Open House this Saturday!
If you are interested in learning more about St. John Paul II High School, we are hosting an Open House for interested students/families this Saturday, February 12th, 10am-2pm at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Parish.
Applications are now open! Visit our Admissions and Tuition & Scholarships pages to read more about our application process, tuition, and scholarships.
Introducing the Most Recent Addition to Our Team!
Amidst the excitement of growing our school and building a campus, we recognize that long-term sustainability is key to our future success. With our school’s firm commitment to keeping tuition affordable for families now and for the future, we have hired a full-time Development Director, Gina Koshute.
Gina Koshute, Development Director
Gina Koshute is a graduate of Hillsdale College where she received a wonderful education in pursuit of the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Her background in Graphic Design and Organizational Communications set her up for the next 9 years where she discovered her love for people, fundraising, management and evangelization while working for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. As a fifth year missionary she taught fundraising full-time to over 500 missionaries. Moreover, her experiences as an Art Director and consultant give her excellent experiences in communication. Gina is excited to bring her passion for building up God’s Kingdom through fundraising to JPIIHS and to help connect passionate people to the mission of the school.
SAVE THE DATE!
September 17, 2022
Tickets on sale soon!
Email info@jpiihs.com if you are interested in sponsoring or donating for our auction.
Reminder: St. John Paul II High School Website & Emails!
A reminder to look out for our new official crest and school colors! In addition, explore our new website jpiihs.com and feel free to reach out to our new info account, info@jpiihs.com, with any questions about the school!
(New email structure: first initial + last name +@jpiihs.com. For example, to reach our Executive Director Liz Yeh, email LYeh@jpiihs.com)
JPIIHS Presents: Arsenic & Old Lace
The JPIIHS Drama Club has been hard at work on a wonderful comedic play! Come support our students and community members as they present Arsenic & Old Lace.
Performances are on February 18, 19, and 20. Tickets can be purchased at this link: https://windsor-community-playhouse.ticketleap.com/
Student Article
The Sophomore Thesis
Alexandre Montoya, Sophomore
As we continue to learn and grow more and more in our classes, our sophomore year we are given a chance to combine these subjects and compile them into our final end-of-the-year project, the sophomore thesis. This project gives us a chance to explore a particular interest that we have found in our classes that we would like to take a closer look at.
The sophomore thesis consists of three parts: the paper, the artifact, and finally the presentation. The paper is a 5-7 page explanation of the subjects we chose and how they are interconnected around a certain subject. We also have to create an artifact to go along with the paper. The artifact is an original creation that we have made to relate to the topic of our paper, and it can be just about anything. At the end of the semester, for roughly 10 minutes, we get the opportunity to present our thesis to a panel of teachers and members of our community. After our presentation, we are judged by the panel and they decide if we are ready to become upperclassmen, as well as whether we showed mastery over our subject. Because this is a large amount of work, the sophomore thesis acts in place of our Humanities final and is our final assessment of our sophomore year. During the process, we are also given a teacher advisor for oversight and to help us along the way with anything we need. Other mentor teachers also offer their help in lots of ways. The juniors, who all completed the sophomore thesis last year, also offer their help to us, and their advice is always appreciated.
When we pick what topic we want to explore for our sophomore thesis, it is all up to us to decide. This gives us freedom to pick a topic we feel more comfortable researching or are really interested in. Many of us choose to take a closer look at something we have covered in our classes, or we can pick a topic we are curious about, something we haven’t really covered in class. For example, everything we have explored in our classes has been based on Western Civilization and how early Europe and the Mediterranean area have gradually contributed to lots of the knowledge and truths we know today. However, I have always been curious about what was happening on the other side of the world during all of this, specifically in the Americas. This is why I want to base my sophomore thesis on the Ancient Maya and how their achievements in science, math, and architecture have been influential to our society today. This is just one of my initial thoughts and isn’t finalized yet, but I’m willing to do the research. Since I have always been interested in Mesoamerican history and wanting to know more about it, the sophomore thesis is a great way for me to express how Mayan culture has influenced parts of our education as well as our society.
Over the next four months, we sophomores will be driven by curiosity to explore a topic our classes have in common. To complete this project will require responsibility and dedication and we are excited for the challenge to prove that we are ready to be upperclassmen.
Sophomore & Junior Cathedral Field Trip
By Darrell Falconburg, Humanities Teacher
Ms. Dennis (Theology), Mr. Englom (Science), and I were recently able to take the sophomore and junior classes to the Denver cathedral for a field trip. Also present were several parents, who generously volunteered their time to help drive and accompany the teens. It was a wonderful time for everyone — faculty, parents, and students. We had the opportunity to not only attend Mass but also receive an extensive tour of the cathedral from Fr. Samuel Morehead.
Our trip to the cathedral was also related to the “Cathedral Project,” an assignment provided by our Headmaster, Mr. Hockel. This assignment is given to all students who are studying the medieval world during this academic year. As a result, the students not only study the history, politics, literature, philosophy, and theology of the medieval world, for they also get to immerse themselves in the beautiful art and architecture of the period. For this assignment, each student picks a medieval cathedral and presents on it to their classmates.
After our trip to the cathedral, all students participated in a seminar about what stood out to them during the field trip. The sophomores discussed in a seminar the nature of beauty, concluding that beauty is necessary to live a genuinely human life. Beauty is more than something that pleases the eye or causes a good feeling. Instead, it is something that pushes us outside of ourselves, drawing us to what is good and true. As something that pushes us outside of ourselves, it inspires us to love — and to love sacrificially. Beauty is even more necessary in a culture of what Cardinal Sarah calls the “dictatorship of noise” and the “dictatorship of the image,” which bombards us with sounds and images which cause anxiety and confusion.
