Religious Education

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In Espinoza’s wake, is the Blaine bane at risk?

John E. Coons
John E. Coons

“Like to one more rich in hope.”

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

The media are calling the long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue a victory for “conservatives.” The Court has liberated a few low-income Montana families from conscription by the state and the teachers union, and yet we hear this rescue is “conservative.”

It is, I concede, an act of conservation, preserving the basic legal authority of the poor over their own children. These parents are, to a limited degree, made free to participate in the great school market. It is a victory for the lower-income family – but conservative?

Could it be that our English language is, for this scenario, simply lacking in resource to describe the reality? If you don’t like the judicial outcome of some dispute, you are free to call it whatever you think will give it a black eye in your own intellectual neighborhood. Hence, “conservative” we shall hear.

Last week’s decision is a powerful, if very limited, reaffirmation of the basic constitutional right, authority, and power, even of low-income parents, to decide just what style and content of formal schooling their child will experience – what teacher we shall allow to instruct their child in the skills she or he may need and what version of human origin and personal perfection will be delivered to these young minds for whom we are so full of hope.

The decision reminds us that 95 years ago, a case titled Pierce v. Society of Sisters et al. gave America the basic precept that parents – not the State – have the authority to decide where Susie goes to school. But a fundamental problem has remained: If you are not well-off, how can you exercise that authority by paying tuition? And, if you can’t do so, will the government that makes school compulsory leave you helpless with no option but P.S. 42? Must Susie go where strangers – i.e., “the State” – decide to send her?

So far in history, government has shown little interest in assisting the exercise of your parental authority. The primary concern of its legislatures and its governors has been to keep the teachers union electing them.

The Montana decision will not by itself end this great shadow on human liberty and authority. But the majority opinion justifies hope for development of ever more radical motions (“conservative,” if you prefer). The majority opinion by the chief justice relies exclusively upon the First Amendment’s guarantee that “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise” of religion, extended by the 14th Amendment to limit the states.

One can wonder (“conservatively”?) about the regimes of public schooling born of 19th century anti-Romanism by which schools became mandatory, but those elite who could afford it could, and still do, go private or religious at their choice.

Is it still constitutionally sound for a state to make schooling a parental duty, but then to protect choice only for the well-off? Will the Court let the inner-city “public” school last forever it its captive mission, thus saving the bacon for officers of the teachers union?

Talk to your state legislator – and stay tuned to the conservative Court.

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Court lays to rest age-old debate with Espinoza decision

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

After more than a century, the U.S. Supreme Court finally has determined that Blaine amendments, which were created in the late 19th century under a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic bias, violate the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise clause.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” ruled the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision this week.

Montana’s school choice program became the first tax credit scholarship to be struck down by a state supreme court, but not the first private school choice program to be struck down because of a “Blaine Amendment.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling reverses the Montana Supreme Court, arguing the state’s  “No Aid” provision violates the rights of parents, students and religious schools under the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling is in step with the Trinity Lutheran (2017) decision which argued denying grants for playground resurfacing simply because the institution was religious was unconstitutional.

Though the Court ruled that the Blaine Amendment violates the Free Exercise clause, it declined to rule whether it also violated the Establishment Clause or Equal Protections Clause.

Not surprisingly, school choice opponents are up in arms about the decision.

“… the court has made things even worse opening the door for further attacks on state decisions not to fund religious schools,” said National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García in an NEA blog post.

But the court’s decision does nothing of the sort. The decision to create and fund education scholarships still falls to the people.

Other school choice opponents are arguing the decision erodes separation of church and state.

Ron Meyer, lawyer for the Florida Education Association, went so far as to state in an interview with the Miami Herald, “It’s another chipping away of the free exercise of religion.”

But the decision falls in line with a long-standing recognition of religious neutrality required of governments. Though many of these cases deal with the Establishment Clause rather than the Free Exercise Clause, they demonstrate this long-standing precedent on religious neutrality. 

The first case to apply the Free Exercise clause to a state matter was Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), which reversed a criminal conviction of three Jehovah’s Witnesses for proselytizing door-to-door without a state license. In a unanimous decision the court ruled:

“Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus, the Amendment embraces two concepts, freedom to believe and freedom to act.”

