As September waned and October unfolded, St. John Paul II High School buzzed with energy and excitement. While the novelty of the new school year has settled into familiarity, the vibrancy of school life has only intensified. Here are just a few highlights that showcase our commitment to fostering growth and community.
The 3rd Annual Adventure Gala was a resounding success, embodying the spirit of community and generosity that defines St. John Paul II High School. This year's theme, "Derby Party," set a lively tone for the evening.
The night began with a cocktail hour, allowing guests to mingle and enjoy their surroundings. Following this, our students helped prepare and also took pride in serving our valued supporters. Their involvement exemplified the school's commitment to fostering a spirit of service and gratitude.
As the evening progressed, the excitement built during the highly anticipated live auction, where guests competed fiercely for unique items and experiences. Through the combined efforts of our dedicated community, this gala showcased the generosity of our supporters and raised significant funds. These contributions will play a vital role in ensuring that a Catholic education remains accessible to all families. St. John Paul II High School is truly blessed by God to have such active and compassionate supporters.
Spirit Week serves as an exciting prelude to our cherished Fall Feast Day Festival, a time dedicated to honoring our patron, Saint John Paul II. However, it also offers a wonderful opportunity for students and staff to infuse some joy and laughter into their daily routines, providing a much-needed break from the rigors of academic responsibilities. This year, we embraced a vibrant and creative approach by introducing a unique theme for each day of the week.
The themes included "Western Day", "Dress as Your Favorite Saint Day", "Class Movie Day", "Throwback Day," (students dressed as their younger selves), "Catholic Swag Day," where everyone sported gear that proudly displayed their faith and school spirit.
The Fall Feast Day Festival is a beloved community event that honors the feast day of our patron, Saint John Paul II. As the festivities commenced, the air was filled with delightful aromas as families gathered to enjoy a variety of delicious food and refreshing drinks. Each student house took pride in crafting their own unique carnival games, providing entertainment that appealed to all ages. As the afternoon transitioned into evening, the festivities continued with a lively country dance that had everyone on their feet.
Overall, the Fall Feast Day Festival was not just a celebration of our patron; it was a unifying experience that strengthened our bonds as a school community. The smiles, laughter, and shared moments will surely be cherished until we gather again next year to celebrate once more!
We are getting excited to have our first-ever Presidential Installation Mass on Wednesday, October 30th at 6:30pm at Our Lady of the Valley Parish. We are looking forward to having you all there with us.
I will be making a few exciting announcements for our school families about our current school year and the future of the school, so you won't want to miss it!
- Timothy Gallic, President - St. John Paul II High School
Three exceptional students (left to right) Catherine Wolf, Cole Whitworth and Elijah Martinez were honored with a Certificate of Achievement from the Classic Learning Test (CLT), a prestigious assessment that supports a traditional education model. The CLT provides a meaningful metric for evaluating students' abilities, helping them navigate their academic journeys while preparing for a prosperous future. This year, these outstanding individuals achieved the highest CLT scores at St. John Paul II High School for the 2023-2024 academic year, showcasing their dedication and hard work.
Their accolades not only reflect their personal accomplishments but also underscore the academic rigor and supportive community that our school fosters. The CLT exam assesses critical thinking, reasoning, and knowledge across various subjects, allowing students to demonstrate their mastery of essential skills.
As they celebrate this significant achievement, we are proud of their commitment to academic excellence and their contributions to our school community. Their success inspires their peers and embodies the values we strive to instill in all our students. Congratulations to these accomplished students for their remarkable achievements! We look forward to seeing where their talents take them in the future.
At the start of this school year, Mrs. Hockel and I moved into a new house (we always manage to save such major events for immediately prior to the commencement of a new school year). And now we have the joy of breaking out the boxes and seeing the same old things in the same light that’s ever shone, but the new paint colour seems to have breathed excitement into the doldrums of the cutlery.
I very much like my knives, not merely because they’re mine but because of the weight and heft that there is to them. My knives are as battered and in need of a good sharpening as I am. And now that I’ve heaved the piano into three different places to make sure it fits the room correctly, I am now allowed to play it. And it strikes me that both with the knives and with the piano there is a strange goodness that I am seeing. It’s certainly not that the knives are the greatest knives or that the piano is the perfect piano. So I am both seeing a good and a not-as-good, and I’m stuck mulling it over.
I’m a miserable piano player despite my love of it, but I sound immeasurably worse on a piano other than my own. The chips in the keys of my piano help me to feel out better where I am, and I know precisely how to press the sustain pedal on mine because of how practiced I am with its defects. I don’t mean to say that I don’t appreciate playing on the grand piano when presented the opportunity, nor am I saying that properly sharp chef’s knives wouldn’t severe me as well as my shoddy set. But this is precisely what it is to fall into a habit, isn’t it?
I’m neither advocating for the highest quality stuff nor am I saying the defective is better for its familiarity—such a claim surely sounds like Hell (especially when taken into the vein of virtue and vice). But it reminds me of O’Connor’s claim in one of her letters. She says, “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” If we force the view, we are capable of distorting our view of reality far beyond the realm of what is true. We might skew the bad to, in our view, be like the good. Worse, we might let out vision make scant of the good. The object of humility is to see things as the Creator sees them, and to know them as He knows them.
And that is what we are taking the time to think and pray about at the start of the new school year. Many people are tempted to look at a new academic year the way we might characterize the New Year and fill it with promises to the self and resolutions that we don’t intend to keep. Those vapid resolutions come to naught most typically because of a lack of humility.
It reminds me of the phrase, ‘being the best version of yourself’, which we all understand even though it’s rather silly. You are, always and constantly, throughout your life. Is there a multitude of me to select from, or is it rather one me in a small way of the eternal present as I pursue Goodness through space and time? If the former, I picked a lousy model and I should go out on a shopping spree to replace, like the dull knife or the clunky piano, those portions of myself that are such a bother. But if it’s the latter I can instead begin to see the daily opportunities to select the good.
It's like this new house that Mrs. Hockel and I are in. For nine years we’ve been praying with our little family. It’s never been quite to our satisfaction because the home altar’s never been done quite as we wished it would be. But we prayed, and that was good. It wasn’t perfection, but it was a pursuit and imitation of it. We knew the kinks, so to speak, and so when in unpacking the candles and the portraits for our altar this time, we’ve got it a little closer—a little more refined—and so bit by intentional bit we’re getting close to the right and the good.
Blaise A. Hockel,
Headmaster
As September waned and October unfolded, St. John Paul II High School buzzed with energy and excitement. While the novelty of the new school year has settled into familiarity, the vibrancy of school life has only intensified. Here are just a few highlights that showcase our commitment to fostering growth and community.