Nowadays, everyone talks about diversity, but St. Joan Antida High School was founded on that principle back in 1954. Established by the Sisters of Charity of St. Joan Antida, the school was dedicated to providing a top-drawer education for college-bound girls regardless of race, religion or family income. According to St. Joan’s development and communications director, Joel Cencius, 98% of the school’s students come from families at or below the poverty line. In the 2015-2016 school year, St. Joan became the only girls school in Wisconsin offering an International Baccalaureate Programme, and only the second school in the world to offer that program with a focus on engineering. Off the Cuff spoke with Cencius and Head of School Paul T. Gessner.
One of the trends in the 20th-century education was toward co-educational schools. What is the value of an all-girls school?
JC: Our mission is to provide educational opportunities for young women to help them break the cycle of poverty in their lives. A girls school provides our students with a sisterhood that reduces distractions that can happen in a co-ed environment, allowing them to discover who they are as women. We require uniforms so that everyone dresses the same, no matter what background they come from—they’re all equals here. A lot of our girls face adversity at home—they might be helping raise siblings in a single-parent household. We want our students to feel comfortable and supported.
Tell me about St. Joan Antida’s decision to adopt the International Baccalaureate Programme. What outcomes are you hoping to achieve for your students?
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PG: The IB offers students a formalized critical-thinking strategy that builds on student inquiry and skill-based activities. By increasing the academic rigor for all SJA students and requiring students to actively investigate learning outcomes, student achievement will be enhanced and we will better prepare our students for successful college or university experiences. We have already seen our school ACT composite increase by one full percentage point.
Explain how the International Baccalaureate Programme differs from the usual high school curriculum? What does it emphasize? Does it prepare students to think globally?
PG: The International Baccalaureate Programme requires students to be hands-on in the learning process. The idea that teachers have the knowledge and they must impart that knowledge to students is not part of the IB philosophy. Students in the IB program must participate in roughly 150 hours of Creativity, Action and Service (CAS). Many try to reduce this to a “service-learning program,” but it is so much more. This component encourages the student to be balanced and well rounded. For example, if you have never done yoga, but want to learn and feel that it might help you in reducing your stress levels, this would work as a component of CAS. You are opening yourself to new experiences and exploring a holistic approach to learning.
IB students also write a 4,000-word extended essay. This essay is considered to be the culminating assessment of your ability to think critically and write a collegiate-level paper that focuses on argumentation and proving specific claims. Your claims must be original thoughts and your work must be well documented.
Additionally, students take a theory of knowledge class. In this class, they look through various lenses to answer the question: How do I know what I know? Students in this class begin to understand that you can know things through science, emotion, experience and even faith.
Finally, every aspect of this program prepares students to see the commonality we have with others in the world. Understanding that we are not the center of the world and that we are not authorities on everything is not always well received, but the program gives us the tools to explore why we believe what we believe and why others believe what they believe.
St. Joan Antida has a focus on science, technology, engineering and math. Do you feel that women are still being discouraged in our society from entering those fields?
PG: Eighty percent of engineering school seats and jobs are held by white men. Culturally, we send messages to women that devalue their abilities in math- and science-related fields. As a school, we have taken the position that we must expose young women to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education opportunities from an early age. We require all of our ninth-grade students to take an introduction to engineering class. About two-thirds of our girls decide to take the second level class, which is much more math focused.
Does St. Joan have a relationship with MSOE?
PG: Ten percent of last year’s graduating class went to Milwaukee School of Engineering on scholarship. MSOE recognizes that by changing the earning power of young women in this city, we could not only change the trajectory of the lives of our young women, who are 98% from disadvantaged backgrounds, but also change the economic landscape of the City of Milwaukee. To this end, MSOE has agreed to match our tuition of $7,900 for student attending from SJA. This is a $25,000 tuition reduction for our girls to attend MSOE.
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To learn more, visit saintjoanantida.org.
