St. Mary's High School (Phoenix, Arizona)
Encyclopedia
St. Mary's Catholic High School is a private
, Roman Catholic high school
in Phoenix, Arizona
. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
.
In 1920, Saint Mary’s moved into its very first, one-story home located on East Monroe Street. In 1928, all male students were transferred to Brophy College Preparatory
School on North Central Avenue, leaving the Saint Mary’s school an all-girls facility. The Great Depression
caused a great deal of financial problems, leading to the closure of Brophy in 1936. The boys were temporarily without a Catholic high school. Male students moved back to Saint Mary's, but this time, into a new building.
During the 1930s, one city block, bordered from Polk to Taylor and Second to Third Streets, had been purchased for $24,000. With this new land, a second Saint Mary’s was built by the Franciscan
s whose goal was to educate those boys displaced by the closure of Brophy High School. The separation of both boys’ and girls’ schools lasted until 1958. By the end of the year, the girls’ school was condemned to make way for the Civic Plaza
. Both schools were combined, making it mixed once again. As a result of boys and girls attending the same facility, it became necessary to add classrooms. On March 20, 1961, Reverend Francis J. Green, O.D.
, Bishop of Tucson, performed the dedication ceremony for the new seven-room addition to the school. Included with this addition were a ramada and a much needed library.
The Polk Street campus, built on 2 acres (8,093.7 m²), had a total of twenty-four classrooms and a gymnasium. There was a maximum of six hundred students from very diverse backgrounds. The student body was approximately 45% Hispanic
, 45% Anglo and 10% African American
. The ravages of time and the rapid development of downtown Phoenix caused Saint Mary’s to halt its growth on their inner-city campus.
In 1988, Saint Mary’s was razed to make room for the Arizona Center
. The school moved to its present location at Third Street and Sheridan, renovated existing buildings, and constructed a multi-purpose building to house administration, classrooms, and a cafeteria. For the 2008/2009 school year Saint Mary’s had an enrollment of 778 students from many different backgrounds. That student body consisted of 1.9% Native Americans
, 9.8% African Americans, 3.0% Asian
/Pacific Islander
, 49.8% Hispanic, 24.3% White
, and 11.3% Multi-Racial
.
at the Third Street and Sheridan campus; a new facility was estimated to cost the school $1.2 million. With help from the community the construction of the Saint Mary’s gym began. A nearby Catholic high school that had been closed, Gerard Catholic High School
, left behind a prefabricated metal building that had housed a gymnasium. A former graduate of Saint Mary’s was able to contact a contractor who agreed to relocate the steel superstructure. After this first step was completed, volunteers pulled together and began creating a gym from parts of other buildings all over the city. The project cost approximately $400,000. After a generous gift of $100,000 from a charitable trust was matched, St. Mary’s borrowed the remaining $200,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
The flooding of Camelback High School’s
gymnasium was another advantage. The school’s athletic program could not afford the time and risk of trying to dry out the maple floor. With the insurance company’s permission, Saint Mary’s took the donated wet wood to dry out in a warehouse. For the lights, scoreboards, and backboards another Phoenix school was soon-to-be demolished and was also a source. The source of 36,000 pounds of tile for the locker rooms and showers was the donation of another destroyed building. The two-story gym was also fortunate to boast an elevator donated by a former graduate. Altogether, the Saint Mary’s family was able to reuse materials to put into the gym, making it recycled. A gymnasium valued at $1.4 million was constructed for approximately $500,000.
Saint Mary’s places Jesus Christ at the center of the educational process and acknowledges responsibility to help prepare students of varying levels to meet the spiritual, intellectual, and social challenges of life. Saint Mary’s believes that students should become contributing members of a faith community and live out their faith by promoting moral values, fostering lifelong service, and instilling knowledge of the truths of the Catholic faith while integrating their faith with all that is taught and experienced at Saint Mary's. Each Saint Mary's student should strive to be a model of Christian love and service and should focus on strengthening his/her values of honesty, decency, and integrity.
