Three years later, The Male Academy is helping to navigate young men through life
3rd April 2018 · 0 Comments
By Kelly Parker
Contributing Writer
The Blazer Ceremony at St. Mary’s Male Academy is a rite of passage; in which each student formally receives his school blazer that is blessed by a priest and is paired with male members of the community to talk, exchange information and stay in touch throughout the school year.
The blazer, said one student, is a code of armor. He says it is there to help them navigate through school and through life.
St. Mary’s Academy has prepared countless African-American girls for life’s journeys and has over a century of milestones and traditions.
The school embarked on another achievement in 2015. The Male Academy, established for middle-school aged boys, serves youth in grades fifth through seven, has begun to send young men to high school.
“When we started, we didn’t’ have any 7th-graders, Dean of Boys, Chad Smith, says. “The second year, we had 7th-graders that we sent to high school. We were fortunate enough to send a group to St. Augustine, Jesuit and De La Salle.”
The transition has been a good one, Smith says. “All of those young men are doing well. They’re engaging in schoolwork, making friends. The (now) Jesuit High School student, Jordan Johnson, is playing basketball and making straight A’s. He said what he was taught at St. Mary’s definitely prepared him for Jesuit. Cornelius Clay, now a student at De La Salle, is the best math student in his class. He is excelling in athletics as well—as a wrestler and a football player.”
In 2006, St. Mary’s Academy offered grades pre-K through 12, with grades pre-K through eighth grade as co-ed. They began to send its seventh- and eighth-graders to St. Augustine but were no longer able to do so after the Archdiocese of New Orleans reorganized its high schools to only include grades eight through 12 and schools had to adhere to the directive to unify grade structure or risk their imprimatur of the church.
“They were young people that were falling in that cusp that asked, ‘where do I go now?’ So, this format was kept at St. Mary’s where those kids who were already here since pre-K –could stay until 7th grade,” Smith says.
“We had to keep our boys,” St. Mary’s Academy Principal Sr. Jennie Jones says, echoing Smith’s sentiment. “We decided that not only would we keep them, but we would nurture them and walk them through those middle-school years and get them prepared for high school.”
Smith says the boys receive an outstanding preparation and foundation from the St. Mary’s elementary school; making that transition an easy one that’s bound to result in academic success on the next level.
“Most of our Male Academy students are from the elementary school program,” he told The Louisiana Weekly. “The program is phenomenal; with awesome teachers that are preparing them for this middle school program. They are pretty sharp, and they are ready to work.”
Enrollment at the Male Academy has been pretty steady, which is a good thing, according to Smith.
The 7th-grade classes are small; on average 15 students to a classroom.”
“That’s an advantage,” he told The Louisiana Weekly. “It gives us time to have better dialogue about a myriad of subjects, academically and socially. These young people have a lot of questions, in relation to race, the (#Metoo) movement, or the (issue involving) the removal of the Confederate monuments in the city. “The beauty of having a male academy at St. Mary’s is that we’re all males in the classroom, but there are about 400 or more young ladies walking around the school campus; they hold the doors for the young ladies. The respect factor that we teach is put into action.”
The need for modern computers and interactive teaching materials from three years ago has been met.
“Huge progress regarding our needs and goals.” says Smith. “We now have smartboards for the boys. A donor provided over 50 Microsoft surface computers to the Male Academy. We now have a robotics program, thanks to the Department of Defense/STARTBASE program. It was a goal to have an active robotics program on our campus.”
Smith also adds that the Male Academy competed in football and basketball and did very well in both.
Ten students will be continuing their academic journeys as at the end of this school year; moving onto St. Aug, Jesuit and Holy Cross next year.
As a historically All-girls Catholic school in existence for over 100 years, it was natural for the co-ed concept to be faced with a little resistance from some. But Smith saw it as an advantage.
“Change is different, so, of course you’ll have questions,” he says. “But I think it’s a great marriage… there’s a lot of parents that have daughters and sons and they can now enroll both children in one institution. It’s a win-win. And the Male Academy has more to accomplish.”
This article originally published in the April 2, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
