnership in Cleveland, explains that “St. Francis has the most full-hearted student engagement in Mass of any Catholic school I’ve ever seen.” This student engagement occurs even when only a small handful of students in the school come from Catholic families. Sr. Karen began building it when she was the principal and continues the work now, as she remains in residence and partners with current principal Carrie Grace on key faith formation activities. 

As Sr. Karen explains, she came to lead St. Francis with several principal assignments under her belt. When it came time to plan liturgies at her new St. Francis, she says, “I was good at picking songs; I knew what kids like. The kids at St. Francis were a different culture than my country kids or Gates Mills, but they liked it. They sang. I thought things were going quite well.” 

But when a neighborhood preacher came as the guest of an eighth grader to speak at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day prayer service and brought his own musicians with him, Sr. Karen glimpsed a student response that changed her approach. “I stood back and watched, and I knew: this would be the way we do it from now on. The kids were themselves. The kids came home to liturgy that day. The liturgies had been good, but this was better.”

St. Francis’ liturgical participation is about more than catchy tunes. Days before Mass, students not only learn the songs, but they pray with them and reflect on the messages they convey—so that by the time they sing in Mass, students aren’t just singing songs; they are using them to worship with full, age-appropriate understanding. Sr. Karen also attributes two other factors to the vibrance of Mass at the school: Bishop Roger Gries, who not only celebrates Mass with the St. Francis community but embraces its participatory, culturally distinct elements; and the space where they worship, a snug one where individual voices are submerged in the collective, contributing to the sense of togetherness.

As principal Carrie Grace says, “While our Masses are based on tradition, she found a way to combine our celebrations of faith with our rich Black culture. Her understanding, along with her willingness to collaborate with community members, truly brought our Masses and Catholicity alive!”

Carrie defines Sr. Karen’s effectiveness in a way that could be true of Mr. K at OLQA as well: having “an understanding of the values and needs of our community and combining that with the Catholic faith to create a true sense of faith and understanding of God’s love.” 

By sustaining Catholic schools—even in communities that are, at present, predominantly non-Catholic—we preserve opportunities to cultivate that sense of God’s love. This All Saints Day, we celebrate and honor centuries of unheralded saints who have passed that awareness from one generation of children in Catholic schools to another.