In a gritty, predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Michael-Anderer-McClelland '90 walks the streets on a crisp fall morning, greeting in Spanish almost everyone he passes. He points out graffiti painted by warring gangs. He stops in front of a house where a boy recently was murdered by a rival gang member. In 2000, Anderer- McClelland moved to this neighborhood - which, according to census data, has a 23.8 percent graduation rate for 16-to19-year-olds, the second highest in the U.S. - to work at San Miguel School, a Catholic middle school on the third floor above the neighborhood parish church. He lives across the street in a former convent with staff members and his wife and infant son. Last summer a stray bullet penetrated the stained glass window in the convent's front hall.

"We are not driving in and teaching these students for the day, and driving out at the end of the day. We are living in the neighborhood with them and experiencing the same things they are experiencing," says Anderer-McClelland, who majored in molecular biology and was certified through Princeton's Teacher Preparation Program.

His school, which is independent of the local Catholic diocese, is one in a growing network of 15 small schools for low-income families started by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious order. In 1997 Anderer-McClelland helped found another San Miguel school, in Camden, New Jersey. The Chicago school, known as Back of the Yards because it is south of the city's old stockyards, opened in 1995; Anderer-McClelland has served in various capacities, including math and religion teacher, and site director. San Miguel, which accepts students of all faiths, targets kids who are not succeeding academically and whose families struggle financially. The school charges average tuition of $40 per month, but 97 percent of the budget comes from fundraising. The number of parish-based Catholic schools has been declining for 10 to 15 years, says Anderer-McClelland. San Miguel's network is trying to buck that trend.

"We teach kids by loving them first," says Anderer-McClelland. Children's educational success, he says, depends first and foremost on the teacher-student relationship, and is supported by the relationship between school and home. Based on the belief that all students can succeed, San Miguel focuses on basic skills: reading, writing, and mathematics.

This year, Anderer-McClelland is helping families take advantage of important community resources; for example, he's bringing representatives from banks and subsidized health-care programs into the school so that parents can open bank accounts or sign up for health insurance. He offers workshops in household budgeting, home-owner education, family support, and adult English instruction.

"Par of our mission is to make accessible to low-income families what is normal for middle-American families," says Anderer-McClelland. "We're trying to level the playing field," particularly for the parents, 80 percent fo whom speak no English and 65 percent of whom have completed six or fewer years of education. Says Martha Tellez, the school secretary, whose three kids graduated from San Miguel. "You feel like somebody cares. You have somebody to lean on."

With 76 students in sixth, seventh, and eigth grades, and a student-to-teacher ratio no greater than 12 to one, children get lots of individual attention and work at their own pace in reading and math. Personal instruction is supplemented by individual, computer-based reading and math programs. In school from 8 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., three hours longer than Chicago public school students, children spend three hours each day on reading, writing, and literature, including at least an hour of reading independently. For 96 percent of the students, English is a second language, and most come in reading at a fourth-grade reading level or below. They leave, three years later, reading at grade level.

Every morning students bound up the stairs to the third floor, past a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, to greet teachers, who line the hallway. Dressed in gray pants and white shirts, the girls and boys look neat and behave respectfully. Potted plants hang in classrooms and classical music is piped into the hallway. Posted in the hallway are lists of student achievements, including attendance records, reading levels, and the high schools San Miguel graduates are attending.

Staff members help eighth graders apply to charter high schools, magnet schools, and private high schools; the school grants financial aid to students who need assistance paying private-school tuition. So far, 85 percent of San Miguel's Chicago graduates have graduated from high school; about 70 percent of those students have gone on to higher education. All students who receive financial aid must attend weekly tutoring sessions. "We are still a presence to them," says Anderer- McClelland, and "a place they come back to all the time."

With the other convent residents, Anderer-McClelland and his wife, Karin, share not only bathrooms, cars, and computers but also a strong commitment to the mission of San Miguel. They call it "living in community," and pray together daily. Like Anderer-McClelland, the teachers - half of whom are volunteers - view their work as a vocation. It can be emotionally draining, says Alison Burgoyne, a seventh-grade teacher. Many students experience abandonment, or the death of friends or family members. "If I took everything to heart it would be overwhelming," she says.

Sylvia Vazquez, a 2001 San Miguel graduate and now a junior at a local Catholic hihg school, says San Miguel opened up a new world for her through its field trips to places like Washington, D.C., and St. Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. If it weren't for San Miguel, she says, she probably would have dropped out of school, like many of her friends. "To me," says Vazquez, "San Miguel is love, hope, and a family."