Editor’s note: This article was written before the Archdiocese of Chicago suspended public liturgies and the schools it operates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Kate Schuenke-Lucien and her family needed more space and started looking for a new home a couple of years ago, they had one requirement when it came to location.

It had to be within a mile and a half of St. Procopius Elementary School/San Procopio Escuela Primaria, 1625 S. Allport St., where their older child, Sebastien Lucien, was already a student.

“St. Procopius is just such an important community for us,” said Schuenke-Lucien, whose younger child is also a student.

The family chose St. Procopius because it teaches students in both Spanish and English, and because of the sense of community and love she felt when she first visited the school.

“I walked out thinking, they love God and they love children here,” Schuenke-Lucien said. “I want my kids to have options. But I also want them to think, what kind of person do I want to be in the world?”

What she saw then is similar to what is there now: The halls of St. Procopius Elementary School/San Procopio Escuela Primaria are papered in student work: self-portraits, posters and writing assignments in both Spanish and English.

For nearly 25 years, St. Procopius has been the only Catholic elementary school in the Archdiocese of Chicago to offer a dual-language curriculum, with the goal that all students will be completely bilingual and biliterate in English and Spanish when they graduate.

Assistant Principal Marcelo Yunda remembers the early years of the program. He has been at St. Procopius since 1996, when the school and the surrounding community were different than they are today.

At the time, Pilsen’s population was made up of mostly Mexican immigrants and their children, and many of them didn’t have the money to pay for Catholic school. Enrollment was low, and the school’s reputation suffered.

What was more, many of the neighborhood residents did not want their children to be educated in Spanish because they saw English as the path to success, Yunda said.

The Jesuits, who had taken over administration of the parish a few years earlier, decided that one way to help the community to come together and to set the school apart would be to promote pride in the community’s Mexican heritage and in Spanish by educating children to be fluent in both languages, Yunda said.

“They decided to implement a program to help the Latino families academically and culturally,” Yunda said. “They did that not only with teaching the language, but also with traditions like Day of the Dead, the posadas, el día de las madres.”

The school has maintained that mission even as the neighborhood around it has changed and the Jesuits have left the parish, he said.

“Back then, 98, 99 percent of the students were Latinos” who spoke Spanish at home, he said.

Now, the neighborhood still has a Mexican flavor with murals and taquerias, but there are also high-end restaurants and bars. Lower-income families have been priced out in some areas.

The school also has changed. About half the students come from homes where Spanish is spoken. The other half are Latinos whose home language is English, non-Latino Anglos, African-Americans and Asians.

All of them are taught in both Spanish and English. Students in preschool are instructed about 90% of the time in Spanish and the rest in English, with the proportion of English gradually rising until they reach third grade.

From third to eighth grade, students spend half the day learning in Spanish and half learning in English.

Grades are paired, and each set of two grades has two teachers, one who instructs in Spanish and one who instructs in English.

So, for example, third and fourth graders learn Spanish language arts, math and social studies from one teacher, and English language arts, religion and science from another.

Teachers are aware of what students are learning in all of their classes of both languages and work to bring themes together, said the principal, Griselda Ferguson. When students reach the next pair of grades, the language in which each subject is taught is flipped.

The school is showing good results, with students testing into highly regarded high schools, including St. Ignatius, where two of Claudia Villagrana’s children will attend next year. Villagrana is a school parent, kindergarten aide and marketing director for the school.

However, it can make it difficult to get accurate results on standardized tests that are only offered in English, especially in third grade, when students have been immersed in Spanish-language classes up to 90% of the time through second grade.

Schuenke-Lucien said she has been impressed by the work Sebastien, now 10, is doing in his fourth grade classes, including the discussions they’ve had about “The Chronicles of Narnia,” which they are reading in Spanish.

Enrollment is steady at 205, and some families come from as far away as Orland Park or Whiting, Indiana, but most live nearby, Villagrana said.

The diversity of the area — not just racially and ethnically, but also socioeconomically — leads to the diversity the school needs to thrive, Schuenke-Lucien said. The school needs a mix of students whose primary language is English and students whose primary language is Spanish to make the immersion program work.

“I think in this climate that we live in now, where there’s so much division, it’s important to have a lot of diversity,” Schuenke-Lucien said. “We value the language diversity, the racial diversity and the socioeconomic diversity. That’s what we need for this school to work.”

Perhaps not surprising, Sebastian doesn’t mention any of that when he’s asked what he likes about his school.

What does he like?

“The older kids are always super nice to the younger ones,” he said. “All the teachers are very, very kind. It’s really easy to make friends. And the uniform isn’t really that bad.”

As for going between Spanish and English, he said, “It’s easy.”

The program can make it harder for transfer students to acclimate, Ferguson said, especially if they are older and monolingual. However, several students have entered the school in the intermediate grades and been successful with some extra support.

The program works because the entire community believes in it, she said.

“It’s not only the program,” Ferguson said. “It’s the teacher commitment, parent support, families who believe in our program. It’s teamwork.”