On the first day of school at St. Francis International School in Silver Spring, breakfast was making its way into a preschool classroom when nutrition director Jakeeya Veney noticed one student was having a hard morning.
Zoe Guatemala was crying. Veney stopped beside her, put an arm around her and stayed with her for a few moments as the other children prepared to eat.
Around the school, students were settling into classrooms, families were saying goodbye and teachers were beginning the work of getting a new school year underway.
On the first day of school at St. Francis International School in Silver Spring, breakfast was making its way into a preschool classroom when nutrition director Jakeeya Veney noticed one student was having a hard morning.
Zoe Guatemala was crying. Veney stopped beside her, put an arm around her and stayed with her for a few moments as the other children prepared to eat.
Around the school, students were settling into classrooms, families were saying goodbye and teachers were beginning the work of getting a new school year underway.
St. Francis International School welcomed about 280 students in pre-K through eighth grade Aug. 25.
The school day began over the intercom with Sam Chapa, the principal, telling students, “We are going to be successful.”
He wished a student a happy birthday, then asked everyone to put aside what they were doing and join him in prayer. Together, the school prayed the Our Father before continuing with the morning announcements and Pledge of Allegiance.
That routine is a normal part of life at the Catholic school, even though a significant number of its students are not Catholic.
About 40% of the St. Francis students were not Catholic this past school year, Chapa said. The exact figure for this year was still being calculated as families completed enrollment information.
Chapa said the idea that children do not have to be Catholic to attend a Catholic school has become more widely understood in recent years, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some families to look for other educational options.
“There is still a bit of a traditional (attitude that), ‘It’s only for Catholic families,’” he said.
St. Francis serves families from a wide range of religious and cultural backgrounds. About half of the school’s students are Latino, Chapa said, and the school also has African and Asian families, including families who belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, part of the Oriental Orthodox tradition of Christianity.
Many of those families are specifically looking for an education where faith has a place in the school day.
Chapa said some immigrant families also arrive in the United States already familiar with Catholic or other faith-based schools because their children, or the parents themselves, attended them in their home countries.
For them, an American public school may actually be the less familiar option.
“The concept of public education may have actually been more foreign to them than a Catholic education,” Chapa said.
The school’s Franciscan identity can provide another point of familiarity.
“Franciscans, for example, we are operated by the Franciscans. They’re worldwide,” Chapa said. “So you talk to somebody from Bangladesh, they are familiar with the Franciscans. You talk to somebody from Peru, and they too are familiar with the Franciscans.”
“The beautiful thing is it translates,” he added. “We’re simply the local version of that entity that maybe they’ve grown up with.”
The needs of families extend beyond academics.
St. Francis has a counselor and an English-learning coordinator on staff. Chapa described multilingualism as “the blessing of another language,” while acknowledging that students may also be learning English at the same time they are adjusting to a new school.
The school also operates an in-house nutrition program that provides breakfast, lunch and a snack.
“We are one of the few schools in the archdiocese that has a nutrition program in-house,” Chapa said, adding that the goal is to make sure students receive nutritious meals “regardless of what the situation at home is.”
Financial assistance is available through state programs, the Archdiocese of Washington and school-level grants.
For Giovanna Membreno and Christian Saucedo, sending their 7-year-old daughter to St. Francis has meant adjusting the family budget.
Their daughter started at the school in pre-K 4. Since then, the family has moved farther away, but they continue making the drive to Silver Spring.
“She’s so happy,” Membreno said. “The teachers are great. They’re very supportive. We know all of them by name and face.”
Membreno said Catholic school tuition is a real expense for their family.
“It’s tricky. I won’t lie,” she said. “It is an expense, but we think it’s worth it.”
That has meant fewer vacations and choosing more affordable community programs for extracurricular activities, including soccer.
The couple, who attend St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, both grew up Catholic. Membreno’s family is from Nicaragua and Saucedo’s family is from Mexico. Their faith and cultural backgrounds were also part of the decision to choose Catholic education for their daughter.
They hope she will remain at St. Francis through eighth grade.
“We’re going to keep making the sacrifice,” Membreno said.
By then, breakfast had been delivered, prayers had been said and the first-day nerves were beginning to settle. The school year was underway.
