Nun Strives to Save a Small Girls’ School That Has a Big Impact

In four decades as a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Fay Hagen has embraced many challenges, whether cooking spaghetti dinners for 140 on a one-burner stove or persuading a public school district to provide classes for the children of homeless families.

Now she is caught up in a different kind of challenge: ensuring the survival of St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, a 113-year-old college prep high school that serves girls from mostly minority, low- and moderate-income families.

And, 18 months into her tenure as principal, there are promising signs that the school can succeed in its battle against low enrollments and tight money, problems that have closed many other urban Catholic schools across the country over the last couple of decades.

“We have to get the message out that we have a fine school here. We have the best and the brightest, but we’re the best-kept secret in Inglewood!” said Sister Fay.

Founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Mary’s used to be the school of choice for the daughters of the area’s white, middle-class Catholic families. Now it has come to mirror the demographic changes that have transformed Los Angeles in recent decades. Today, African Americans make up about 66% of the student body, with Latinas accounting for 33%; more than half the students are not Catholic.

To an outsider, St. Mary’s would seem not at all in need of rescue. It has a spacious, sparkling campus, with a large library, gymnasium, college counseling center, art rooms, and computer and science labs. At least 95% of each class of graduating “Belles” enters college, with some accepted to such institutions as Yale, Stanford and UC Berkeley.

But, like other private schools with large numbers of families hard pressed to afford even modest tuitions, St. Mary’s has had worries. Almost half its families receive help with the $4,200 annual tuition. There is a $347,000 gap this year between revenues and operating expenses, which the school expects to close with help from foundations, alumnae and the Sisters of St. Joseph.

School officials also want to build the academy’s roughly $500,000 endowment fund to between $1 million and $2 million.

When St. Mary’s moved to its present campus in 1966, enrollment was 825 in grades nine through 12. School leaders have since settled on 500 as the optimum.

But despite the school’s reputation for excellence, enrollment slid in recent years, reaching a low of 283 in 2000-01.

“There was a concern we all had that we might not make it,” said Paul Eckles, president of the school’s Board of Trustees and a former longtime city administrator for Inglewood.

When the principal’s post became vacant early in 2000, Eckles recalled, the board and the Sisters of St. Joseph found themselves at a crossroads as they began a search for a new school leader. “We resolved that we were going to make a special effort to turn things around,” he said.

Now, though it is “certainly too soon to declare victory, we clearly are moving in the right direction,” Eckles said, adding that, in choosing Sister Fay, “our experience has shown us we made one good decision.”

Among the positive signs under her leadership is an enrollment rise in 2001-02 to 314, a significant turnaround but still shy of the 400-plus that school officials figure they need to pay the bills. The number of entering freshmen increased 26% and, as the Jan. 28 deadline for student applications nears, officials are hopeful for a big response for next fall.

Sister Fay, 65, moved into the principal’s office, and the convent adjoining the academy, in July 2000. Raised in San Diego, she had spent most of her adult life there working in Catholic ministries and serving as an administrator in Catholic schools.

But it didn’t take her long to settle into her new community--or to embark with her board on a strategy that includes boosting fund-raising, improving student recruitment and raising the school’s profile in Inglewood--home to about a quarter of its students--and beyond.

An energetic, outgoing woman, she started attending chamber of commerce mixers and meeting with civic leaders. She wrote articles for the community monthly Inglewood Today and joined Mayor Roosevelt Dorn’s advisory committee of local religious leaders.

The school, in a two-story building across the street from Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, provides personal counselors--at no charge to families--five days a week; a full complement of clubs and other activities; and tutoring by its teachers. It fields teams in eight sports and involves its students in community service programs. It counts 13 nuns among its full- and part-time staff of about 45 and has full accreditation from the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.

Some of its faculty members are St. Mary’s graduates or have taught there for years, providing continuity and stability at what the sisters believe to be the oldest continuously operating Catholic high school in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

It began as a boarding school at 21st Street and Grand Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles before moving to Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue in 1904, a site it occupied until building its current campus in the 1960s.

“What St. Mary’s does for this community is amazing; it is what opportunity is all about,” said Tom Bowling, vice president and general manager of the nearby Hollywood Park Casino.

He joined the St. Mary’s board three years ago, attracted by the school’s success in providing a “prep school type” education, and a range of other support, for students who might otherwise face long odds in life. “It’s a tremendous asset to guide them into womanhood,” Bowling said.

