The Cristo Rey Network comprises 25 high schools that provide a quality, Catholic, college preparatory education to urban young people who live in communities with limited educational options. The schools utilize an innovative work-study program to help make private education affordable to students who might not otherwise have access to traditional private schools.
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Cristo Rey Network schools utilize a longer school day and year, academic assistance, and counseling to prepare students with a broad range of academic abilities for college. All students at Cristo Rey Network schools participate in a work-study program through which they finance the majority of the cost of their education, gain real world job experience, grow in self-confidence and realize the relevance of their education.
In January 2008, Loyola Press released More than A Dream: How One School's Vision is Changing the World. The book, authored by G. R. Kearney, a writer and former volunteer teacher for two years at the school as part of a Georgetown University postgraduation program, documents the development of the Cristo Rey model and the successes of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago and the Cristo Rey Network of Schools. These schools operate with a funding model that Marvin Hoffman's book review in the Chicago Tribune described as the "genius of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School", in which clusters of five students each rotate working one day a week at a job gaining work experience, with the salary covering a portion of the each student's tuition.[1]
In order of the year they joined the network, here are the current 25 Cristo Rey Network high schools:[2]
Other schools are in development in: