The Catalyst Schools is a system of Chicago-based K-8 and high school charter schools operating in the city's Austin and Chicago Lawn neighborhoods. The two schools in the system are the Catalyst Circle Rock Elementary School (Austin) and the Catalyst Maria Elementary School and High School (Chicago Lawn).
History
The San Miguel Schools
The Catalyst Schools grew out of Chicago's San Miguel Schools, which were founded by Brother Ed Siderewicz and Gordon Hannon in 1995 when they met with a group of 18 students and a staff of four in a convent dining room in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Today, the Back of the Yards campus serves mostly Hispanics; a second campus in Austin, which opened in 2002 but closed in 2012, served mostly African-American students.
Students at the San Miguel Schools saw increased academic success; in the San Miguel neighborhood, the average high-school graduation rate was 40% while more than 94% of students at San Miguel graduated from high school. San Miguel graduates also attended college at greater rates than those of their peers.
Planning for the Catalyst Schools
During their individual tenures in office, Chicago Public Schools CEOs Paul Vallas and Arne Duncan each asked the San Miguel Schools’ Board of Directors to replicate the San Miguel Schools' academic model and values in the free-tuition charter school model. Some San Miguel Board members were initially apprehensive about the potentially negative public response to replicating a faith-based institution in the public charter context. Nevertheless, the Board investigated the possibility further and determined ways it could be done without undermining Church-State separation.
When in June 2004 Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley launched Renaissance 2010, an initiative to increase the number of high quality educational options in communities across Chicago by 2010, the San Miguel Board of Directors had the impetus they needed to move forward. They incorporated the Catalyst Schools as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational institution in 2005.
Also in 2005, Catalyst submitted a proposal to the Chicago Board of Education to establish the first Catalyst Charter School in the North Lawndale neighborhood. Located in the former Howland Elementary School, the new Catalyst Howland Charter school opened in Fall 2006 with 60 students in grades 4 and 5 and a mission "to provide quality elementary educational choice to urban students who have not been adequately served by existing educational institutions through the use of a curriculum and instruction that focuses on reading and math." In later years, Catalyst Howland added additional grades with the capacity to serve as many as 540 students, or full enrollment (60 per grade) in grades K-8. After eleven years of service, however, Catalyst Howland closed voluntarily in July 2016.
Also in 2005, a second proposal was submitted to the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education to establish Catalyst Circle Rock Elementary School. This new school, which replaced Circle Rock Elementary established by the Austin-based nonprofit agency Circle Urban Ministries, opened in fall 2007 initially as a Contract School under the Renaissance 2010 plan. The school started with approximately 60 students in grades 4 and 5, with plans to add grades 6, 7, and 8. In 2007, the proposal was amended and approved so that Catalyst Circle Rock could open with 250 students in grades K-8 and grow to 540 students in later years. The school's address changed to 5608 West Washington Boulevard but remained in Chicago's Austin neighborhood.
In 2009, a proposal was submitted to the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education to convert the Catalyst Circle Rock Elementary School, which had been operating as a contract public school, into a charter school. The charter was approved, and Catalyst Circle Rock Charter Elementary school followed the mission of the first Catalyst Charter School: providing quality education through a focus on reading and math to urban students whose needs have not previously been met by other institutions.
Expansion to Chicago Lawn: Catalyst Maria Elementary and High Schools
The Need for Performing Schools in Chicago's Neighborhoods, an October 2004 report by the Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF), named Chicago Lawn among the city's top 25 communities needing elementary and high schools. Complicating school choice in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood was the June 30, 2013, closing of Maria High School, a private all-girls high school operated by the Sisters of St. Casimir that had served the community for more than a century.