Rev. Wants Charter School For High-Risk Kids

by Cassie Hepler
It only seems fitting that a charter school named after a saint would help at-risk youth aim high to reach their hopes and dreams.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, an 18th-century Italian writer, philosopher and bishop, is the namesake of the proposed charter school and is founded by Rev. Michael Marrone.

Rev. Michael Marrone… targeting potential dropouts

“Liguori is not the typical high school model where we can take over an existing building. Our goal is to find the right building that best suits the program that we have in place for the students,” said Rev. Marrone.
The idea is to mix online education with instruction toward plans to graduate or fill specific jobs. The school that it is modeled after in California has amazing success rates with expansions to Buffalo, NY and Chester, PA.
And even though it’s named after a saint, this is no Catholic school. It is open to the public but maintains core religious values of love.
“The idea is to encourage their abilities rather than emphasizing their deficits,” said Rev. Marrone. “When working with a population of students who are disengaged, we need to ensure that the school is different from the traditional schools where the students have not met success.”
The National Dropout Prevention/Network at Clemson University published a report correlating the major components of the model to the strategies NDPN has identified as most effective in dropout-prevention programs.
“We want our students to have a sense of hope, sense of belonging and to know that they are loved and to realize that we accept them and see them as a promise not a deficit,” he said.
“We also want to be able to give the parents and guardians of the disengaged students an opportunity to realize that there is hope. Also with the growing problems of finding a qualified workforce in the city of Philadelphia, our school will empower students to become it,” said Rev. Marrone.
In a market analysis conducted in early 2014, over 10,000 students who enrolled in the 9th grade in September 2014 possess six characteristics that the National Dropout Prevention Center indicates puts them in a category of having a less than 1% chance of graduation.
“The idea of the school came from a group of people who became concerned with the growing number of students who have become distant and disengaged in our high school system,” said Rev. Marrone. “Students who came from public, charter and private schools in the city of Philadelphia. As we know, the dropout rate is very alarming and everyone who is a citizen of Philadelphia should be concerned for the future of our children and city.”
It is a unique model that merges “knowing” and “doing” in the same space and uses a comprehensive data collection/management system to monitor the progress of students in real time. This program, known as “Mission Control”, reports on the progress of every student on a daily basis and publishes “scripts” identifying specific information about student performance in all of the major academic content areas and career pathways.
Liguori Academy is raising money now and on track for fall of 2016. Over $2.5 million has been raised to cover the initial development work. Bernie Parent, member of Liguori Academy’s Board of Trustees, has committed to lead an effort to raise an additional $1 million over the next six months. They’re hoping Lenfest Foundation will help make this initiative successful.

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