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  • Writer's pictureTatiana Rodriguez
    • Aug 27
    • 2 min read

Father Yermo Schools

By Tatiana Rodriguez


For over sixty years, Father Yermo Schools have served the El Paso-Juarez area. In 1920, the Sisters Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Poor arrived in El Paso, and were entrusted by Jose Maria de Yermo y Parres to bring with them evangelization to the poor. "Their mission was and will always be to provide the poor with a solid education and Catholic principles in a climate of essential values, joyfulness, and merciful love in order to affirm their human dignity."1


During the early 1950s, several Mexican American children in the Washington Park neighborhood dropped out of school after elementary school. Parents and the Sisters recognized the need to offer these children the opportunity of a suitable curriculum that teaches competitive skills to promote students to higher education.2 Father Yermo Elementary School opened in 1958 in the building that used to hold the Sacred Heart Orphanage. Two years later, Father Yermo High School opened its doors in what were once the sisters' quarters for refuge during the religious persecution in Mexico in the 1920s. Both schools thrived as students from both the Washington Park neighborhood and Juarez began to graduate. Accreditation was then acquired in 1966.3


In 1988, Father Yermo Schools were the first Catholic schools in Texas to be simultaneously visited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS-CASI) and the Texas Catholic Conference when the Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program ended accreditation for private schools. Father Yermo consistently has been accredited by the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops Education Department (TCCBED), "and is recognized as an institution that expands the excellence with programs that teach students according to their talents ... and prepares them for their future professional occupation, while they develop in a family Christian environment."4 Father Yermo Schools has also seen Father Jose Maria de Yermo's rise to sainthood. On May 21, 2000, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Pope Saint John Paul II declared Jose Maria de Yermo as a Saint for the Universal Church. The Father Yermo Schools' community participated in these celebrations.


In more recent years, both campuses have witnessed improvements and expansions. In 2000, a Capital Campaign Board fundraised to build the Rudolph Miles Multipurpose Center, which was founded in March 2006. Five years later, in 2011, the Early Learning Center opened to serve the lower elementary grades. The Capital Campaign Board has also fundraised to open the Multipurpose Media Center-Library.5


However, in March 2024, Luis Liano, an algebra teacher from Father Yermo High, turned to the community for help in seeking donations to buy new calculators for his students. He noticed the technology they had was outdated and wanted to make sure the students were as competitive as those from public and charter schools. Liano said his students need advanced calculators so they can solve more complex math problems. With the need of a minimum of fifty calculators, costing around $200 each, he said funding is limited at the school.6



Footnotes:

1 Father Yermo Schools, “A Warm Welcome from Our Family at Father Yermo Schools,” https://www.fatheryermoelpaso.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=2025380&type=d&pREC_ID=2105152.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.






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