Father Joseph Corpora, CSC, of Notre Dame listens as Bishop Kicanas announces the new partnership with the university.

The University of Notre Dame and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson have agreed to designate three parish schools in Tucson – St. Ambrose, St. John the Evangelist and Santa Cruz – as the nation’s first Notre Dame Alliance for Catholic Education Academy Schools.
Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas and Notre Dame Alliance for Catholic Education officials announced the designation on Jan. 29 at the Bishop Moreno Pastoral Center, 111 S. Church Ave.
“This is an exciting moment,” Bishop Kicanas said. “It’s a great joy to have this new partnership to enhance and foster the formation of our young people…to strengthen our schools and community involvement.”
The five-year partnership with the Alliance for Catholic Education will implement a unique model of Catholic education, beginning with the 2010-11 school year, to achieve comprehensive excellence in academics and school administration.
The model emphasizes the enhancement of school leadership, curriculum, instruction, professional development, financial management, marketing and – importantly, Bishop Kicanas said – Catholic identity.
“Above all else,” the goal of the program is “to provide a Catholic education of the highest quality to under-served communities.”
The initiative is led at Notre Dame by ACE’s director of university-school partnerships, Rev. Joseph Corpora, C.S.C., a Holy Cross priest and former pastor with nearly 20 years experience in parishes and schools effectively serving Latinos.
Father Corpora, who attended the press conference along with other Notre Dame officials, said he was “equally excited.”
He said the genesis of the program came when Notre Dame educators realized that 70 percent of the nation’s population under 35 was Latino, but only 3 percent are educated in Catholic schools.
The goal, he said, is to double that percentage in 10 years, to 800,000 students, and in 20 years to have “hundreds” of ACE Academies across the nation.
“Tucson is the perfect place to start this program,” he said.
Bishop Kicanas noted that students educated in Catholic schools have a 42 percent great chance to enter college than those who attend public schools.
The Alliance for Catholic Education will provide the schools with expertise and resources that include an instructional coach for teachers, on-site support for principals and teachers from Notre Dame faculty and staff and a director of marketing and development who will be responsible for efforts to boost enrollment and raise funds for tuition scholarships.
A regional school board that will include the pastors and representatives of the schools will be responsible for the oversight of the schools’ academic, administrative and financial operations.
The three schools’ principals and faculty members will spend time at the Notre Dame campus this summer preparing to implement the program.
Bishop Kicanas invited the Alliance to consider Tucson as the inaugural site for the Academy Schools’ concept.
Notre Dame officials said they were looking for three schools that fit the criteria for the program. “I said, ‘we have them,’” Bishop Kicanas remarked with a smile at the press conference.
The Alliance selected the three schools after a comprehensive feasibility study showed strong support for the partnership, the schools’ capacity to serve area students effectively and opportunities for providing tuition scholarships that are created by Arizona’s private school tax credit.
Notre Dame’s efforts in the partnership are funded through a generous grant from the Walton Family Foundation and are supported by the university and other partners.
St. Ambrose, St. John and Santa Cruz Schools have a combined enrollment of 598. Hispanic children account for an average of 86 percent of the students in the three schools.
Sister Leonette Kochan, OSF, principal of Santa Cruz, said: “It’s a wonderful opportunity for our children who are precious and deserve every opportunity we can give them.”
The Alliance for Catholic Education and the Diocese have had a partnership since 2001. Seven teachers in the Serving Through Teaching Program are teaching in four parish schools in Tucson this school year.
“We are just delighted about deepening our partnership with Bishop Kicanas and the Diocese of Tucson,” said Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., founder of ACE and director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at Notre Dame. “St. John, St. Ambrose and Santa Cruz have served the families of South Tucson for many years, and we are thrilled about the increased opportunities this Notre Dame family of schools will offer for years to come.”