St. Frances Academy plans to welcome middle schoolers

St. Frances Academy in East Baltimore will welcome its first middle schoolers at the start of the 2025-26 school year after receiving approval in May from the Maryland State Department of Education and accreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

“We’re here to serve the community,” said Melissa D’Adamo, associate head of St. Frances Academy. “We want to meet the needs of those students who need us.”

Founded in 1828 by Mother Mary Lange to teach children of color to read the Bible, St. Frances Academy has been at its current location on Chase Street in Baltimore since 1871. It is sponsored by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the religious community founded by Mother Lange in 1829. St. Frances Academy transitioned from an all-girls school to a coeducational institution in 1971.

Last summer, 12 homeschooled youths unaffiliated with the school started meeting regularly on the school steps for afternoon educational sessions. 

Before long, school staff gave them access to a classroom where the youths could work on their Catholic virtual studies program. In time, St. Frances teachers began offering additional schooling.

“I made it clear, they were not St. Frances students,” Deacon B. Curtis Turner, St. Frances Academy principal/head of school, said with a chuckle. “They were telling everybody they were going to St. Frances and wearing St. Frances apparel.”

When the school’s athletic director organized a basketball team for the homeschoolers, they wore St. Frances uniforms all the way to the championship.

People started calling school leaders asking about the possibility of opening a middle school, Deacon Turner said. After studying the idea, school leaders thought it would be feasible to open the middle school next school year.

“We seriously realized it was God’s way of saying we should work through the process,” Deacon Turner explained.

Adding sixth, seventh and eighth graders involves relatively few extra costs, according to Deacon Turner and D’Adamo.

“Education is so different. We don’t use textbooks,” D’Adamo said, noting most resources are now online. A teacher with middle school curriculum expertise is needed, but the school’s 12 full-time teachers are already certified to teach middle school, and many were already overseeing the students on their own.

“I’m excited about it. It is something new,” Jatrea Long, an English teacher said. “They’re younger and at a different level. I’m always up for a challenge.”

While the goal is to maintain a small program, Deacon Turner sees it growing quickly.

“There have been so many inquiries about middle school,” Deacon Turner said. “We can increase capacity. We have the classroom space.”

The original 12 homeschoolers are still unaffiliated with the school, but will officially become students in the fall. The two students who worked in Long’s classroom on the last day of school, May 29, said they were thankful to be the school’s first eighth graders.

A 15-year-old homeschool student who will be a freshman at St. Frances Academy in September is excited about being at the historic educational institution.

“I get to be one of the people who wants to be something,” he said.

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

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