About the Nonprofit
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Our Lady of Tepeyac High School is a Catholic girls’ secondary school, deeply rooted in the Little Village neighborhood, that provides a multicultural educational experience, developing each young woman to her full intellectual and spiritual potential in an environment that values learning, linked to faith, family, and community. Woven through our academics, our student life and our faith formation are the values: Unity, Service, Opportunity, and Excellence.
Originally St. Casimir, our Grade School, opened its doors in 1893 followed by the all-girls High School in 1927. Staffed by the Resurrection Sisters, the school served a primarily Eastern European population until the 1970’s when the population shifted. The parish and school were renamed Our Lady of Tepeyac in 1990 to more accurately reflect the heritage of our Mexican American parishioners. Last year, St. Roman’s Parish and Assumption BVM combined with Our Lady of Tepeyac Parish and are blessed with the new name, Mother of the Americas. The high school and the grade school remain under their original Tepeyac names.
The Little Village neighborhood is one of the largest Mexican American communities in the United States. It is a vibrant, young, and active community filled with local businesses, clothing stores, restaurants, and street vendors as well as a long history of community organizing and activism. Twenty-six percent of residents have incomes below $15,000, which means approximately 25,000 residents are living at or below the poverty level. The median income of a Tepeyac family is approximately $36,000; 51% below the city median income for whites and 13% below the average for Latinos in the City of Chicago (www.newcommunities.org).
Enrollment stands at 151 girls. Students hail from 24 different zip codes. Ninety percent are Latinx and 10% are African American. Because of the level of support we offer, Tepeyac girls are college and career ready. 100% of the students from the most recently graduating Class of 2022 were accepted into a college or professional training program. 27% were the first in their families to graduate from high school and 71% were the first to go on to college. The Class of 2023 is on track to achieve this same success. This is the 15th year in a row that 100% of our young women have a defined college or career path upon graduation. Not only does Tepeyac prepare our girls for college and beyond, but we also meet their spiritual and emotional needs as well. Our faculty and staff know each student by name, where and with whom she lives, her interests, strengths, and weaknesses. We know when she’s struggling and when she’s succeeding, both inside and outside our doors.
Tepeyac stands with and for its young women, who we know will make a difference in our neighborhood, in their families, and in the Church and world. We stand proudly as we serve for our 95th year in Little Village, celebrating the good work of our school, our parish, and our many partners that live and work in this community.
Tuition at Our Lady of Tepeyac High School stands at $6,500. We have not raised our tuition in 3 years because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing inflation that has driven up costs for rent, groceries, and gas.
Tepeyac offers one of the lowest rates of any Catholic high school in Chicago as well as one of the highest financial aid awards given per student. Ninety-seven percent of our girls receive need-based financial aid in awards averaging $4,100 per student. The only other all-girls Catholic School on the South Side of Chicago requires a tuition rate of $13,300 and an average award of $1,400.
Tepeyac spends $10,600 to educate each girl creating a large gap between actual tuition income paid by families and financial aid required. Tepeyac will raise approximately $700,000 to support the financial aid program alone. This represents a nearly $150,000 increase in financial aid since 2020.
Our Lady of Tepeyac’s primary streams of revenue includes foundation grants, an annual appeal, this annual fundraiser, ¡Creemos! as well as the support of generous individual donors. While we are an entity of the Archdiocese of Chicago, we do not receive direct funding from them on an annual basis.
Tepeyac girls need your partnership. Support for the Financial Aid Program makes an impact by providing equity in resources, a strong foundation, and access to college and career preparation support systems that would not be available otherwise. We know that Tepeyac young women will succeed when given the chance. It is only with your help that we can make these opportunities possible
