Our Values

REVERENCE and RESPECT for each student as a unique person is critical to Catalyst’s success. We foster respectful relationships as a key to building a mutually supportive community that sets high expectations and demands mutual responsibility. The GOLDEN RULE is the foundation at the Catalyst Schools. By internalizing the demand of the Golden Rule, that we treat one another as we would like to be treated, we join together to promote justice and peace.

Core Values

Relationship:  The heart of the Catalyst Schools is the bond, both professional and personal, that we build with one another among staff and with our students and their parents.  No teaching or learning will take place unless teachers are able to forge positive and appropriate relationships with their students and the parents who entrust their children to our care.  Positive, healthy, and appropriate relationship is the source of change.  The trust and love of a student for his or her teacher unleashes the behaviors that lead to success.

Rigor:  All faculty and staff are called to dedication and commitment for the well-being of the children we serve.  This includes high academic standards, a consistent and healthy culture of peace and calm throughout the school, a discipline code that is a teaching tool, and respect for each person’s talents, skills, and unique gifts.  Students are brought to higher levels of functioning and thinking through a no-nonsense academic program built on solid research.

Results:  100% of Catalyst elementary school graduates will be accepted by and enrolled in high schools with a proven track record of college placement and a mission that is compatible with Catalyst’s vision.  100% of Catalyst—Maria High School graduates will be accepted to a college or university with a proven track record of graduating students from urban communities.  Other desired outcomes include superior teaching evidenced by excellent growth and attainment outcomes as measured by the NWEA and SAT assessments; a healthy, vibrant, and diverse school community; student understanding and adoption of right relationships; a relationship with the larger community that emphasizes the school as a community asset; Catalyst school graduates will go on to college or receive the required preparation for a satisfying and life-sustaining career within five years of their eighth grade graduation.

Hope:  Catalyst pushes students beyond their perceived capacity so they discover they are capable of much more than they thought.  We raise expectations, set the bar high, and help our scholars succeed in their academic work, their personal socio-emotional development, and in what they come to believe they can be in life.  Education is at the service of human dignity and the freedom every person desires.  Catalyst is a vehicle through which those can be enhanced and attained.  Every student can and will learn and become a productive and positive agent for change in Chicago neighborhoods traditionally impacted by economic poverty, the greater Chicago area, the State of Illinois and the larger world community.

“At Catalyst, we believe in educating the whole child. We focus on academics, social skills, self-esteem, citizenship — on all those things that allow students to grow up to be positive and successful members of their communities.”

— Mike Fehrenbach, Founding Team Member of The Catalyst Schools

Our Mission

Catalyst Schools holistically educate the young men and women entrusted to its care by a school community committed to teaching minds and touching hearts.  We teach our scholars to live a life of leadership, meaning, and purpose, and to build a world that is just and peaceful.

We are committed to these cultural values that shape our identity and form our scholars:

• We show profound reverence for each scholar as a unique person
• We foster respectful relationships and build community
• We have high expectations of ourselves and each other, hold ourselves accountable, and deliver high results
• We treat each other the way we want to be treated
• We promote justice and peace

We serve children living in communities challenged by the effects of discrimination and economic poverty. We understand that each of the communities in which we serve have incredible gifts and whose assets, culture, and heritage hold the promise of a great future. Catalyst helps unlock the gift that is within each child by addressing the whole child: academic, social-emotional, physical and psychological. 

We value family because home is the context in which each child grows and develops. Parental involvement in the school is welcome, encouraged, and needed for a child to achieve full potential.

To find out more about the founding principles of Catalyst, please reference The Legacy of Lasallian Education in The Catalyst Schools linked through the image below:

 

 

We teach our scholars to live a life of leadership, meaning, and purpose, and to build a world that is just and peaceful.

Academics

Since the founding of Catalyst Schools, our goal has been to ensure that every graduate is prepared to excel in their chosen post-secondary path for college and career. This goal embodies a critical aspect of the Catalyst Schools' mission to envision a life of meaning and purpose for all people in a world that is just and peaceful. 

Catalyst has adapted its instruction to the national K-12 Common Core Standards. These standards teach 21st century skills, provide benchmarks for each grade level, are evidence based,  and emphasize application of skills to the real world.  A link to the Common Core Standards website can be found here.

To see the quantified results of the programs below, please visit the Catalyst Circle Rock RESULTS and Catalyst Maria RESULTSpages.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Programming

In partnership with the national organization Project Lead The Way, Catalyst is committed to provide rigorous, project-based learning opportunities for scholars to engage Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) concepts.  All Catalyst campuses are partner schools of this organization, giving every Kindergaretn through 12th Grade scholar an opportunity to engage concepts pertaining to this important area of study.  Critical elements of PLTW programming are inquiry and project-based learning experiences that drive scholars’ critical thinking skills, as well as frequent use of iPads.  Catalyst believes that to prepare scholars for 21st Century college and career success, exposure to STEM concepts and technology is critical.

Technology

In addition to SMART boards in every classroom and computer labs, each Catalyst scholar is given the opporunity to engage iPads or Chromebooks on a daily basis.  These are educational opportunities that allow for enhanced group learning and individualized learning plans, while also preparing our scholars as citizens of the 21st Century.

Balanced Literacy

As the foundation to all learning, Catalyst invests heavily in a robust and engaging balanced literacy approach. This approach includes:

• word study
• interactive read-aloud
• shared reading
• writing and reading workshops
• reading comprehension strategy instruction in fiction and non-fiction text
• guided and independent reading.

In addition to an extensive library providing scholars with rich, varied and intriguing books in every classroom, each room has comfortable areas for independent reading, places where scholars are up close and personal for read aloud and guided instruction as our teachers model instruction. Materials and resources are readily available creating a culture of abundance to enhance understanding, learn content and put knowledge to work in every subject area. This is the hallmark of our approach.

Strategic use of these best practices and active scholar engagement in all subject areas is a critical component of our academic program.

Dual Enrollment at Catalyst Maria High School

Catalyst Maria senior scholars qualifying for up to 8 college credits in Dual Enrollment partnership with City Colleges of Chicago.  CMHS scholars have earned hundreds of college credits over the couse of this program.