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Colegio San Ignacio De Loyola San Juan, Puerto Rico

By January 29, 2021December 18th, 2021No Comments
CELEBRATING YOUR CATHOLIC SCHOOL
Catholic schools are such an integral part of Middle States membership and we are excited to celebrate Catholic Schools Week with all of you!
In honor of the theme  of Faith. Excellence. Service. We’d like to introduce you to our Service Learning Program of Distinction recipient  Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola in San Juan, PR. Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola is an all-male, Catholic, Jesuit, college-preparatory school for grades 7-12 under the direction of the Society of Jesus in Puerto Rico. It was established in San Juan, PR in 1952, so we have been offering an education of excellence for 69 years. True to its mission of providing a high-quality Catholic education, Colegio San Ignacio presently serves a student population of 535 young men, 24% of whom receive financial assistance.
What does Service mean to Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola? Deeply rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church and following the example of its founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, our prime educational objective is to educate “men for others”. The school provides students with opportunities for contact with the world of injustice and poverty. Our students offer diverse kinds of service to them, both in school and outside. A formal, structured academic program to reflect on the experience of service is in place in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades, and grades 7th – 9th also imbue the curriculum with service initiatives. Jesuit education helps students to realize that “talents are gifts to be developed, not for self-satisfaction or self-gain, but rather, for the good of the human community.” (Characteristics of Jesuit Education, 82)

In April 2018, the Middle States Association awarded us with the Service-Learning Distinction award for integrating community service into the entire school program.

What we have done for Catholic Education:
  • Magis Service Program: a requirement for 12th graders. Students work on a capstone project researching the history, social and economic conditions of a local community, and combining it with service hours in that community.
  • Introduction in 2015 of the Daily Examen, a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day. We started offering it twice a week, but since 2019 it is offered daily.
  • Joining Educate Magis, a Jesuit online community connecting educators from all Jesuit schools around the world.
  • We are certified as a Jesuit school by the USA Central and Southern Province.
  • Introduction and discussion of the document Universal Apostolic Preferences: 2019-2029. This document presents four preferences to be worked on in the next ten years: Showing the way to God, walking with the excluded, journeying with youth, and caring for Earth, our common home.
  • Participation of our staff in the Virtus Program workshop Protecting God’s Children, a component of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group. Attendance and registration in the program were mandatory for all our staff.
  • Introduction and discussion in groups of the new document of the Company of Jesus on Education: Jesuit schools: a living tradition for the 21st century.
  • Professional development for the Faculty and staff through workshops and trainings related to Catholic education. Some of them were:
    Strengthening our Ignatian Identity: 200 years of Ignatian Reinstatement: 1814-2014, José Cedeño, SJ
    Catholic School Identity Conference
    Ignatian Leadership- Mr. Peter Russo, USA Central and Southern Province and Orlando Portalatín, SJ
    Conference Educators of Catholic schools of the 21st century: principles of Catholic doctrine

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