St. Ignatius College Preparatory Announces Tuition-Free Academy

BY ISN STAFF | October 13, 2016

St. Ignatius College Preparatory (SI) in San Francisco, California announced October 8 that the school will open a tuition-free junior high school program beginning August 2017 with its first class of 6th graders.

St. Ignatius College Prep graduates on commencement day. [St. Ignatius College Prep]

St. Ignatius College Prep graduates on commencement day. [St. Ignatius College Prep]

Named after longtime SI president Fr. Tony Sauer, S.J., the academy will eventually offer 6th, 7th and 8th grade boys and girls from economically disadvantaged backgrounds a Catholic, Jesuit education with the expectation that these students will matriculate directly into SI for high school.

In making the announcement at the school’s annual President’s Cabinet dinner, SI President Fr. Eddie Reese, S.J., noted that “there is no clearer path out of poverty than education. Our goal is to offer a rigorous preparation for high school to low-income students from San Francisco public schools. The Sauer Academy will prepare these boys and girls for an SI college preparatory education providing them a clearer path to college.”

Academy students will be accepted based on their academic ability, recommendations and demonstrated financial need and take part in an extended school day and longer school year than their high school counterparts.

The Academy will be held on SI’s main campus and will begin with 25 to 30 sixth graders, with the addition of one new grade over the next two years.

“Our goal is to sustain Sauer Academy through an endowment,” added SI’s Vice President for Advancement Joe Vollert ’84. “SI is actively seeking partners to make this new project a reality.”

Sauer Academy’s mission draws from the rich history, spanning more than forty years, originating with the Jesuit Nativity Model schools and Christian Brothers San Miguel schools.  These schools are all “free-standing” middle schools. Sauer Academy is the second such school to adopt a model of integration with a high school campus — Loyola Academy at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, Arizona, opened six years ago, and similarly offers a high school-preparatory tuition-free model of middle school education.

A video message about Sauer Academy from Fr. Eddie Reese, S.J.:

[Saint Ignatius College Prep]

4 replies
  1. Mark Kirchen
    Mark Kirchen says:

    Congratulations to Fr. Eddie Reese and to the new students at the academy. Eddie successfully established a similar academy at Brophy in Phoenix and will do the same at SI. This a model of what Jesuit education institutions can achieve.

    Reply

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