In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the court defined the Establishment Clause beyond simply establishing a national church by declaring the clause prohibited the aid of one religion or even all religions. However, the court still upheld public bus fare reimbursements to parents sending their children to Catholic schools because the reimbursement was available to all. Regarding New Jersey’s publicly funded programs, the court ruled:

“Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.”

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court held Ohio’s voucher program “does not offend the Establishment Clause” because the program was neutral with respect to religion.

As with Zelman, several other national cases support tax exemptions and other public benefits for seemingly religious activities, but only so long as the programs pass the “Lemon Test.”

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) established the “Lemon Test,” a three-part test to determine if a program violates the Establishment Clause. The test requires the program to have a secular purpose, to not advance or inhibit any particular religion, and to not excessively tangle government with religion. In Lemon, the court allowed state subsidies of textbooks, educational materials and even teacher salaries at private schools in Pennsylvania.

Mueller v. Allen (1983) upheld a Minnesota tax law that allowed individuals to deduct parochial school expenses. The Supreme Court ruled the program was neutral with respect to religion since the tax deduction was available to all, and that helping to fund education (even through tax deductions) was a secular purpose.

Agostini v. Felton (1997) allowed public funds to pay the salaries of public school teachers educating economically disadvantaged children, including private religious schools. This landmark ruling reversed Aguilar v. Felton (1985), which held that paying public school teachers to teach parochial school students was “excessive entanglement” with religion. Agostini reversed that decision and determined the program was neutral with respect to religion and that the purpose of educating disadvantaged children was a secular one.

Deference to religious neutrality flows down to the state courts as well.

Florida cases such as Koerner v. Borck (1958) argued that, “State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions, than it is to favor them.”

Meanwhile, in Johnson v. Presbyterian Homes of Synod of Florida, Inc. (1970), the Florida Supreme Court ruled on a tax exemption:

“A state cannot pass a law to aid one religion or all religions, but state action to promote the general welfare of society, apart from any religious considerations, is valid, even though religious interests may be indirectly benefited.”

Espinoza isn’t deviating from the U.S.’s “separation of church and state,” as critics have misunderstood. The ruling follows a long history of allowing religious institutions and persons to benefit from public programs, in this instance extending that right to K-12 education where powerful opponents attempted to carve out an exemption.

 A fight over how much religion can be taught in a private school may be around the corner. But that is a fight for another day.

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Supreme Court in Espinoza ruling opens door to state funding for religious schools

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Kendra Espinoza of Kalispell, Montana, lead plaintiff in the case, with her daughters Naomi and Sarah outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in January.

In a landmark decision today on school choice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled  that the Montana Department of Revenue’s shutdown of a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students is unconstitutional, potentially opening the door for states to enact such programs for students to attend private faith-based schools.

The court said in its 5-4 decision on Espinoza vs. the Montana Department of Revenue, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that the Montana Department of Revenue cannot disqualify religious schools simply because of what they are.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” the opinion said.

The ruling also stated:

“Drawing on ‘enduring American tradition,’ we have long recognized the rights of parents to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children … Many parents exercise that right by sending their children to religious schools, a choice protected by the Constitution.”

Roberts was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.

“The Supreme Court delivered a major victory to parents who want to choose the best school for their children, including religious schools,” said Institute for Justice senior attorney Erica Smith, who was co-counsel on the case. “This is a landmark case in education that will allow states across the country to enact educational choice programs that give parents maximum educational options.”

Organizations that support education choice praised the decision.

“It’s a good news day for those who love the freedoms we enjoy in this country and seek to advance and preserve those freedoms,” said Leslie Hiner, leader of the Legal Defense & Education Center for the nonprofit advocacy group EdChoice. “Today the Supreme Court has re-affirmed its role as the guardians of our Constitution. The Montana Supreme Court has disregarded the U.S. Constitution, and in particular the First Amendment’s clause protecting our right to the Free Exercise of whatever faith we choose as individuals, when it struck down a modest school choice program that allowed parents to choose any school, religiously-affiliated or not, for their children’s education.”

The case started in 2015, when the Montana Legislature enacted a program that provided a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for taxpayers who donated to a Student Scholarship Organization. That meant a Montana resident could donate to a scholar organization, and in turn, would receive a tax credit for the donation.

The Student Scholarship Organization used the donated money to provide scholarships to students to attend private schools, including private schools affiliated with a religion.

