School Profile

De La Salle Elementary at Blessed Sacrament Parish began to take shape in the summer of 1999 when the Catholic Diocese of Memphis received a large sum of money from a group of anonymous donors to reopen six central city Catholic elementary schools.  The donors offered the funds to Bishop Terry Steib, SVD and the Catholic Diocese of Memphis because they felt that people in low income neighborhoods in Memphis deserved a choice in education.  They further felt that the track record of the Catholic Schools in working with low income neighborhoods was impressive.  For the donors, the presence in a neighborhood of churches and schools helps to stabilize neighborhoods.  Finally, the donors felt that children in these neighborhoods are often left without religious instruction and influence.  This results in a spiritual vacuum, which is harmful to both the individual and the society at large.  For all these reasons, they proposed what became known as the “Jubilee Schools.”

 The term “Jubilee” refers to the year 2000 and its importance for the Catholic Church.  It refers to biblical references in the Old and New Testaments, which speak of the time when everyone will share what they have with those in need and thereby eliminate all need.  The donors took a leap of faith into this new order and shared what they had with some of the poorest of the poor in Memphis.

 In the summer of 1999, Dr. Mary McDonald, superintendent of Catholic Schools, met with Brother Mark Snodgrass, FSC at the urging of Brother Stan Sobczyk, President of Christian Brothers University.  Dr. McDonald was looking for a principal to reopen Blessed Sacrament School, a K-8 school that had closed in 1991.  The neighborhood had become quite diverse since the school had closed and had a growing Spanish speaking population.  Brother Mark had taught in Guatemala for four years in the early 1990’s and has been working with elementary children in a low income neighborhood in Kansas City.  Previously, Brother Chris Englert had proposed the establishment of “San Miguel” type middle school in Memphis and had discussed the possibility with Br. Mark.

The “San Miguel Movement” had begun eight years earlier with the establishment of a school for low-income families of middle school students.  The schools are NOT tuition driven, have a low student-to-teacher ratio, and rely on “Lasallian” principles of education to work successfully with low-income children who have “failed” in other educational environments. 

After a series of meeting between representatives of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis and the Brothers of the Christian Schools of the Midwest District also known as The Christian Brothers of the Midwest, a Catholic religious order of men that has administered schools for over 300 years, regarding issues of ownership and governance, De La Salle Elementary at Blessed Sacrament Parish opened in August of 2000 with Brother Mark as Principal of a group of sixteen kindergartners, one teacher, an assistant, a secretary, and a janitress. 

 The name De La Salle Elementary at Blessed Sacrament Parish was chosen for a number of reasons.  Saint John Baptist de La Salle (1651-1719) is the founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools or Christian Brothers and Patron Saint of all teachers.  He was an innovative, educator who borrowed educational ideas from many sources to create an educational model, which met with a great deal of success in his day and continues to inspire the work of the Christian Brothers and their Lasallian Partners in eighty countries around the world.  Many of his writings are considered classics:  

The Conduct of Schools and the Meditations for the Time of Retreat develop both a practical (the children learn what they must know in order to be of use to society) and spiritual approach to teaching (evangelization) particularly continue to inspire teachers.

For Catholics in general and for Lasallian Educators in particular, teaching not simply a job, it is a spiritual vocation and ministry in the Church.  In Lasallian and Gospel language, teachers are, “ambassadors of Christ” who “touch the hearts” of their students.  “[The students] must be convinced that they themselves are a letter which Jesus Christ dictates to you, which you write each day in their hearts …” (Meditations 195.2). 

Blessed Sacrament Parish was included in the name to recall that the roots of the school are found in the parish school first established in October of 1912 and closed in June 1991. De La Salle Elementary at Blessed Sacrament Parish is a hybrid school which is not purely an independent, nor diocesan, nor parish (or parochial) school.