Hurtado scholars program continues success

July 1, 2021 marked the completion of another summer of hard work and dedication from the Hurtado Scholars. Since 2013, groups of rising 6th, 7th, and 8th graders have spent much of their summer breaks at Rockhurst working to improve and accelerate their study skills and spiritual growth.

This began with the first class of Hurtado Scholars as rising 6th graders in 2013, who would go on to be the first program graduates in 2016. These seven young men earned the opportunity to attend Rockhurst High School while receiving the necessary financial assistance to make it possible. All seven would thrive at Rockhurst and receive their diplomas as members of the great Class of 2020 and turned their sights to college. Of the seven graduates in the Class of 2021, five were with honors. And then another seven would graduate in the

Standardized Testing

Class of 2022, bringing the to-date total number of graduates to 21. Twenty are enrolled in higher education programs and one in a career-prep vocational program.

Meanwhile, the middle school students continued their growth cycles of success. The three partner Catholic grade schools are Holy Cross, Our Lady of Hope, and St. Regis Academy, all part of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Following a successful 2021-22 academic year and summer program, the Hurtado Scholars Program boasted the following figures: 21 program graduates enrolled at a college or vocational program, 33 program graduates enrolled at Rockhurst High School for the upcoming 2022-23 school year, and 34 are grade school students continuing as Hurtado Scholars.

Hurtado Scholars in the Rockhurst Classes of 2020, 2021, and 2022 earned cumulative GPAs of 3.39.

The program has grown and been sustained by significant support from grants from the McGowan Charitable Fund in Chicago, providing $680,000 to the program to-date. The McGowan grant, issued as a challenge grant in 2021 and 2022, has catalyzed additional significant donor support, as well as the creation of several board-designated funds by donors to support program costs as well as tuition assistance.

You can add your support at www.rockhursths.edu/ hurtado/donate.

*Battery Averages can be read as if a student is scoring as a student would be expected to in a certain month of a given grade. Thus, in July 2021, our incoming seventh graders, on average, scored as students would be expected to in the second month of their seventh grade year. These scores suggest that in the eleven months between August 2020 and July 2021, this class progressed, on average, nearly 1.5 grade levels academically.