Because each student must be able to make informed decisions and to live according to Catholic principles, Saint Mary’s encourages self-discipline, self-respect, respect for others, and growth in learning so that Knights/Lady Knights will be able to deal with everyday issues.
Saint Mary’s High School, as an academic community, has a responsibility to facilitate learning for all students. Because each Knight/Lady Knight needs to acquire knowledge and skills for today while preparing for tomorrow, the staff will strive to provide opportunities and high expectations for learning. The staff believes that graduates of Saint Mary's High School must be prepared for continuing education with a high level of thinking skills.
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
, Roman Catholic high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
-History:The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix in Arizona is a particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. It was established on December 2, 1969 when it was split off of the Diocese of Tucson...
.
History
Saint Mary’s High School is the oldest Catholic high school in Arizona and has been a part of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area since 1917. Saint Mary’s is Arizona’s first Catholic high school, founded by the Sisters of the Precious Blood. The founders were able to set aside classroom space for four boys and ten girls in Saint Anthony’s Elementary school. This was the beginning of the Saint Mary’s community.In 1920, Saint Mary’s moved into its very first, one-story home located on East Monroe Street. In 1928, all male students were transferred to Brophy College Preparatory
Brophy College Preparatory
Brophy College Preparatory is a Jesuit high school located in Phoenix, Arizona. The school is currently limited to all-male enrollment of approximately 1,200 students. It is operated independently of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix...
School on North Central Avenue, leaving the Saint Mary’s school an all-girls facility. The Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
caused a great deal of financial problems, leading to the closure of Brophy in 1936. The boys were temporarily without a Catholic high school. Male students moved back to Saint Mary's, but this time, into a new building.
During the 1930s, one city block, bordered from Polk to Taylor and Second to Third Streets, had been purchased for $24,000. With this new land, a second Saint Mary’s was built by the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
s whose goal was to educate those boys displaced by the closure of Brophy High School. The separation of both boys’ and girls’ schools lasted until 1958. By the end of the year, the girls’ school was condemned to make way for the Civic Plaza
Phoenix Convention Center
The Phoenix Convention Center, in the heart of Downtown Phoenix, has been hosting national and regional conventions and trade shows as well as consumer events and theatrical productions since it opened in 1972...
. Both schools were combined, making it mixed once again. As a result of boys and girls attending the same facility, it became necessary to add classrooms. On March 20, 1961, Reverend Francis J. Green, O.D.
Francis Joseph Green
Francis Joseph Green was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Tucson from 1960 to 1981.-Biography:...
, Bishop of Tucson, performed the dedication ceremony for the new seven-room addition to the school. Included with this addition were a ramada and a much needed library.
The Polk Street campus, built on 2 acres (8,093.7 m²), had a total of twenty-four classrooms and a gymnasium. There was a maximum of six hundred students from very diverse backgrounds. The student body was approximately 45% Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
, 45% Anglo and 10% African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
. The ravages of time and the rapid development of downtown Phoenix caused Saint Mary’s to halt its growth on their inner-city campus.
In 1988, Saint Mary’s was razed to make room for the Arizona Center
Arizona Center
Arizona Center's fortunes are expected to revive as a 30-story Sheraton Phoenix Downtown hotel opened in the fall of 2008. Also, several high-end condo projects in the downtown area are either under construction, newly opened, or in the planning stages....
. The school moved to its present location at Third Street and Sheridan, renovated existing buildings, and constructed a multi-purpose building to house administration, classrooms, and a cafeteria. For the 2008/2009 school year Saint Mary’s had an enrollment of 778 students from many different backgrounds. That student body consisted of 1.9% Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, 9.8% African Americans, 3.0% Asian
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
/Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander , is a geographic term to describe the indigenous inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:Polynesia:...
