About SMMS

Our Story

Every year the administration at St. Mary Magdalen Dual Language Catholic School (SMMS) chooses a theme for the school year. The theme for the 2024-2025 school year is “Built for the Battle.” As we launch our capital campaign in 2024, reflect on our school’s story, and present our case for support, you will notice that this theme resoundingly represents our community’s character.

Amid the darkness of World War II and the Great Depression, two Incarnate Word sisters started our school in 1942 in a wooden cottage with 45 students. The school grew rapidly and prospered for years, even necessitating the creation of two additional schools (St. Gregory the Great and Holy Spirit) to accommodate the growth.

However, in the early 2000s enrollment at SMMS began to trend downward along with the widespread declining enrollment plaguing Catholic schools across the country. In 2012, SMMS, located in the heart of San Antonio’s impoverished west side, had only 98 students from 12 zip codes. That same year the Archdiocese of San Antonio hired a new principal for the school - Mr. William Daily.

Faced with the challenge of leading a school that was on the brink of closure, Principal Daily took a risk and applied the school to Boston College’s TWIN-CS pilot program, a program that converts Catholic schools with struggling enrollment to dual language schools in an effort to better represent a growing Hispanic population within the Catholic community. SMMS was accepted into the program, becoming the first dual language Catholic school in Texas.

During the transformative years that followed, Principal Daily worked to establish relationships between SMMS and several additional universities, including the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of the Incarnate Word (Brainpower Connection), and the University of Notre Dame (Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE)), further elevating the school’s curriculum and access to additional resources.

Today we boast enrollment of over 480 students from over 70 zip codes and 23 countries and remain the only fully dual language Catholic school in a city with a majority Hispanic population!

Through this transformation, SMMS has accomplished the following:

Embraced more fully a Catholic mission of inclusivity by employing a curriculum representative of its community
Ensured accessibility by maintaining affordability, not only through competitive tuition rates but also through consistent tuition assistance to over 90% of its students
Reversed the trend of declining enrollment that is still plaguing many Catholic schools today
Established financial stability that was critical to the school’s ability to weather the storm through the COVID-19 pandemic

Vision

Further the mission of SMMS by building a school where any student regardless of socioeconomic status in San Antonio, a predominantly Hispanic city, has access to a top-tier, dual language, Catholic education.

Impact

Since its founding in 1942, SMMS has been a cornerstone of our community, providing generations of students with the education, skills, and values to succeed. Over the years, enrollment has fluctuated, dipping to 98 students in 2012. But since becoming a dual language school in 2012, SMMS has experienced remarkable growth, affirming that our school is addressing an underserved need of our community.

Since 2012:

The average graduating class has tripled in size
The average high school scholarship amount PER GRADUATE has quadrupled
The percentage of graduates attending college has increased by 30% to 91%

A part of serving our community is providing tuition assistance to those students in need, eliminating a potential barrier to enrollment. The percentage of students receiving tuition assistance has remained steady at 90% (from 2012 when there were only 98 students until today with over 480 students), ensuring that no family is priced out of sending their kids to our school.

The growth also fostered a shift toward diversity across multiple factors (e.g., religious affiliation, cultural background, financial means, etc), enriching the education experience of our students and staff.

The Problem

SMMS is out of space! The continuous growth has been a blessing but far from easy or painless. And continuing to offer tuition assistance to ensure no family is priced out of our school has meant a renewed and bold focus on fundraising to close the school’s operating gap and maintain financial stability.

As enrollment has increased, the school has undertaken creative and cost-sensitive solutions to ensure adequate learning space for all students who want to attend - from solutions as simple as investing in portables and renting space from the Parish to use during the day as classrooms to temporarily expanding to a second campus of a permanently closed Catholic school - all while keeping tuition as affordable as possible and continuing to offer tuition assistance as needed.

Unfortunately, none of these solutions are sustainable long term as they either have not provided sufficient classroom space for our enrolled students and employed teachers and staff or have divided our community into two campuses, negatively impacting one of the most charming and convenient aspects of Catholic schools - the attendance of students from PK3 through 8th grade on the same campus.

Plans for the Future

While the expansion to a second campus is not and was not intended to be a permanent solution, it has provided invaluable insight into the facilities needed on the main campus in order to accommodate all currently enrolled students and has facilitated the identification of our main goals for the capital campaign:

Construct an additional building on the main campus to offer both innovative and comprehensive classroom spaces that enhance the educational experience for all students, teachers, and staff
Re-establish a single, main campus that is fully secure
Plan for reasonable growth to continue addressing an underserved need in our community

The following tables show the school’s total enrollment as of Fall 2024 by grade with those classes displaced to the second campus highlighted in yellow as well as other classroom statistics for the displaced grades.

Fall 2024 Enrollment

* Grades displaced to second campus

Average Students Per Classroom

Max Students Per Classroom

There are 12 homerooms currently displaced to the second campus, averaging 14 (6th - 8th) to 21 (3rd - 5th) students per classroom. To accommodate all currently enrolled students, establish consistency in student to teacher ratios between grades, and allow some room for reasonable growth, a new building must be programmed per the International Building Code (IBC) to accommodate the following:

25 students per classroom in 3rd-5th grades
20 students per classroom in 6th-8th grades