Shortly after the program was enacted, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated an administrative rule (“Rule 1”) prohibiting scholarship recipients from using their scholarships at religious schools, citing a provision of the state constitution that prohibits “direct or indirect” public funding of religiously affiliated educational programs.

Kendra Espinoza and the two other mothers filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the rule. The trial court determined that the scholarship program was constitutional without the rule and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the Department of Revenue argued that the program is unconstitutional without Rule 1. The Montana Supreme Court agreed with the Department and reversed the lower court. 

At issue in the case are Blaine Amendments, also called “No Aid” clauses, which are provisions in 38 state constitutions, including Florida’s, that bar public aid to religious organizations. They get their name from James G. Blaine, a congressional representative and later senator and presidential nominee from Maine who unsuccessfully attempted to amend the U.S. constitution in 1875 to include “anti-aid” language onto the end of the first amendment. Where he failed at the federal level, many states inserted Blaine Amendments into their constitutions. As a result, Blaine Amendments frequently act as state-level barriers against school choice.

“I am thrilled that the courts ruled in favor of the Constitution and maintained a parent’s right to choose where their children go to school,” Espinoza said in a news release issued by the Institute for Justice. “For our family, this means we can continue to receive assistance that is a lifeline to our ability to stay at Stillwater. For so many other families across America, this will potentially mean changing lives and positively altering the future of thousands of children nationwide. What a wonderful victory.”

The win and the promise of continued scholarships is a significant boost to Espinoza, who has had to work multiple jobs, including cleaning houses and doing janitorial work, to afford her daughters’ tuition payments at a private Christian school in Kalispell.  Kendra transferred her two daughters to Stillwater Christian School after they struggled in their public school. Montana’s scholarship program has helped Kendra and families across the state keep their children in the school that works best for them.

“It’s been a century-and-a-half since the bigoted Blaine movement took root in state constitutions throughout the country,” IJ Senior Attorney Richard Komer, who argued the case before the Court said in the news release. “Today’s decision shows that it is never too late to correct an injustice, even one with as long and ignoble a pedigree as this one.”

Today’s decision will affect most of the 14 states that have strictly interpreted their state constitution Blaine Amendments to bar scholarships to children at religious schools. For decades, the creation and expansion of school choice programs have been inhibited by legislative concerns that they might conflict with state constitutions. Those concerns are now removed with today’s decision in Espinoza.

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Catholic school closure an SOS for private schools in pandemic

Ron Matus
Ron Matus

St. Joseph Academy families have launched an effort to save the school, where 78 of 162 K-8 students participated in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or Family Empowerment Scholarship programs for lower-income students.

An 82-year-old Catholic school in Florida has abruptly announced its closure, another telling sign that COVID-19 is eroding the financial ground beneath private schools.

At the beginning of the school year, the Catholic Diocese of Orlando had been discussing the possibility of revamping the St. Joseph Academy in Lakeland, Florida, a half-hour east of Tampa. But in a letter to parents Friday, the Very Rev. Timothy LaBo, pastor of St. Joseph Church, said the financial devastation wrought by the pandemic quickly led to a “serious impact on our re-enrollment numbers.”

“What we could not have imagined was the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect upon our world in such a short time,” LaBo wrote in the letter obtained by Lakeland Now.

The closure of the K-8 school shocked St. Joseph parents, who immediately launched an effort to save the school. But it’s not a surprise to those watching private schools across America struggle as parents lose jobs, businesses close and charitable contributions evaporate.

A survey by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit scholarship funding organization that hosts this blog, found 73 percent of Florida private schools said they are experiencing declines in re-enrollment last year, and 58 percent said they’re worried about their viability for the coming school year. The research and advocacy group EdChoice got similar results when it surveyed private schools nationwide last month. More than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in April, including 893,000 in Florida.

The Sunshine State has one of the biggest private school sectors in the country, and some of the nation’s biggest school choice programs. But those programs are primarily for lower-income students and students with special needs. It remains to be seen how much they will help private schools trying to retain working-class and middle-class parents who may be forced, in coming months, to make agonizing decisions about their children’s educations.

Seventy-eight of St. Joseph Academy’s 162 K-8 students used the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or Family Empowerment Scholarship for lower-income students, while 26 used the Gardiner Scholarship or McKay Scholarship for students with special needs. (The FTC, FES and Gardiner programs are administered by nonprofits like Step Up.)

