Baltimore Catholic school boosts efforts to recruit Hispanic students

Published: 2007-08-16

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- During the new school year at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, school officials expect to see a more racially diverse enrollment with the addition of several Hispanic students, ending a two-year period with an all-black student body. It is the first time in the coed high school's 179-year history that school officials have actively recruited students, particularly Hispanic teens. "The Hispanic population in this state and this country is growing by leaps and bounds," said David Owens, a tennis coach and teacher at the school. "This school was founded by people of Hispanic origin and we've had Latino students here in the past. But, that element has kind of taken a back seat to children of African descent," he told The Catholic Review, newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese. Owens was educated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the same religious order that runs St. Frances Academy, founded in 1828. Founded by Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, the order was the first for black women in the United States.

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