'Historic moment': Girls division opens at once all-boys Nativity School of Worcester

WORCESTER ― The Nativity School of Worcester, which had served exclusively middle school boys in the 21 years since it first opened, is educating girls for the first time.

In a press release sent Monday, the school's president said that the Julie Power Girls Division of the school opened last week, with its first two classes of fifth- and sixth-grade girls. There are 28 girls enrolled, 14 in fifth grade and 14 in sixth grade. Fifty boys attend in grades five through eight.

The Julie Power Girls Division, like the rest of the Nativity School, will be tuition-free. To be eligible to attend, students must live in Worcester and meet the family income qualifications for the fuel assistance program through the Worcester Community Action Council.

The girls division is named after Julie Power, the wife of James David Power III, a Worcester native and the founder of J.D. Power and Associates. Julie Power, who was an elementary school teacher in Michigan when she met her future husband, also volunteered to teach English as a second language to children who were immigrants.

She died in 2002 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.

The J.D. Power Family and the family's Kenrose Kitchen Table Foundation gave a $3 million gift in support of the campaign to establish a girls division. That campaign, which launched last year, has raised $18.5 million toward a $20 million goal, according to the Nativity School's press release.

"This is a historic moment for our school and we are thrilled to have our first-ever Nativity Women with us for our July summer program," school president Tom McKenney said, according to the press release. "We look forward to supporting these young women and educating them as they form into tomorrow’s leaders."

At Nativity, the school year starts in July with a three-week summer session focused on academic work and volunteer service projects. The academic school year runs from September through the end of May.

The Jesuit middle school on Lincoln Street has been known in recent years not only for providing tuition-free private school education to students but also for making national headlines over its battle with the Diocese of Worcester over its display of LGBTQ+ Pride and Black Lives Matter flags .

That resulted in a declaration from Bishop Robert J. McManus in 2022 that the school is prohibited “from identifying itself as a ‘Catholic’ school” or using “the title ‘Catholic’ to describe itself.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: 'Historic moment': Girls division opens at once all-boys Nativity School of Worcester