“My hardest time was letting go of them,” said Jacquline Long, the school’s office manager, who has worked in the school since the mid-1990s. “I was sad to see them go.”
St. Benedict added back the upper grades, one at a time, until grades preschool through eighth were again served by the building, Long said.
Carolyn Day, the school’s interim principal, retired from Dayton Public schools in 2009. She served as DPS’s director of school improvement and the director of math and science.
Father Francis Tandoh, the priest overseeing the church, asked her if she would consider becoming principal after the previous principal retired.
“I go way back with the school,” Day said.
Day said Tandoh has a “tremendous” support for the school, and she credits him with the school staying open. Other private Catholic schools in Dayton, like St. Anthony of Padua in East Dayton, have closed in recent years.
“To me, I fought for this and I want it to work so we can get a good education in the inner city, just the same as the suburbs,” said Tandoh.
Tandoh said the parish has supported the school and fundraised for it, even in an area with a high degree of poverty.
He said while the EdChoice expansion has helped the school, there are additional costs that EdChoice can’t cover, like field trips. The centennial fundraiser will support field trips, Day said. The cost of transportation alone can be more than $500, which is out of the budget of many households.
And EdChoice doesn’t cover recent immigrants, Tandoh said, whom the school also educates.
Day said the school looks very different from when it started out, and even from when her own sons went to school in the building in the 1970s.
In 1957, enrollment hit 465 students, according to the school’s history. Students were almost 60 to a classroom. In the 1950s, the student body was primarily white, with just a handful of Black students. Now, the school has no white students, Day said, but has around 11% Hispanic kids and about 15% students who immigrated from African countries like Uganda and Congo.
The Sisters of the Precious Blood, an order of nuns, started the school and were the primary teachers and administrators until 1984, when they withdrew from the school. But one sister still teaches at the school, Day said.
There are other differences, too. Like many urban schools, there’s an increased number of students who don’t speak English as a first language, and so there’s more problems with communication, especially to parents. Two teachers in the school speak Spanish and can help interpret, Day said.
Day said the school also struggles with getting kids on grade level. Many kids come to the school behind two grade levels, she said. A new curriculum implemented this year, iReady, should help improve the school’s test scores, Day said.
Celebration
On Friday, the school is hosting an open house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the school, 138 Gramont Ave., Dayton. A centennial lunch is set for 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday at St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church, 519 Liscum Drive. The public is invited, and the cost is $35. On Sunday, Centennial Mass is set for 10:30 a.m. at the church.
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