USD Magazine, Spring 2002

for the school had been rented co anoth– er tenant. Nativity Prep was co open in six weeks, and it didn't even have students. "David cold us char everyone in the county knew about Nativity Prep. My first day here, I passed out fliers about the school in the neighborhood, and people were say–

who graduated from Boston College. "I chink I came our here thinking this is a really cool thing we're doing, and then it hie you, oh my gosh, what am I doing here?" A few weeks before classes were to begin, Rivera signed a lease on an empty building in Logan Heights for the school. Seven days before the doors opened, the teachers hosted an open house for interested fami– lies. They scanered the few textbooks they had throughout the room co make it more 1mpress1ve. "We were rearranging scuff co make it look like we had something," says Pavey. "We didn't even have bulletin boards. I thought the families would turn around and walk our." They didn't. Nineteen children enrolled, an.cl Rivera's school had its first class. D riving through San Diego's Logan Heights neighborhood, you would miss Nativity Prep Academy unless you knew exactly what co look for. T he one-room school is in a squat, concrete structure tucked between warehouses and plywood homes behind chain-link fences. A hand-painted sign with the school's logo - a white dove soaring over a three-scary schoolhouse - is propped up against the curb. The only hint that children may be here is the lone basketball hoop in a corner of the parking lot, which doubles as the playground. Inside, Liege! clears

Nativity Prep's IO teachers, who also volunteer at other Logan Heights schools, live together in an old house Rivera bought.

ing 'What new school?' " Pavey says. "They hadn't heard of us. Ir was frustrating. " While waiting for escrow co close on the six-bedroom, two-bath house char had been turned into apartments, Rivera scrambled, moving rhe teachers from donated dormi– tories at USD co a Best Western hotel. When keys co the $205,000 house were turned over to Rivera, a woman and her five grandchildren were still living in the upstairs Aar. The electricity didn't work in two of the bedrooms. T he kitchen and bathrooms were filthy. The transplanted teachers had co rip up carper and knock down walls, doing much of the work by candlelight. Teacher Margaret Liege! lived our of her suitcase in the living room with another reacher for nearly three months. Her room

Bur Pavey liked the idea of receiving a USD master's degree without having co rake our a loan. She liked what Rivera cold her about living in a big house, a la MTV's "Real World," with other college grads who wanted co help poor kids. She liked the idea of putting her business background co use in a start-up education venture. "I thought it would be cool co be in on building a school from scratch," says Pavey, who hails from Rushville, Ind. With her dishwater blond hair hanging at her shoul– ders, her clean-scrubbed face and broad smile, the 22-year-old looks more like a big sister than a math teacher who answers co the name Ms. Pavey. "I e-mailed and talked co David several rimes, and he convinced me co move our. I get our here, and there is nothing. No

off some space from a table piled with papers co pore over her notes from her language class. Each day, she and the ocher teachers prepare

incredibly derailed reports of chei r stu– dents' progress and

behavior. When parents arrive at 7 p.m. co pick up their kids, the teach–

ers hand chem the reports. They'll pull a parent aside if chey have a concern. It's just one example of the intensive approach the school cakes. "A lot of these kids were sullen when they first came here, they never smiled," says Liege!, 23, whose glasses and ponytail enhance her rep as one of the "hard teachers"

school. We don't even have a house co live in. I thought, 'Are you kidding me?' " When Pavey and the ocher teachers arrived last August, their house - which was the sire of several recent drug busts - was still in escrow. The building Rivera hoped to lease

was the one occupied by che grandmother, who Rivera didn't have the heart co evict until she found another place. "We had co go our and get donations co get the house fixed, and we're washi ng walls with cockroaches running our," says Liege!,

USD M AG AZ I N E

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