A roomful of first graders at
St. Peter Claver Latin School for Boys eagerly await Friday’s lunch period as they finish preparing their Flat Stanley projects.
“My name is Lofell,” says the excited 7-year-old as he reads his letter aloud. “I like to count numbers. I like to play Legos. It is fun. My favorite thing is math, because I like to add and take away.”
The Flat Stanley Project, created in 1995, is intended as a follow-up to reading
Flat Stanley, a children’s book series in which a boy wakes up one day completely flattened after a bulletin board falls on him in his sleep. As a result, he can now be mailed, so he visits his friends, sees sights and engages in adventures along the way.
“So kids can create a Flat Stanley and he can go places, and then information — letters, whatever — comes back,” says Nancy Tunnat, who teaches first grade at the school. “So they are writing letters to a teacher who taught here last year and is now in South Carolina. He’s communicated with our class, so they’re now making letters of what Stanley is doing in their favorite part of the classroom, and they’re going to send those.”
That’s just one of the many reading activities students engage in through their instruction with Tunnat. The lunch they’re so eagerly awaiting is, in fact, a reward for being such avid readers.
“Two of mine have read 36 Accelerated Reader books and taken their tests, and over the Christmas holiday they read every day,” Tunnat says. “They got to choose what they wanted as their reward, so I’m taking the class to
Goodfellas for pizza lunch.”
Making connections by studying Latin
Meanwhile, across the hall, fourth and fifth grade boys receive Latin instruction.
Each session begins with the recitation of “Ave Maria,” which Latin teacher Ann-Marie Maly says helps set the tone for the day.
Learning Latin at age 9 is certainly unique, and the benefits it provides are already being recognized, as the boys are able to make connections and identify the language in their everyday lives.
“They see connections in the books they read,” Maly says. “For example,
Percy Jackson refers to many of the mythological stories that we translate in Latin class.
Harry Potter also offers examples of Latin in the spells the characters use and (in) some of the characters’ names. Even video games provide a connection to wars, heroes and gods that we discuss during the historical side of Latin class.”
Latin instruction is just one of the many things that differentiates the school from other K-8 institutions in the city.
Located at 13th and Main streets in the heart of Over-the-Rhine, instruction occurs in classroom space rented from
Old St. Mary’s Church. Although the school provides Catholic instruction and is part of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, it’s a non-parochial institution, is privately funded and operates as a charter school governed by a Board of Trustees and Advisors.
There are a total of four classrooms, as the school population is currently at just 27 students, and the learning environment is intimate — one that lends itself to a tight-knit group of students, teachers and administration that, according to Headmaster
Jonathan Love, resembles a family.
Love joined St. Peter Claver Latin School for Boys last May and was brought in as a “fresh face,” he says, to continue the late Father Al Lauer’s mission of providing Catholic and Latin instruction to a community of young males who have the potential of becoming community leaders.
“He started it in 2001 when there was a lot of outcry of ‘What do we do with our urban youth, African American males, and in particular in this part of town?’” Love says. “During the riots you had the greatest impact in OTR and the West End, so there was that push to reach out and see if we could do something to reach these boys who are maybe not being served by the greater community. This led to building a school.”
And ever since, boys have entered St. Peter Claver and excelled academically, pursuing higher education and applying themselves in a way that reflects Father Lauer’s vision.
It’s now Love’s personal goal, he says, to expand on that vision through a rigorous curriculum, high expectations and an emphasis on character-building and moral instruction.
“I have been in the communities that many of these boys have come from,” Love says. “Being a lifelong Cincinnatian, I know the pitfalls that are out there, and I don’t sugarcoat it, especially with our older boys. I really hold them truly accountable with their choices.”
Community service, rigor, discipline and religious studies equal success
Love is the first African-American male to lead the school, and as a lifelong resident who remained in the community and now serves as a leader himself he’s a model for what he expects out of St. Peter Claver graduates.
“Whether it’s the kids I used to play baseball with that are dead because they decided to deal drugs, I’ve been around those life decisions but was always fortunate enough to have that family background that kept me doing the right thing, that kept me focused,” Love says. “But it’s sad because these young men don’t necessarily have the same thing, so it’s on my plate, on Ms. Brown’s (the St. Peter Claver administrative assistant’s) plate, our teachers’ plates to make sure we put those expectations on them and not give up on them. We can’t give up on the boys.”
Beginning next year, sixth through eighth grade students will be required to have 15-20 community service hours each year as a prerequisite to moving on to the next grade level, as Love considers community giving to be an integral aspect of what it means to be a St. Peter Claver student. It’s also his goal to kick-start wrestling and potentially fencing programs at the school in the coming years.
“Nontraditional sports, because every single one of these boys will swear up and down they’re going to be the next LeBron James,” Love says. “I’m not a dream crasher, but I want these boys to be realistic.”
Through rigor, discipline, religious studies and the expectation that each and every boy
will attend college, Love is determined to help the students succeed.
“I want them to walk down the street and have folks say, ‘That’s a St. Peter Claver kid. I can tell because he’s head held high, holding doors for others, speaking at the appropriate time, not rude, not overly brash, not arrogant, very self aware but also community serving,’” Love says. “Because a lot of these boys will realize in time there’s a community giving to them, and they’ll owe it to them to give back. I told them, ‘There will be no excuses. You will be this way. Whether by force of will or whatever, we’re going to make it happen,’ and they’ll be better for it because the communities they’re in don’t always have that.”