Students at Cristo Rey Orange County High School are getting a significant upgrade to a new nine-acre permanent campus in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n
The city of Santa Ana recently signed off on the school\u2019s plans to move into a 151,000-square-foot, four-building campus at SOCO Harbor office park in Santa Ana for $21 million.<\/p>\n
Cristo Rey put an $8 million down payment on the campus with help from donor pledges.<\/p>\n
The school says it\u2019s actively fundraising for the rest of the property, as well as an additional $26 million worth of renovations, to move in by August.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is more than I think our students, families and faculty dreamed of,\u201d Founding President Stephen Holte told the Business Journal during a tour of the new campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t think we would get almost nine acres in this location\u2014we never would\u2019ve been able to afford that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The campus, nearly three time the size of Cristo Rey\u2019s original facility, will allow the Catholic private high school to more than double its enrollment from 200 to 450, right in time to welcome its first graduating senior class. The school has received several donations from Orange County\u2019s business community. The Business Journal this week highlights the largest individual donations in Orange County last year (see page 17).<\/p>\n
Finding a larger permanent campus has been the school\u2019s goal since its inception in 2023 when it began with 69 students.<\/p>\n
Dubbed \u201cthe school that works,\u201d Cristo Rey is known for its corporate work study program where, one day a week, students go to a corporate job on top of their regular academics to gain hands-on professional experience.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s among 41 schools within the national Cristo Rey network, originally founded in Chicago in 1996.<\/p>\n
Moving Out of Former Catholic Elementary School Building<\/p>\n
The move is well-timed for the school, which says it has outgrown its current location at a former Catholic elementary school building on McFadden in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe initially thought it was going to be our permanent home, then realized it\u2019s a shared space,\u201d Holte said.<\/p>\n
Officials toured more than two dozen buildings, including the old Orange County Register building in Santa Ana, before finding SOCO Habor, which is located on Harbor Boulevard, a block north of Anduril Industries\u2019 main headquarters.<\/p>\n
They had a specific set of criteria for the new campus, such as close proximity to its current campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great location for our students and families,\u201d Karelyn Roberts, founding principal of Cristo Rey OC, told the Business Journal. \u201cBeing right on Harbor allows for easy public transportation, in addition to being close to a lot of our businesses that our students work at.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s current 14 classrooms are crowded, according to Roberts. The new campus allows them to add eight more classrooms, as well as construct a life sciences lab and robotics lab for advanced placement (AP) classes.<\/p>\n
To help meet the needs of a student body that has tripled in number, Roberts said that the school is hiring another six teachers next year in addition to an alumni advisor for its first graduating class of seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are college prep, so part of our commitment is supporting our students not only to college, but through college and making sure that they have access to the resources they need once they leave us,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
The 151,000 square feet also leaves extra room for the school to lease any unused space to tenants.<\/p>\n
Cristo Rey plans to occupy one and a half of the four buildings in the complex, or about 62,000 square feet, and use the rest as income property.<\/p>\n
Aims to Add More Corporate Partners for Work Study Program<\/p>\n
To keep up with enrollment growth, Holte said that the school will also need to double the amount of businesses within its corporate work study program by next year.
\u201cThere are a lot of great companies that are on our radar, and we\u2019re having good conversations now,\u201d Holte said.<\/p>\n
Cristo Rey currently has partnerships with nearly 60 companies in the region, including some of the largest healthcare entities in Orange County Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and City of Hope OC.<\/p>\n
City of Hope, which recently opened OC\u2019s first and only hospital solely focused on preventing, treating and curing cancer, has been a corporate partner of Cristo Rey since the school launched three years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of programs are important because it creates a pipeline within the community,\u201d Gloria Preciado, chief of staff at City of Hope and Cristo Rey board member, told the Business Journal. \u201cIt\u2019s important in any industry, especially in healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cristo Rey reports that 40% of students will return to the company they worked at in high school.<\/p>\n
Preciado said that one of the students working at City of Hope last year who came in not knowing what he wanted to do, and by the end of the program, realized that he wanted to become a nurse.<\/p>\n
Another company that has been a part of the program since the beginning is Northgate Gonz\u00e1lez Markets, which operates 44 store locations across Southern California.<\/p>\n
Founded by Don Miguel Gonz\u00e1lez Jim\u00e9nez in 1980, Northgate is currently led by Co-Chief Executive Oscar Gonz\u00e1lez, the youngest of the founder\u2019s 13 children, who now all co-own the company.<\/p>\n
Gonz\u00e1lez chairs Cristo Rey\u2019s board of directors and said that he saw parallels between the students in the work study program and his own upbringing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a kid that grew up in my dad\u2019s little corner grocery store at the age of 10, I\u2019ve always believed in the value of work as a young person,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez told the Business Journal.