To date, the most meaningful government relief for private schools has come from the Paycheck Protection Program, which offer a two-month respite for small businesses and nonprofits. Other federal relief streams for education are aimed primarily at public schools, and attempts to steer a more equitable share to private schools has met with relentless pushback.

Other potential remedies, including the possibility of temporary tuition tax credits, have so far generated little debate. Likewise for the potential negative impacts on public schools, which will likely have to absorb former private school students in the face of massive financial and logistical challenges.

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Analysis: Montana scholarship program fulfills a public purpose in providing K-12 education

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

Editor’s note: The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral argument in the latest chapter of the battle over the use of public funding for religious schools. Supporters of such funding argue that the government should not be allowed to discriminate against religious families and schools, while opponents warn that requiring the government to allow public funds to be used for religious schools could harm public education. redefinED executive editor Matt Ladner shares his thoughts in today’s post. Stay tuned for an analysis from Leslie Hiner, vice president of legal affairs at EdChoice, coming next week.

I’m not an attorney, nor do I play one on television. Nevertheless, the transcript of the Espinoza vs. Montana oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court make for fascinating reading.

In 2015, the Montana Legislature passed a small scholarship tax credit under which taxpayers donate to groups providing scholarships to students wishing to attend private schools. The state provides the donor with a credit against their state tax burden and the nonprofit collects funds to provide scholarship aid to eligible families.

After the Montana program passed, the Montana Department of Revenue made an administrative ruling that the scholarships could not be used at religious private schools. The amendment reads:

The legislature, counties, cities, towns, school districts, and public corporations shall not make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies, or any grant of lands or other property for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination. This section shall not apply to funds from federal         sources provided to the state for the express purpose of distribution to non-public education.” (Montana Const. Art. X, § 6)

A group of Montana mothers challenged the administrative ruling in state court, noting that the position of the Montana Department of Revenue was contrary to a number of U.S. Supreme Court rulings requiring government neutrality toward religious groups. The Montana Supreme Courts ruled against the mothers and struck down the entire program. The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, let’s get a few things out of the way.

The Montana Department of Revenue ought not to have made this ruling in the first place. The Montana Legislature did not make an appropriation, and the purpose of what it did was not to aid any church or school, but rather to aid students and families.

Read the argument in its entirety, but in my book, the crucial exchange came in a question from Justice Kavanaugh to the attorney defending Montana’s action:

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: But this is a – this is a school, in education, there satisfies the compulsory education laws of the state, correct?

UNIKOWSKY: That’s true.

This exchange reveals that the scholarship program fulfills a public purpose in providing a K-12 education to students. For however long Montana has had compulsory K-12 attendance laws is the same period that attendance at a private school has satisfied that state requirement.

The U.S. Supreme Court has established a standard of government neutrality toward religious groups, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc. v. Comer  being the most recent. Thus, a Montana fire department would be engaging in unconstitutional religious discrimination if it refused to put out a fire in a burning place of worship for fear of “aiding” religion.

Several justices further noted that if Montana decided to establish a scholarship program but then decided to strike it down based upon the race of the recipients, that would represent unconstitutional discrimination. Why, they asked, should the Montana Supreme Court be allowed to strike down this neutral program simply because some of the families would choose a religious education?

Disbanding a program simply because some of the beneficiaries would be religious lies at the heart of this case.

The Institute of Justice’s Dick Komer summed it up well in his closing:

What we’re saying here is that Trinity – what Trinity Lutheran says, the state can’t discriminate on the basis of religion. The decision is crystal clear when you read it that that is what they are doing in this case. They focus on the religious affiliation or religious nature of the schools. They are not talking about what the schools do. They are talking about what the schools are.

Second, Zelman has already answered the question about who this program is aiding. It’s not aiding the schools. It is aiding the parents. You have a choice to make about the parents here. You can either view them as mere inconsequential conduits through which public funds flow to the religious schools they choose or you can regard them, as you did in Zelman, as free and independent decision-makers who are being given the power to choose a religious education or a secular education in private schools.

We’ll learn the ruling of the justices later this year.

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archivED: The sisters of St. Joseph

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

St. Benedict The Moor School, St. Augustine, Fla.

