St. Louis, Mo., Sep 10, 2022 / 09:00 am
Dolores Mission grade school in Los Angeles didn’t always have the reputation it has today. A few decades ago, the area surrounding the church and school had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in an already dangerous metropolis.
“We didn’t always have the reputation of being a stellar school. In fact, we had a lot of issues. The gangs very much control our surroundings,” Karina Moreno-Corgan, the school’s president of nine years, told CNA.
But in recent years, thanks in part to a Catholic organization that supports Latino leadership, the school — which draws the majority of its students from the surrounding low-income area east of downtown — is sending many of its graduates on to college rather than into the arms of the local gangs.
Moreno-Corgan told CNA that of the students who attend Dolores Mission — which goes up to eighth grade — 84% ultimately go to a four-year university; this from an area where just 3% of people have been to college.