Seton Academy students Cindy Ly, Ashleigh Higgins, Andrea Cabrera, Ashley Rondan. Photo courtesy ESA

By Katherine McInerney
Special to the Reporter

Elizabeth Seton Academy in Lower Mills will celebrate its fifth anniversary March 29, honoring five women who uphold the ESA mission of Education, Service and Achievement.

The school opened in 2003 when rising costs, changing demographics and declining enrollments forced Monsignor Ryan Memorial High School to close its doors after 85 years. Alumni were unwilling to close the door on local girls who they believed would benefit from single gender education rooted in the Catholic faith.

A board of directors was formed, said founding member George Asher, who originally suggested the creation of a new school to replace MRM.

"It was kind of a bold thing," he said, since the last Catholic high school to be founded in Boston was Ursuline Academy&emdash;now located in Dedham&emdash;in 1946. The board decided to the new girls' school in the spirit of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax founded by Elizabeth Seton.

Elise Rae of Dorchester, now a junior at Manhattan College in Riverdale, N.Y., was a sophomore at MRM when it closed. She worked closely with the alumni board to get ESA off of the ground, rallying the community and her peers around the new school.

"Thank god ESA opened up," Rae said, who found other schools in the area "too big and too impersonal…It was important to find a small, close-knit school where you felt like you could be you and that's good enough," said Rae, who will be one of the five honorees at the anniversary celebration.

Research has shown the benefits of all-girls education, said Dr. Maureen White, principal of ESA. It produces a student that is much more secure, "someone that is able to raise their hand and take risks because they don't have the other sex there," White said. The goal for her students is that they will "find their voice so they are able to advocate for themselves, form opinions, speak up, and do that with confidence."

"People really only notice girls when they're pregnant or on welfare," said Bridget Rice, trustee and chair of ESA's advancement activity. But "some of ESA's girls are really breaking a lot of barriers and overcoming obstacles."

One hundred percent of ESA graduates have gone on to college, said Asher, and most of them were the first in their families to do so. Many come from single-parent homes and streets that are accustomed to violence.

"Some girls, when they go home, they don't go out at night because of the neighborhoods they come from," White said, adding that one student was recently said her morning prayer for her neighborhood to be safe again after a double homicide.

ESA's student body is made up of 100 girls from the greater Boston area - 44 are from Dorchester, eight from Mattapan. Other students come from Hyde Park, Roslindale, South Boston, Roxbury, Cambridge and Brockton, among others.

White said the biggest struggle for the school so far has been finances since they offer subsidized tuition and 55 percent of students receive additional financial aid. Tuition at ESA is around $5,000, about half of what is charged at other Catholic high schools in the area, according to Asher. As an independent school, they receive no funding from the Archdiocese of Boston and rely on grants, donations, and assistance from the Catholic Schools Foundation and the Yawkey Foundation.

"Affordability is a resonating theme for us," Rice said, recognizing education as "the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and opening doors to everyone." Sixty percent of ESA students qualify for the free lunch program, Rice said, which is based on low family income.

ESA's endowment will be launched at the anniversary celebration taking place at the UMass Boston Campus Center. White said they hope to bring in money to expand after school programs and extracurricular activities. "To be able to have a state of the art professional high school we need to raise a lot of money," she said, though she's not worried. "Everyone is so passionate about this school. When I bring in an adult interested in all girl education, the students sell the story. They are so wonderful, so enthusiastic, so friendly, you feel the love as soon as you walk in the building."

The other four alumnae of MRM and ESA to be honored are Valerie Moseley, a partner at Wellington Management; Theresa Orcutt, co-founder of My Brother's Keeper; Dr. Miren Uriarte, founding director of Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy; and Claudelle Dubuisson of Hyde Park.

A look back in the Reporter files:

Gracefully, Seton Academy is born at old St. Greg's 7.31.03

A chance for redemption after MRM closes 6.12.03

For MRM, it's the last of the ninth 5.1.03