Past students at Northgate have worked in departments ranging from information technology to marketing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make them a part of our team,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez said. \u201cWe recognize them in town hall meetings, assign them mentors and try to harness their enthusiasm and passion to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exclusively Serves Low-Income Families<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, I think it speaks to students\u2019 dignity,\u201d Holte said about the move.
\u201cMany times, students from lower-income communities get \u2018here\u2019s the second thing\u2019 or \u2018that\u2019s good enough.\u2019 We don\u2019t think they should settle. We think they should have a first-rate facility that speaks to their aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike many other private schools, Cristo Rey exclusively serves students from working class families who otherwise wouldn\u2019t be able to afford college and implemented an income ceiling families must qualify for.<\/p>\n
Tuition costs $3,000 annually, but the school collects about $90 per month from families after scholarships and earnings from the students\u2019 paid corporate jobs.
The average family at Cristo Rey makes $53,000 a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou usually think of families of five,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cMost of our families are not families of five. We have families of nine and 12.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the school is actively fundraising to finance the rest of the school, it\u2019s also raising money for the $5 million it gives out to students in scholarships per year, according to Holte.<\/p>\n
\u201cMomentum\u2019s building and I think there\u2019s just so many people that believe in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The school last month hired a new director of development, Scott Carlson, to help lead Cristo Rey\u2019s growing fundraising efforts.<\/p>\n
List of Cristo Rey\u2019s Local Corporate Partners<\/p>\n
\u2022 5.11 Tactical
\u2022 \u00a0American Red Cross
\u2022 \u00a0Brown & Streza LLP
\u2022 Buchalter
\u2022 BYLT
\u2022 Capital Group Companies Inc.
\u2022 Catholic Charities of Orange County
\u2022 City of Hope Orange County
\u2022 Container Supply Co.
\u2022 Crisp Imaging
\u2022 Delhi Center
\u2022 Farmers & Merchants Trust Company
\u2022 For The Children
\u2022 Fuscoe Engineering Inc.
\u2022\u00a0 Gallagher
\u2022 Giving Children Hope
\u2022 Goe Forsythe & Hodges LLP
\u2022 Goodwill of Orange County
\u2022 Higher Ground Youth and Family Services Inc.
\u2022 Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian
\u2022 Northgate Gonz\u00e1lez Market
\u2022 Providence St. Joseph
\u2022 Providence St. Jude
\u2022 Psomas
\u2022 Rady\u2019s Children\u2019s Health
\u2022 Redwitz Inc.
\u2022 Reveille Inc.
\u2022 Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange
\u2022 SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union
\u2022 Silverado
\u2022 Silverwood Landscape Construction
\u2022 Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange
\u2022 Slater Builders Inc.
\u2022 Smith-Emery Laboratories
\u2022 Sperry Equities
\u2022 St. Joseph Catholic Church
\u2022 Sunwest Bank
\u2022 Tait & Associates Inc.
\u2022 UCI Merage School of Business
\u2022 Woodside Credit
\u2022 Working Wardrobes
\u2014Yuika Yoshida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at Cristo Rey Orange County High School are getting a significant upgrade to a new nine-acre permanent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,12416],"class_list":["post-160627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-free-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}