, 49.8% Hispanic, 24.3% White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, and 11.3% Multi-Racial
Multiracial
The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people whose ancestries come from multiple races. Unlike the term biracial, which often is only used to refer to having parents or grandparents of two different races, the term multiracial may encompass biracial people but can also include people with...
.
Gymnasium
Money constraints prevented the school from building a gymGym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
at the Third Street and Sheridan campus; a new facility was estimated to cost the school $1.2 million. With help from the community the construction of the Saint Mary’s gym began. A nearby Catholic high school that had been closed, Gerard Catholic High School
Gerard Catholic High School
Gerard Catholic High School was a Roman Catholic diocesan high school which opened in 1962 in Phoenix, Arizona. It was named for Msgr. Edward Gerard, one of the first ordained priests to minister in the Arizona territory....
, left behind a prefabricated metal building that had housed a gymnasium. A former graduate of Saint Mary’s was able to contact a contractor who agreed to relocate the steel superstructure. After this first step was completed, volunteers pulled together and began creating a gym from parts of other buildings all over the city. The project cost approximately $400,000. After a generous gift of $100,000 from a charitable trust was matched, St. Mary’s borrowed the remaining $200,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.
The flooding of Camelback High School’s
Camelback High School
Camelback High School is part of the Phoenix Union High School District. The campus is located at 4612 North 28th Street, northeast of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Camelback’s enrollment is 2,000 students, over 75 percent of whom are Hispanic...
gymnasium was another advantage. The school’s athletic program could not afford the time and risk of trying to dry out the maple floor. With the insurance company’s permission, Saint Mary’s took the donated wet wood to dry out in a warehouse. For the lights, scoreboards, and backboards another Phoenix school was soon-to-be demolished and was also a source. The source of 36,000 pounds of tile for the locker rooms and showers was the donation of another destroyed building. The two-story gym was also fortunate to boast an elevator donated by a former graduate. Altogether, the Saint Mary’s family was able to reuse materials to put into the gym, making it recycled. A gymnasium valued at $1.4 million was constructed for approximately $500,000.
Mission statement
The mission of Saint Mary's Catholic High School is to provide a quality Catholic education by developing and sustaining a rich tradition grounded in Gospel and family values, discipline, and respect.Philosophy
Saint Mary's High School is a Roman Catholic, Diocesan, co-educational high school serving the greater Phoenix area. It is a multicultural, centrally-located school that offers a traditional setting with a primary emphasis on the spiritual, academic, social, and personal growth of each Knight/Lady Knight. Special attention is given to all types of learners with an emphasis placed on students preparing for a college/university post-secondary experience.Saint Mary’s places Jesus Christ at the center of the educational process and acknowledges responsibility to help prepare students of varying levels to meet the spiritual, intellectual, and social challenges of life. Saint Mary’s believes that students should become contributing members of a faith community and live out their faith by promoting moral values, fostering lifelong service, and instilling knowledge of the truths of the Catholic faith while integrating their faith with all that is taught and experienced at Saint Mary's. Each Saint Mary's student should strive to be a model of Christian love and service and should focus on strengthening his/her values of honesty, decency, and integrity.
Because each student must be able to make informed decisions and to live according to Catholic principles, Saint Mary’s encourages self-discipline, self-respect, respect for others, and growth in learning so that Knights/Lady Knights will be able to deal with everyday issues.
Saint Mary’s High School, as an academic community, has a responsibility to facilitate learning for all students. Because each Knight/Lady Knight needs to acquire knowledge and skills for today while preparing for tomorrow, the staff will strive to provide opportunities and high expectations for learning. The staff believes that graduates of Saint Mary's High School must be prepared for continuing education with a high level of thinking skills.
Notable alumni
- Jerryd BaylessJerryd BaylessJerryd Bayless is an American basketball player for the Toronto Raptors. He played a year of college basketball for the Arizona Wildcats after playing high school basketball at St. Mary's High School in Phoenix, where he scored a career high of 52 points in a loss to eventual state champions,...
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