Editor’s note: Each Saturday in October, redefinED is reviving a post from our archives that speaks to the rich and sometimes surprising history of education choice in the United States. Today’s post, which first appeared in May 2016, tells the story of three Catholic nuns who fought to educate black children who were “pushed to the margins by oppressive public institutions.”

A century ago, three Catholic sisters in St. Augustine, Fla., were arrested for something the state Legislature had recently made a crime: teaching black children at what in the parlance of the time was known as a “negro school.”

The ensuing trial propelled a 266-year-old French Catholic order and America’s youngest Catholic Bishop into the middle one of the wildest and most racially charged gubernatorial campaigns in Florida history. A hundred years ago today, the white sisters won their legal battle, vindicating the rights of private institutions like the Saint  Benedict the Moor School that fought to create educational opportunities for black children in the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Black parents’ demand for quality education didn’t begin with Brown v. Board, but hundreds of years before, in chains and in secret. But near the turn of the twentieth century, as Jim Crow laws reversed the progress made under post-Civil War reconstruction, public institutions intended to uplift freed blacks became increasingly inadequate and unequal. Black parents often turned to their own churches or to missionary aid societies, like the Sisters of St. Joseph, to educate their children.

The story of the three white Catholic sisters has been examined over the years by multiple scholars, whose work informs this post. And while details in the historical record are at times murky and ambiguous, the episode sheds light on the countless struggles across the South to educate black children who were pushed to the margins by oppressive public institutions.

Founded in 1650 in Le Puy-en-Velay, a rural mountain town in southern France, the Sisters of St. Joseph took up a mission to serve, educate and care for the poor and disadvantaged. For the next 200 years, the sisters pursued their mission throughout France until they were invited to Florida by Bishop Augustin Verot after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

Verot, a native of Le Puy, recruited eight sisters for a new mission: To educate newly freed slaves and their children.

The sisters established Florida’s first Catholic school for black students in 1867 along St. George Street in St. Augustine. They would go on to establish schools in Key West and in Ybor City. With the financial backing of a wealthy heiress, Saint Katharine Drexel, the Sisters of St. Joseph opened St. Benedict the Moor School in 1898.

The Sisters of St. Joseph, along with other religious groups like the Protestant American Missionary Association, educated black students in private and public schools in Florida for several decades. But then the legislature lashed out against their efforts. “An Act Prohibiting White Persons from Teaching Negroes in Negro Schools” unanimously passed through both chambers without debate, and was signed into law on June 7, 1913.

At the time, the Sisters of St. Joseph, Sisters of the Holy Names, and other Catholic orders operated schools for black children throughout the state. According to historian Barbara Mattick, St. Joseph’s school in Pensacola educated 190 students; St. John the Evangelist in Warrington had 34; St. Francis Xavier School in Key West, had 95; St. Benedict the Moor, in Ybor City, educated 125 students; St. Peter Claver in Fernandina had 29; St. Peter Claver in Tampa had 125; St. Benedict the Moor in St. Augustine taught 65.

Bishop William John Kenny turned to his legal counsel, Alston Cockrell, for advice about the new law.

Cockrell believed the law to be unconstitutional. “This discrimination, in my opinion, makes the act void,” he wrote. He advised the bishop to ignore the law and continue teaching black children, or to establish a test case and challenge the constitutionality of the law.

Kenny died in October of 1913, but his successor, 34-year old Bishop Michael Joseph Curley, followed Cockrell’s advice. When authorities asked Curley to remove white teachers from black schools, he refused, and vowed to fight the law all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine were celebrating the 50th anniversary of their mission to educate black students of Florida in April 1916, when the sheriff arrived. On orders from Gov. Park Trammell to enforce the law, the sheriff arrested Sister Mary Thomasine Hehir, Sister Mary Scholastica Sullivan and Sister Mary Benignus Cameron. The charge: being a white teacher and “unlawfully teaching negroes in a negro school.”

The arrest of three Catholic sisters attracted national attention and may have even helped propel an open bigot and conspiracy theorist to Florida’s highest elected office.

Sidney Catts, a Baptist preacher, insurance salesman and populist Democrat running for Governor in 1916, concocted elaborate conspiracy theories designed to stoke the fears among Protestant white voters of his day.

