It’s been a year-long birthday party at Assumption School, but the celebration of the school’s centennial anniversary wraps up this weekend with a bang.
William Howard Taft had been president only a few months when the cornerstone was laid for the school on North Cliff Street on Aug. 15, 1909. A year later the school doors opened to its first students. For the past 100 years, the school has educated more than 6,500 students from preschool to eighth grade.
So on Aug. 15, 2009 — the Feast of the Assumption — the school kicked of the anniversary celebration, and since then there’s been a host of activities to mark the event, including a golf tournament, a trip to Rockefeller Center and a school production of “The King and I.”
This weekend the festivities will culminate with an Open House Sunday morning at 9:30, followed by a special Mass said by Archbishop Henry J. Mansell at 10:45 a.m. and then a banquet at the Grassy Hill Country Club in Orange.
“It’s been a year of celebrating,” said Assumption School principal Kathleen Molner.
“We are going to be giving tours of the school and everyone on the Student Council is going to be there,” said Jackie Daniels, an eighth-grader who is the student council’s secretary.
She and classmate Cameron Hines said they have enjoyed the year-long activities that include a luncheon the students hosted for former students who graduated between the 1920s and 1950s.
“It’s been fun,” Daniels said.
The school opened as an elementary school for children in grades one through six, but within two years expanded through eighth grade. It was intially staffed by the Sisters of Mercy through 1985.
While other Catholic schools have struggled to maintain enrollment, Assumption’s numbers have stayed steady and even increased, Molner said. This year there are 261 students enrolled, about 20 more than last year, she said.
“We have a thriving school with wonderful support from our pastors,” she said, “who truly believe in the school and are always there for us.”
The school also has a dedicated Home School Association and a large, loyal group of graduates, she said. “They are very supportive are are very generous to the school,” she said.
Because of them — as well as generous support from the Katherine Matthais Foundation — the school has state-of-the-art technology, she said, including seven “smart boards.”
It also has a computer lab and laptops for faculty, she said.
Tuition at the school ranges from $2,700 to $3,200 and financial help is available, she said. The school gets aid through the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal for scholarships, she said, and as part of the centennial celebration, a Scholarship Endowment Fund has been established to provide tuition aide to students in need.
