JPIIHS First-Ever Adventure Gala!
Tickets are now ON SALE for our ADVENTURE GALA on September 17!
Come support our school in its efforts to continue to provide a Catholic high school option for families and to offer tuition assistance to families in need.
Details can be found on our website at jpiihs.com/gala
Ticket sales close on Monday, September 5, so don’t miss out!
Welcome Back, JPIIHS Students!
Our families started off their year with a brief camping trip up at Annunciation Heights. Joined by Father CJ, the families enjoyed Mass outdoors, played games around the fire, and did some fun activities, including the Leap of Faith!
School started for our students on Monday, August 15. We began our day with a Senior Sunrise Celebration on our new land site. Fr. Gregg and Fr. CJ prayed that our students’ year is fruitful and fun and gave the seniors a special blessing. Three of our seniors represented their class at our celebration- please keep the entire senior class in your prayers as they prepare for our school’s first graduation this May!
To start off the school day, Our Lady of the Valley held a special Mass to celebrate both the beginning of our year and the feast of the Assumption of Mary, Mother of God. The priests and deacons led our students in a Eucharistic procession to the Church, where a beautiful Mass was celebrated. We are so grateful to be able to provide our students with opportunities to witness the faith of the community and the love of their Lord throughout the year.
Help Support JPIIHS With Your Groceries!
Follow these instructions to make your grocery shopping a charitable donation to our school!
King Soopers and City Market Community Rewards Program:
For King Soopers Stores – go to http://www.kingsoopers.com· For City Market Stores – go to http://www.citymarket.com
From Computer Instructions:
1. Log into your account 2. Scroll to the bottom and select Community 3. Under option 2 (link card) select number 2 to search organization link 4. Either change or add the organization by searching for Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II Corp or HE400 5. Add and save
From the App Instructions:
1. Log into your account 2. Select the 3 lines at the top right corner 3. Select Rewards 4. Select Community Rewards 5. Either change or add the organization by searching for Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II Corp or HE400 6. Add and save
*Customers must have a registered loyalty card account to link to our organization. If a member does not yet have a loyalty card they are available at the customer service desk at any King Soopers or City market brand store.
*Once linked, customers can either use their loyalty card or the phone number linked to it and rewards will go directly to us.
Hello from our New Director of Development
Hello friends of JPIIHS! My name is Gina Brandt and I am excited to bring my passion for building up God’s Kingdom through fundraising to JPIIHS. I am very excited to meet with you to help connect passionate people like you to the mission of the school. We are planning a year full of fun events like our Gala, Fall Festival and Donor Breakfast. I look forward to hearing from you soon. May you be blessed!
Teacher Article: Why I Chose JPIIHS
Ms. Elizabeth Ielmini, Latin Instructor
Teaching as a whole, and Latin in its own way, can be full of joy and full of difficulty, and very often both together. But one of the biggest factors that affects one’s teaching is the school and community in which you teach. So, choosing a school at which to teach can be a difficult thing to do. You have to consider: will I be teaching just to pass my students, or teaching to help them both know and love their subject? Will I be only teaching Latin to check the box for languages, or showing them the whole language with all that it reveals? Will I be in an environment that puts no value in Truth, or teaching in Catholic environment where the Faith can inform everything the school teaches? Finding a school that answers yes to the last half of each question is a rare thing indeed.
I chose to come teach at St. John Paul II High School, then, because it can answer ‘yes’ to these questions. It is a school that teaches the Truth well in every subject. This path is not for the sake of academic distinction or worldly success, but for the good of the student and for the sake of forming the whole person. And above all else, because it is a truly Catholic school where the Faith, in its rightful place as the ultimate game-changer, pervades and gives place everything that is taught and done so that every truth taught and lived can lead the students (and the teachers) to Him who is the Truth.
But wait, there’s more! Due credit is most happily given to Miss Dennis, my old classmate and friend, without whom I would never have known about or come to join John Paul II High School. So for all these reasons and more I am most enthusiastic to start teaching at JPIIHS. I look forward to meeting you all soon.
From the Headmaster’s Desk: Commencement
Dear Friends of JPIIHS,
There is so much that could be discussed through the course of the summer past—we’ve seen historic movements in the nation, a great swell in the support of our capital campaign for the growth of the school, and on the local level we are seeing the establishment of our new priests. I’d like to extend a fond farewell to Fr. Rocco, Fr. Steve, Fr. Crispin, and Fr. Goggins as we commence the new year—they have left such a tremendous impact upon our students—both those that they served, and those that merely got to meet they came in contact with the student body. And, of course, we said farewell to a few of our beloved faculty members last June as they began to pursue the next stages of their lives. But I have the pleasure of welcoming Ms. Elizabeth Ielmini and Ms. Clare Glaser to our midst as the new year is here upon us.
And so the new year is that which I reflect upon today. The summer is, strangely, my least favorite time of the year. I of course enjoy the time with my family (as we all well do) and I do not merely complain about the heat (as we all well do), but I dislike it for the time away from our students; I may be perceived as crazy for it, but, while I like the quiet time of reflection and planning, I miss the time with the students for I love the work that I do.
And the reason for loving my work is made evident, perhaps, in this brief story: it has been a hectic few weeks with training, orientation, and other final preparations for the school year. As such, I am relishing all the more the time I am able to steal away to mass to steel myself through the Sacrament for the upcoming year. The other day at mass I saw one of our students who had elected (for whatever reason) to spend one of their summer mornings at church. Perhaps you do not see what is so strange about this. This is what I find strange about it: they had not come on their own, but with several other persons their age during a vacation when they had evidently driven themselves without any parental supervision so that they could spend time in worship in a church whose air conditioning was questionable in its functionality in the late summer heat.
When is the last time we scoured the pews at daily mass for those young faces? When is the last time we saw young people so well knowledgeable about Truth that they went out of their way to seek the Mass in their free time? I cannot say the last time that I have felt so elated because they were compelled by neither teacher nor parent to give of their time so freely to praise.
This is why I am eager for the school year to begin: I am eager for the good work God has laid out for us to commence again.
Blaise A. Hockel, Headmaster