The field trip last Thursday was a good reminder of what makes our high school special. Above all, our school points students to the one who is Beauty itself, the Word who became man.
Teacher Article
Reflections on My Time at JPIIHS
Steven Lewis, Former Philosophy & Music Teacher
Upon reflection of my wonderful time at St. John Paul II High School, I realize that there is not a grand theme of upon which to ponder. There is no single thought process with simple premises that build to a revelatory end. I simply have a scattershot collection of lessons, memories, and emotions which flare periodically in my mind and in my heart. The only thing that links these random thoughts is that they came to me as a surprise. So, instead of a masterfully crafted essay along the lines of Mr. Hockel, here is a list of things JPIIHS taught me that I did not expect.
I did not expect it to even be possible for a high school to open at the height of a pandemic and succeed. Our success is purely due to the determination of the school’s administration and the deep community created by the students.
I did not expect to enjoy working with so many people who are clearly smarter than me. Smart people are intimidating.
I did not expect to be so angered so much by the failure of educators in some of our students’ past. Simple sentences like “Thank you for talking to us and doing something other than power points every class, Mr. Lewis. Our old teachers never did that.” infuriated me more than once in my classes.
I did not expect AC/DC to have played such an outsized role in the artistic education of today’s students.
I never expected to work in a professional environment that encouraged and rewarded the wearing of kilts.
A friend and professor of education, Sam Rocha, says that the teacher’s duty is to love the students and to never expect or entertain the idea of having the love reciprocated. I never expected the depth to which he was right.
I did not expect the students to be so transparent. It is sometimes so easy to read trouble, distraction, joy, and wonder on a student’s face. Teenagers hide much less than they think they do.
I did not expect how often I was completely blind to the struggles my students had within and without the school. Teachers are less observant than they think they are.
I did not expect the depth of spiritual devotion and the speed of spiritual growth in the students.
I did not expect to be literally teaching the great minds of the next generation.
I did not expect to find a very special place in my heart for my students with the lowest grades in my class. Seriously, us teachers put on a necessarily strong front but we are constantly cheering on the students who need it most.
I did not expect to need a shovel in my car. I am still a Californian.
I did not expect so many modern adolescents to take to medieval philosophy like fish to water.
I did not expect the students to show such a desire to know the mystical thinkers and Saints.
And above all, I did not expect to love my students and my job so much. Thank you all for such a beautiful time. I carry each member of JPIIHS’s wider community with me in my heart and in my prayers.
From the Headmaster’s Desk
Beauty and Brokenness: How I Get Through a Day
Blaise A. Hockel
Over the last month, our freshmen have been introduced to the Psalms, the sophomores were introduced to genetics and Gregor Mendel, and the juniors read Twelfth Night and Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The ongoing conversations in each class continue to churn out more fascinating ideas, but for the most part those questions have been about order, our perception of it, and how we fit into things. That is, the students see very clearly the way that the world was designed, and they are beginning to notice how aberrations in the workings of the world start to crop up around the way people interact with one another. Perhaps this is most keenly felt in the fact that the juniors read, “To be, or not to be?” concurrently with Descartes’ Meditations, but there’s been a lot of discomfort with the fact that we—as the human race—are still struggling very much with how to be people.
I think about a story I heard about a little boy who went into a convenience store with his father. The boy, serving himself a slush of the stickiest concoction known to man in a cup that was almost as large as he was, teetered the beverage, and spilled it all over the floor. The story concludes not with the father yelling at the boy, but asking the management for a mop and proceeding to clean the floor with his son, who was distraught at the trouble he believed himself to be in. The father’s response, instead, was, “You’re going to be human for a very long time… and it’s important you learn how to be more aware of what you’re doing… As long as you take responsibility for your mistakes, the clean-up is a breeze.”
Perhaps the story is just a story; I do not know. But what I do know is that there is a great deal of truth to it. We are going to be human for a very, very long time. It’s why my juniors are now getting comfortable talking about a ‘universal human experience’ and what we call the human condition. The reality of that condition is simple: we are all broken.
You may think I refer to the body in this and say, “No, I am in peak physical condition.” I assure you, I’m not and that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about whether the eye sees or the leg walks—that’s a different kind of thing. What I mean is this: we all have a hidden hurt that plagues us; what some of us seek counseling or spiritual direction for, what some of us call trauma and others of us call concupiscence. What I mean is that every person that you meet— from your daughter to the young man checking your goods at the convenience store—is experiencing a kind of suffering that you likely don’t see.
So, what do we do about this? The nightly news is determined to capitalize on it, sensationalizing suffering and treating it as nightly entertainment, such that watching it any given evening leaves the viewer to say, “What’s wrong with this world?!” But for me, I embrace it. I spoke to a young woman in my office yesterday about that very thing—she and I have a similar struggle, and what we realized together in accepting, and not denying, our struggle, we have been given the remarkable ability to understand the struggles of those around us. We are not doctors or priests who heal, but we are people who can love, listen, console, and counsel. This is the beauty in brokenness—the little cracks in me mean that I have more space in my heart to overflow with love.
This is what we learn when we read Hamlet or Benedict in their twin statements about man: man is both a piece of work, and also a happy thing. We are not schismatic in ourselves, but moreover: the knowing and accepting of our brokenness enables us to accept the other truly. We suffer when we deny it and seek to internalize our wounds, and we delight in being understood and understanding such that we can better love.