After 60 Years, the First New Catholic School Opens in Baltimore City,New Principal Named for Mother Mary Lange Catholic School
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After 60 Years, the First New Catholic School Opens in Baltimore City New School to Serve Over 500 Students with State-of-the-Art Facility BALTIMORE– July 8, 2021 – Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, the first new Catholic school built in Baltimore City by the Archdiocese of Baltimore in nearly 60 years, will celebrate the opening with a ribbon cutting and blessing ceremony on Friday, August 6 at 9 a.m. Archbishop William E. Lori along with community leaders and city and state officials will formally open the doors to the school that will welcome more than 400 students this September. The new 65,000 square feet educational complex is located at 200 N. Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. in downtown Baltimore and will be the new home for students from more than 40 zip codes throughout the city and surrounding area. “Education has been at the core of the Catholic Church’s mission in the United States for two hundred years, and this new center of educational excellence will provide a safe, nurturing environment to develop talent and potential while providing a pathway to success for our youth,” said Archbishop William Lori. “This is a commitment that we, as the church, are proud to make to serve our city to help improve the lives and futures of our young people, our neighborhoods and the entire community.” The state-of-the-art educational facility will serve students in grades PreK3 through 8, with a projected enrollment of 520 students within year four of operations. The school is also the new home for students who previously attended Saints James and John and Holy Angels Catholic schools. The majority (80-90%) of the mostly non- Catholic student population, is expected to qualify for tuition assistance from the archdiocese, which will make available over $1M in tuition grants and assistance from the archdiocese’s Partners in Excellence Scholarship Program. This tuition assistance will be complemented by additional aid from private scholarship funds, the State of Maryland’s BOOST program, and the Catholic Community Foundation tuition assistance endowments. Features of Mother Mary Lange Catholic School will include: STEM Suite (science lab, makerspace and robotics) digital media center (library and digital media studio) art and music rooms health suite regulation size gymnasium with a performance stage chapel full-service kitchen and dining facility 7 on 7 Soccer/lacrosse field and exercise circuit Partnership with University of MD (with campuses located across the street) state-of-the-art security systems The professional staff of Mother Mary Lange Catholic School will include 35 teachers, teacher-aids and administrators and will include a full-time counselor, as well as access to medical and dental care professionals and a speech and language clinician. “We are excited to open our doors and welcome our students to this amazing new school providing a beacon of hope for every child who walks through its doors,” said Alisha Jordan, principal at Mother Mary Lange Catholic School. “We are deeply committed to the mission of Catholic education and look forward to continuing Mother Lange’s legacy of educating the future of Baltimore.” Born in 1784 in Santiago Cuba and of African descent, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1829, the first religious community of women of African descent, as well as the first Catholic school for children of color. The Vatican is currently reviewing her cause for canonization to sainthood. To see more: Mother Mary Lange Catholic School. ### Media Contact Christian Kendzierski [email protected] 410-547-5378 (office) 917-882-1358 (cell) New principal named for Mother Mary Lange Catholic School in Baltimore City Alisha Jordan has been named as the new principal of Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, the first new Catholic school in Baltimore City in nearly 60 years. The current principal of St. Mary of the Mills School in Laurel, Jordan will begin her work in August to prepare the school for its opening in September 2021. The appointment was announced July 6 by James Sellinger, archdiocesan chancellor of education, and Donna Hargens, superintendent of schools. In a video accompanying the announcement, Jordan said it is a privilege and an honor “to be appointed the first principal of a school named after one of the pioneers in education and to continue her legacy by educating the children of Baltimore.” “I am deeply committed to the mission of Catholic education and to ensuring that Mother Mary Lange Catholic School will be a beacon of hope for every child who walks through its doors,” she said. She plans to work over the next year to meet with parents and students of Holy Angels School and Ss. James and John School, which will join at the new campus on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and with members of the local community. “I believe children who feel safe learn best, and I am here for the students and families of Mother Mary Lange School,” Jordan said. The new principal has three master’s degrees in aspects of education from Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore, and is expected to complete her doctorate in urban educational leadership from Morgan State University later this year. Standing in a framed-out classroom on the second floor of the construction site for the new school a few days before the announcement of her appointment, Jordan told the Catholic Review she could envision the walls and tables and the smiling faces of the first-graders who will be in the classroom in fall 2021. The school is expected to serve nearly 500 students in pre-K3 through eighth grade. Diversity in faculty and staff selection will be an important part of her recruitment efforts. “It’s important that children get to see teachers who look like them and mirror them,” she said. For a school that is expected to have an enrollment that is predominantly African American, seeing an African American woman in leadership will have an impact. Jordan said Mother Mary Lange’s whole purpose was to educate children of color in Baltimore. The foundress of St. Frances Academy in 1828 and the Oblate Sisters of Providence the following year, whose cause for sainthood is under consideration, was of African descent, born in the late 1700s in Santiago, Cuba. “I’m a woman of color, so I feel like a mirror of Mother Mary Lange. It is important that when we open up her school, we have a leader who believes and loves and cares for children and wants to educate children. And that’s me,” Jordan said. Mother Mary Lange School will be the students’ home away from home and a safe place to spend seven to eight hours a day, Jordan said. “They need to feel comfortable when they are coming here,” she said. “The community needs to understand we are educating their future leaders, their future politicians, their future teachers, the future leaders of Baltimore City.” She is excited about the facilities the school will offer students and the community, including a media center, a full gym and sports field, a maker space and a chapel. She said she is looking for innovative educators “ready to rock and roll and roll up their sleeves.” Jordan had previously served as principal of John Paul Regional Catholic School in Woodlawn, which closed in 2017. She was also a teacher and assistant principal at St. Bernardine School, which closed in 2010. She has been a parishioner there since 2002; her husband has been a member of the parish all his life. She has served the parish as a youth minister and worked on women’s retreats. In announcing the appointment, Archbishop William E. Lori said he looked forward to Jordan’s leadership at the school as a place of faith, learning and development, because she will embody the identity, mission and vision of the school. He said while the school may have seemed like a distant vision when the decision was first made to pursue it, the cooperation from businesses and the community has made it real. “This is a commitment we have to make to the city, to our young people, to our families,” he said. “It’s a witness we have to provide as a church. But we must be not only a beacon of hope, but we must also be concretely assisting and working with children and families to make progress, to improve lives, to improve neighborhoods, to improve our city,” he said. In announcing Jordan’s appointment, Hargens emphasized that the education the school offers must be Christ-centered. The new principal “gets the charism of Mother Mary Lange and knows that this school is going to have to live and breathe Mother Mary Lange’s charism.” Hiring Jordan a year before the school will open will allow her time to get to know the families and build the culture. Jordan’s background in urban education will be beneficial there. Every current teacher at Holy Angels and Ss. James and John is guaranteed an interview for a position at Mother Mary Lange if they want one, Hargens said. Hargens and Sellinger said Jordan was the unanimous selection of the nine-member search committee, which included a cross-section of people with experience in education and representatives of the community. Sellinger noted that construction on the school is moving along well; by September, the buildings will be fully enclosed and then fitting out the classrooms and interiors can begin. Building a new school is relatively easy, he said. “It’s just bricks and mortar. But the next major step in the creation of a new school is the identification of its leader,” he said.