On the campaign trail in 1916, the flamboyant Catts made outrageous accusations that Catholics at St. Leo Abbey in San Antonio, Fla., were hording weapons under the church to aid blacks in an armed revolt on behalf of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. A successful revolt, he warned, would result in Pope Benedict XV moving the Holy See from the Vatican to Pasco County. Once there, the theory ran, the Pope would order all Protestant churches in the state to be closed.

For Catts, the trial of the three sisters for defying state race laws lent credence to these ideas. Highlighting the trial on the campaign trail, Catts argued that Catholics wanted to destroy public schools, and overturn the democratically approved social order of Jim Crow. According to Mattick, the historian, the sisters of St. Joseph and their defiance of state law were  portrayed “as an example of how Catholic power spelled changes in Southern racial arrangement.”

Sidney Catts initially won the Democratic nomination, but a recount forced him into the Prohibition Party. He would go on to win the general election.

Meanwhile, following the arrest of the sisters, black schools across the state remained closed as they awaited a verdict.

On May 20, 1916, Judge George Cooper Gibbs ruled that the 1913 law violated the state constitution and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Gibbs held that the law discriminated against people not only because of the color of their skin, but because of their profession. He wrote:

Has a white teacher any the less right to sell his services to negro pupils than a white doctor to negro patients, or a white lawyer to negro clients, or a white merchant as a right to sell his goods to negro customers, and vice versa?

St. Benedict the Moor School in 2011. Source, Google Maps.

Ultimately, the judge ruled that the law barring the teaching of black children could only apply to public schools. In his determination, the state had no authority to regulate private schools in such a manner. Segregation in Florida Public Schools would continue for another half-century, but dozens of black private schools were allowed to remain open thanks to his ruling.

St. Benedict the Moor School eventually closed in 1968 as Florida began to desegregate its public schools.

The Sisters of St. Joseph — like countless other educators across the South, from Mary McLeod Bethune to the founders of the Mississippi Freedom School — found a way to educate black students at a time when many public institutions and leaders would not. Their struggles reveal how new and alternative educational options have always had to fight for their survival. But they make today’s fights look easy by comparison.

Sources:

Adams, Nathan A. “Florida’s Blaine Amendment: Goldilocks and the Separate but Equal Doctrine,” Saint Thomas Law Review, Fall 2011.

Mattick, Barbara E. “Ministries in Black and White” Ph.D. dissertation in History, Florida State University, 2008.

McGoldrick, Sister Thomas Joseph, “Beyond the Call, The Legacy of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida.” 2007.

McNally, Michael J. “Catholic Parish Life on Florida’s West Coast, 1860-1968,” (C) Michael James Timothy McNally, 1996.

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Growing up as an immigrant fueled this Catholic school principal’s passion

Livi Stanford
Livi Stanford

Editor’s note: Throughout August, redefinED is revisiting stories that shine a light on extraordinary educators. Today’s post, first published in June 2018, relates how a Cuban immigrant rose to become principal of a Catholic school in south Florida that is becoming increasingly diverse under her leadership.

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – Vikki Delgado remembers the difficulty her father experienced when he settled the family of six in America.

Living as a Cuban immigrant, he faced backlash. But he sought to bring his family out of Cuba in 1959 just as Fidel Castro was coming to power.

“There was pushback,” Delgado said.  People thought “my dad was coming to take jobs away. That somehow opening doors to others is going to take something away from them.”

“You would see signs against Cubans,” she added. “I saw how polarizing that can be.”

The family of six settled in Miami in 1968 after spending a few years in Ohio. He left his home of Cuba right as Fidel Castro emerged in power in 1959.

Arriving in the United States at the age of 3, Delgado did not know a word of English. She began to learn the language at the age of 5 through TV programs such as Captain Kangaroo.

In her 20s, she saw the nativist backlash against the Mariel Boatlift and race riots in Liberty City. Such events affected her deeply.

Delgado is now the leader of St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic School in Delray Beach, Fla. The strife she witnessed in her youth fuels her drive to create a school where all are welcome. Like in Florida Catholic schools as a whole, the student population at her school has grown increasingly diverse.

When she first became principal at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic School in 2008 there were few minority students at the school.

“Everybody looked the same,” said Desiree Alaniz, a fourth- and fifth-grade teaching assistant at the school. “Everybody spoke the same. You would see one minority child in every three classes.”

