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December 2006
By Erin Richards, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Yes, there are dress codes and no boys, but students say their all-girls, Catholic schools go far beyond the stereotypes
Porsche Hamilton, a senior at St. Joan Antida High School, doesn't know what would have happened if she had stayed at Bay View High School. Drugs? Motherhood? Maybe she would have dropped out. Her grades were decent, but she wasn't doing much to earn them. So she transferred - to the all-girls, Catholic high school near downtown.
"Now I want to be a gynecologist," says the 18-year-old. "In Bay View, I wouldn't have even graduated."
Thirteen miles away, on the outskirts of the city at another all-girls, Catholic high school, senior Katie Gavinski made a similar choice - opting for Divine Savior Holy Angels High School over Whitnall High School - mostly because she saw her brother transformed by his attendance at Catholic and all-boys Marquette High School.
"My parents left it open to me to choose, but DS was kind of the natural choice as the best school," Gavinski says. "You learn what it takes to be yourself by being around your girlfriends."
Although both young women chose a similar private, parochial education, they'll graduate from two very different Catholic all-girls schools - one an urban school that's more rugged, diverse and growing, and one nearly in the suburbs that's more polished, homogenous and well-financed. For years, both schools have fostered the educational, spiritual and social development of local girls despite drastic differences in size, resources and student demographics.
Diversity at St. Joan
At St. Joan Antida, 1341 N. Cass St., colorful murals on the walls, like the student body, represent people of religious and ethnic diversity. Saris and head scarfs are common. A handful of girls are pregnant. The dress code is a white top and black bottom, but girls come up with variations: black on white, white on black, short sleeve, long sleeve, track pants, skirts.
The school's principal, Susan Henzig, says students come from 70 different schools, and almost half of them speak a different language at home. Many girls, she says, will be the first in their families to go to college.
In existence for more than 50 years, St. Joan Antida has mostly Hispanic and African-American students, at 37% and 35% respectively, and 10% of the school's population includes multiracial and Middle Eastern students.
In a school with more non-Catholics than Catholics, a more universal identifier is average income: More than 80% of the students receive vouchers to attend St. Joan, and almost the same number qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
"Our girls face a huge amount of challenges," says Teddi Kennedy, the school's director of advancement. "For some of them, just getting here on the bus and getting a good meal is a concern."
That meal is served in a tiny lunch line in the corner of the school's gymnasium. On this day, nearly everything is the same color: a fried chicken patty with a slab of cheese, corn and canned fruit salad.
"I think it's pretty good," Hamilton says, shrugging off notions of fresh greens or fruits as she and her pal Jackie Harper, also a senior, talk about applying to college and how comfortable they are with "being themselves."
"It's so easy - you just wash your face, brush your teeth and come straight to school," Harper says.
At Divine Savior Holy Angels, Gavinski says she regularly wakes up about five minutes before she has to leave for school. And when senior Gina Konieczka was a freshman, she says she once woke up and pulled her uniform on right over her pajamas.
"Of course I wouldn't show up to a job interview with what I'm wearing at the moment," says Konieczka, sheepishly looking at her sweatpants. "But we become so much more comfortable with being ourselves and not being judged by how we look."
School officials say that partially explains the school's success. With a reputation for rigorous academics and Ivy League-educated alumnae, Divine Savior, at 4257 N. 100th St., draws 656 girls from 104 schools in Milwaukee and surrounding areas. On a recent day within the school's bright hallways, students, the vast majority of whom are Caucasian, chatted in their plaid skirts and DSHA-emblazoned polo shirts.
The school is an affiliation of what used to be Holy Angels Academy, at 12th and Kilbourn streets, and Divine Savior High School; it became Divine Savior Holy Angels in 1970. The facilities sparkle, from the new administrative wing to the cafeteria, which in 2002 was enclosed with a soaring skylight thanks to a $1 million donation from a 1957 Holy Angels alumna, says Toni Letizia, the school's director of marketing and public relations. Nearby, food choices from the contract culinary service include everything from fresh wraps and salads to burgers, fries, pizza and sweets.
Faith is relatively homogenous at Divine Savior, and although the school considers itself economically diverse, the 21 students on vouchers make up only 3% of the school's population.
Letizia says this doesn't represent the whole financial aid picture at the school. Eleven students who qualified for vouchers but who didn't win the lottery for the school's 21 voucher spots received full financial aid from other sources, she says.
Developing strong women
Developing strong and resourceful young women through a single-sex environment is the cornerstone of each school, especially in an age when female CEOs are still the minority and fields such as science and math remain male-dominated.
Both schools offer engineering programs, but alongside the modern, progressive approach to academics is a traditional emphasis on spirituality.
Mary Sayles, a St. Joan Antida senior, says theology class discussions regularly include references to all faiths.
"I've learned so much about Islam, and it's interesting to look at Catholicism vs. other religions," she says.
Divine Savior senior Claire Prieto says, "Here my religion became my own, not my parents'."
But most of all, students at both schools say girlfriend relationships have hastened their maturity and given them an advantage over their public-school peers.
The single-sex education issue is a hot one - the U.S. Department of Education recently eased restrictions on single-sex education in public schools.
"Without boys, all the leadership positions in this environment are held by girls," says Divine Savior's academic dean, Heather Moran Mansfield. "They aren't labeled as pushy or bossy because they're assertive. They develop in an environment where it's cool to be smart, cool to know the answer, cool to be the captain of the rugby team."
Sayles says that's the way she feels about St. Joan, especially after being bullied in grade school.
"I came here with really low self-esteem," she says. "But girls genuinely care for one another and help each other out."
And while college is on the horizon for every girl interviewed, their choices differ significantly. While St. Joan feeds mostly into local institutions - Alverno College, Cardinal Stritch and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee among them - many students at Divine Savior have set their sights on Boston College, Harvard, Northwestern, even West Point.
That also may be why there's a sense of frenzy at Divine Savior that contrasts with St. Joan, where girls say they are stressed but not overwhelmed.
The Divine Savior girls joke about it, but they also say they take Advanced Placement courses, complete four to six hours of homework a day and function on little sleep. And because standards are high - a 92% is only a B+ - competition for grades is fierce and overachievement is average.
Konieczka, who says she's a good student but not a perfectionist, doesn't know how she'd survive without study hall.
"The academic standards are really difficult to live up to," she says.
Another challenge for all the girls is quashing the negative image of what outsiders still think about an all-girls, Catholic education.
"They put us down and they just don't know," Divine Savior senior Carolyn Arnold says of some public-school peers. "We're not sheltered. We meet boys. We're just as prepared for jobs."
Konieczka says she's seen more change in herself over the past four years than in many of her public-school friends.
"I am such a different person because of this school - it's a good feeling," she said. "And I want other people to know it."
The above artivle appeared in the December 13, 2025 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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