Urban Catholic schools historically have provided successful alternatives for disadvantaged groups, especially for recent immigrants and minorities, said John B. Orr, director of special projects at USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

“They attract an enormous amount of respect among educators, but they often do face threatening financial base problems,” Orr said.

Across the country, many Catholic schools in urban neighborhoods struggled through the 1980s and 1990s as their base of white working-class families has moved to suburbs, where Catholic schools are thriving, according to the National Catholic Educational Assn.

In the Los Angeles region, several schools serving primarily low-income minority communities have closed or merged with others in recent years, despite subsidies from the archdiocese and its educational foundation, which has awarded about $6 million in tuition grants since its founding in 1986. Education officials estimate that there are more than 3,000 empty seats at 11 Catholic high schools in the Los Angeles area.

Inglewood Mayor Dorn counts himself a strong admirer of the school and its principal.

“The school has been a standout for many years, and I would certainly hate to see it close,” he said.

“But I think she has the right approach, and is the right person, to turn things around,” Dorn added, citing Sister Fay’s “obviously high intelligence,” her candor and “warm and disarming” personality.

Father Joe Carroll, with whom Sister Fay worked for much of the 1980s when his St. Vincent DePaul programs were getting off the ground in San Diego, said she “doesn’t understand when people say something can’t be done.”

Her sometimes unorthodox approach enabled her to establish one of the church’s first programs for AIDS sufferers, put together a women’s auxiliary of volunteers and fund-raisers for that and other ministries, and prompt the San Diego Unified School District to establish a program at the charity’s shelter for homeless families.

“She’s a tough sergeant type, not what you’d expect a wonderful little nun to be like. Once she takes on a job, then get out of her way and she’ll get it done,” Carroll said.

The school’s alumnae, whose roster includes attorneys and judges, business executives and civic leaders, got a taste of Sister’s Fay’s directness in a letter she sent them soon after her arrival.

The envelope, alluding to the school’s possible fates, bore three boxes, labeled “Close,” “Coed” and “Other.” The letter inside began, “I hope you checked ‘Other’ ” and laid out the school’s circumstances in no uncertain terms.

The mailing brought in about $100,000 to help the school keep up its tradition of “Empowering Young Women.” Tucked in with many checks were affectionate notes from alumnae who identified themselves by the color of their class ties, a tradition that dates to the 1920s.

Danyel Smith, Red Tie Class of 1983 and an editor at Time Inc. in New York, whose first novel is to be published next year, sent $1,000 in honor of two of her English teachers: Linda Walsh, now the school’s college counselor, and Rose Larson, now assistant principal.

“It’s a great place to go to school. The teachers really care about you. They help you to believe in yourself and do your best and be your best, and to care about others,” said Smith, who has joined the school’s Development Council, recently formed to increase fund-raising. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve appreciated it more.”

Sister Fay also moved to strengthen the academic program. For example, she added calculus to the curriculum this school year, an investment she considers worth making even though only two students are enrolled in the course.

“You’ve got to start someplace, and if it’s going to inspire others, then it’s worth it,” she said.

As with enrollment, fund-raising is up, thanks in part to appeals to alumnae and an annual “Derby Day” established last year by Hollywood Park Casino, which netted almost $15,000.

“It’s wonderful to be reminded that we are not in this alone,” Sister Fay said.

Leading a visitor on a campus tour, the principal stops often to chat with students and faculty: “It’s nice to be able to show them all off.”

She calls out encouragements and compliments in a deep, booming voice. Then, rounding a corner, Sister Fay spots a scattering of Post-Its on an otherwise pristine hallway floor. “Oooh, Oooooh! What happened here?” She is smiling, but the two students standing nearby get the point. They scramble to remove the offending scraps.

In a room down the hall, Gold Ties (seniors) Marcela Martinez and Kimberly Morris are working on the yearbook and explaining what they like about St. Mary’s. Their list includes knowing they are prepared for college, having only girls as classmates (“You can be yourself here,” says Kimberly) and studying religion.

“Even though it’s a Catholic school, we get to learn about all different religions, and I think that makes us more open-minded,” says Marcela.

“I like that it’s a small school, and our teachers really know us,” Kimberly adds. “They work us hard, but that’s because they care.”