When Delgado first took the helm, the school had approximately 318 students, and more than four out of five were white. In the decade since, enrollment has increased by 46 students, and children of color comprise nearly a third of its student population. In other words, the school’s demographics are coming more closely in line with those of the community it serves, and students of color are driving enrollment growth.

This shift at St. Vincent embodies a statewide trend. Data from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops show the percentage of black and Hispanic students attending Catholic schools has risen steadily since 2011.

Delgado says the desire to welcome all types of children embodies the Catholic faith.

“We are the universal church,” she said. “The same mass is celebrated daily around the world. The traditions may be different. The culture differences are there but that only adds to the richness of the Catholic church and school.”

Delgado said she was able to help diversify the school by offering tax credit scholarships to low-income students and working-class students, and the state’s voucher program for children with special needs, the McKay Scholarship Program. More than a fifth of the school’s students now use one of those two programs. (Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer the tax credit scholarship program.)

“It is wanting all families to have choice,” she said. “I think me having a second language, I wanted families seeking a Catholic education to feel at home.”

Delgado is “open with different people from different backgrounds,” Alaniz said. “I think she brought to the school more of a sense of accepting people with their differences: Not only among the students but the culture of the faculty and staff.”

A love of teaching

Growing up, Delgado remembers teaching her siblings at a young age. She discovered she loved helping others learn. Her mother also was a kindergarten teacher at the time, which inspired her toward a career in education.

“I think I was a teacher my whole life,” Delgado said laughing.

At first, she fought the urge to go into teaching, as the arts were calling her. At the same time, her father urged her to stray from the role because he worried about the low salary of a teacher.

But she couldn’t stay away for long.

Delgado studied music and education at the University of Miami, graduating with degrees in both subjects. She then earned a master’s in educational leadership at Nova Southeastern University in 1990. From there, she then taught five years in Miami-Dade public schools.

From 1995 to 2004 she taught Pre-K at St. Vincent Ferrer and then returned in 2008, encouraged by her mother.

Room to grow

Parents have been drawn to St. Vincent’s strong academics and versatile arts programs. The school is planning to expand and renovate thanks to a $6 million dollar fundraising project to create additional space. This will allow the school to double its capacity and put in a science lab, expand the media center and allow space for an early childhood program.

“We are building a new building because I think people in the community trust Delgado a lot,” Alaniz said. “She also brought in all the technology and iPads.”

Dean Charles said his daughter, Angelica, loves dance class at St. Vincent.

Delgado has made an investment in her students and families, Charles said. When he first enrolled his daughter for first grade, Delgado had already become familiar with Angelica’s previous school and its principal.

“She makes it her business to know all of her students,” Dean said. “She always gets back to me. I don’t have to wait until Monday to get an answer.”

Delgado said she learned her work ethic from her father, who never gave up and worked in numerous jobs, from counting money at football games to serving as a bank teller to working as a payroll clerk for the city of Miami, where he retired.

Indeed, Alaniz said it is not uncommon for her to receive an email from Delgado at 3 a.m. She is constantly thinking about ways to improve things at the school.

Eric Keiper, music teacher at the school, said there’s a close-knit, community atmosphere.

“When my wife was in the hospital, every single day Delgado called me as soon as the meeting was over,” he said. “Every single teacher in school asked, how is your wife? The priest went to visit her at 10 o clock at night. It is magical.”

Character counts

Each year students are invited to come up with a character-based theme the school will emphasize throughout the year.

In previous years, students chose the Oscar Wilde quote: “Be yourself because everyone else is taken.” This past year’s was: “Your life is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.”

“It is living life with a purpose,” Delgado said. “What are you going to do with your life?”

Delgado continues to teach the importance of tolerance and respect for everyone.

When she visited Milwaukee recently and attended a baseball game she heard individuals making fun of the baseball players last names’ because they were Hispanic.

She took the opportunity to let the individuals know kindly that she and her husband were from Cuba.

The two men responded with a surprised look.

“I know God is going to give me an opportunity to teach them a lesson,” she said. “We want to open people’s minds not shut down the mind because we are attacking.”

It is a lesson she teaches students.

“When you are given a choice, choose kindness,” she said. “No one can come back at you with kindness. I see that openness of mind occurring in our children, which gives me hope.”

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