ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s a different approach to education, combining classes with work experience, and it’s the focal point of a new school in Central Florida.

What You Need To Know

  • Cristo Rey will open its 41st campus in Orlando in fall 2025

  • The school serves students with median family incomes of around $45,000

  • Cristo Rey also provides additional services for students on-site, from mental health counseling to a laundromat

  • Tuition is covered with a combination of state scholarships and earnings from local jobs, with families paying no more than $100 per month

College prep high school Cristo Rey, located off Rio Grande Avenue in Orlando, is in the process of hiring teachers and recruiting students for its inaugural freshman class. Per the school, roughly 70% of staff has been hired and 150 student applications turned in ahead of the fall.

“The amount of academic programs and opportunities our students are going to have, it didn’t seem realistic for a while,” Johana Santiago-Puckering said. “But now we’re seeing it come to reality. Kids are in the building visiting us, applications are being finalized.”

For the past 25 years, Santiago-Puckering worked in the Osceola County School District but left to serve as Cristo Rey’s founding principal.

For the longtime educator, it was an opportunity to connect with students on a more personal level and lay the groundwork for a school with a novel model — classes for four days, a corporate work-study job for one.

“They will learn how to be professional, interact with the adults in the building. But it allows them to think about, ‘Who do I want to be?’” she said. “We’re trying to develop a person, a person who is going to be grounded, have core values, know the difference between right and wrong.”

According to Cristo Rey, the college prep school — the 41st to open in the country, with others in Tampa and Miami — recruits students from underserved areas with a median household family income of $45,000.

Students’ annual tuition is covered by a combination of state scholarships and money earned from jobs at any one of dozens of community partnerships. And families will pay no more than $100 per month.

“We’ve been intentional with choosing families and students who want to go to college and maybe money is an obstacle or could be an obstacle,” the principal said.

But the support extends beyond students’ four years at Cristo Rey, she added, with access to more than 70 universities within their network; 85% of tuition is covered. In addition, the Orlando campus features wraparound services, from counseling and a health clinic to a laundromat.

For students like Nataly Cruz, who attends Good Shepherd and committed to being a part of Cristo Rey’s freshman class in the fall, the added services, prospect of job experience and access to high education are enticing.

She said that her parents are hard workers, in construction and housekeeping, yet the 15-year-old has seen them struggle financially.

“Heartbroken, it makes me sad at the same time," she said. "It makes me worried for them, too.”

As Cruz recently toured the school with her classmates, noting locations of key spaces like the cafeteria and gymnasium, she also dreamed of her future. For now, her plans consist of graduating from high school, enlisting in the military and eventually becoming a cardiologist, something of which her parents would be proud.

“They would be, ‘Whoa!’ Really surprised. Because I would be completing my goals, my dreams,” she said. “It’s where they train us to become something we want to be. I just like helping people out. That’s my main goal when I grow up. Ever since I was a kid, my dream was to help people out.”

According to Cristo Rey, the Tampa location opened in 2016 and currently serves more than 230 students. Last year, 93% of the students who graduated enrolled in college.