Expansion CHOOSING

When the Partnership expanded to Cleveland in 2020, our two schools served 331 students. Now, Partnership Cleveland serves more than 1,100: St. Thomas Aquinas and Archbishop Lyke have grown, and two new schools—Metro Catholic and St. Francis—have joined our network.

This opportunity to expand our footprint in Cleveland comes at exactly the right time. Last year, fueled by the leadership Catholic schools showed throughout the pandemic, U.S. Catholic school enrollment grew for the first time in more than two decades and experienced the largest increase in more than 50 years.

Sustaining this growth requires intentional, strategic effort—precisely what the Partnership brings to schools. As Regional Superintendent Christian Dallavis explains, we have “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize Catholic schools that are beacons of hope and have been among Cleveland’s greatest engines of social mobility for over a century.”

Metro Catholic has a history of evolving to continue serving families on Cleveland’s west side, and St. Francis has been a mainstay of the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood since 1887. Both schools remain animated by the spirit of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

“We leverage the strength of each of our school communities,” Kathleen Porter-Magee explains, “and those individual strengths become a force multiplier.”