The Sophia Academy intervenes in the lives of low-income girls who are “most at risk of repeating the cycle of poverty,” according to the school’s fact sheet. Not an easy mission.
This private, nonparochial school is housed in the old St. Edward’s School in Providence, almost at the North Providence border. Each grade, 5 through 8, has 15 girls from the greater Providence area, who are being prepared for a future few other local schools make possible.
To give me the unvarnished version of what Sophia is all about, Gigi DiBello, head of school, asked students to volunteer to answer questions. Without staff present, six forthright girls from different grades gathered in a conference room where they told me about their education experience, before Sophia and now.
Bright-eyed Jazlyn, an eighth grader, raised her hand, lurched forward and insisted she tell her story first. “At the school I went to [an urban public school], everybody just didn’t care. If you didn’t do your work, whatever. So I got used to putting my name on the top of a paper and handing it in. The teachers never said anything, so why should I do my work? I just talked with my friends. So when my mother applied to this school, I cried — hard. I was sure the other school was really helping me, you know, socially.”
The other girls laughed. Jazlyn smiled and shrugged.