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ROSWELL—Having prepared for long hours, the faculty and staff
at the new Blessed Trinity High School eagerly set sail into uncharted waters
with Catholic academic and faith traditions to carry them as they welcomed
students to class Aug. 17.
The Catholic high school serving the north Atlanta area has 166
freshmen and 53 sophomores—about 80 percent Catholic—and 19 faculty
and 13 staff members. The school will eventually serve 1,000 students, adding
one grade yearly. This year’s sophomores will become the first senior
class.
Blessed Trinity and the new Our Lady of Mercy High School, which
opened the same week in Fairburn, were funded in part through the
“Building the Church of Tomorrow” Capital Campaign held in the
archdiocese in 1997. They join St. Pius X High School, Atlanta, as archdiocesan
high schools.
Three new Catholic elementary schools opened last fall, including
Queen of Angels School adjacent to Blessed Trinity.
Student orientation at Blessed Trinity Aug. 16 began with a
morning assembly in the auditorium for sophomores and their parents, followed
by an afternoon session for freshmen. Students and parents navigated around the
cafeteria where they had yearbook pictures taken, purchased new books and found
their red lockers, the day before classes began.
“I welcome all of you to our first-ever book day,” said
Principal Frank Moore. “This is now your school ...You are the first
Blessed Trinity students and that is really an exciting opportunity for
you.”
Saying he had been a pioneer pupil as a high school student, Moore
asked students to help establish the school’s traditions by selecting the
school mascot and fight song. “We want you to take part,” he said.
Vice-principal Debbie Orr, one of six faculty and staff members to
come on board directly from St. Pius X High School, reviewed school policies at
the assembly. Orr said the faculty and staff want to provide students with
“a great education.”
Cheerleaders shouted “Go Big Green,” for the school
colors of green and gold, and Moore announced the first football game would be
against the Marist School junior varsity in September.
Following the assembly, sophomore Christina Adams from Alpharetta
said she is eager to get plugged into the circuit at Blessed Trinity, as at the
large public schools she’s always attended it was tough to get to know
people and get involved.
“Since I’m in the first graduating class in this high
school I want to be more a part of it,” she said. She looks forward to
involvement in clubs and sports, particularly soccer, and will focus on her
grades. The religious component of school, however, will take some getting used
to, she admitted.
Construction of the school, which cost $24 million including land
acquisition, was completed in August. Hussey, Gay, Bell & DeYoung
International of Savannah designed the school and the general contractor was
Baston-Cook Co. of Atlanta. In addition to capital campaign funds, a $26.9
million bond issue by the archdiocese funded construction of Blessed Trinity.
The school is sited on 68 acres and has 32 classrooms; a chapel;
six science labs; two computer labs; two learning labs; dance and drama
facilities; an art lab; a choral room; a band room; one gymnasium which seats
1,200; a practice gymnasium which seats 150; three weight rooms; locker rooms;
a cafeteria; a media center; and a 650-seat auditorium.
Each classroom has at least five computers and the opening
student-teacher ratio is about 12-1. Each learning lab has 10 computers,
science labs have 11 and computer labs have 28.
Moore said the school’s educational mission is, through a
rigorous curriculum, to enable students to grow “academically, physically,
but most important, in the faith life.”
“That’s what makes us different as a Catholic school.
All of these work together with the goal to raise devout, faith-filled
people,” he said.
Moore said he has an outstanding faculty to help realize that
goal.
“It’s the best faculty I’ve ever been around. I am
most impressed with these teachers,” he said. “They have an average
of eight years of teaching experience ... and they bring a wide variety of
backgrounds and experiences, not just in the classroom, but in extracurricular
activities and coaching and so forth. (They are) a very well-rounded group and
extremely knowledgeable in subject areas and in teaching skills.”
“The teachers were really anxious to get on here ... (and
worked) a tremendous amount of time” unpaid throughout the spring and
summer to get the school up and running, he said.
Students largely come from north Fulton and Cobb counties and the
majority previously attended public schools. The comprehensive, college
preparatory curriculum includes religion, English, mathematics, science, social
studies, foreign language, physical education, fine arts and computer science,
with journalism and band beginning in the next school year. Extracurricular
programs include a student newspaper, literary magazine, language and computer
clubs, a model United Nations and peer helpers. Parents can volunteer with
athletics, fine arts and the home and school association.
In the “absolutely beautiful building,” Moore pointed
out that the school can build the curriculum using totally modern resources
with “everything based on what we know about curriculum today.” In
coming years he plans to have many advanced placement courses “not just
(for) the most gifted students, but the highly motivated.”
Regarding the current curriculum, he added, “we have this
tremendous operating network at our disposal. I think the technology program is
going to grow into something the school is pretty well known for.”
Moore was dean of studies at St. Pius High School for 10 years and
principal for the past two years at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma
City. He said part of the fun of opening a new school is tackling the
“million little glitches” that pop up like overactive class bells and
no bookends for the 6,000-volume library. Still, he is thrilled.
“Opening a new school has been my dream. It is what brought
me back (to Atlanta),” he said.
Moore said it was a challenge to develop the sophomore curriculum
since that grade was added definitively only this summer. But with that
increase in opening enrollment, the school has now almost reached budget level.
He predicts the next freshman class will have a waiting list.
Athletic director Ricky Turner, a former St. Pius assistant
football coach who lettered at the University of Georgia, said all systems are
go with the sports program. This year it will offer football, cross country,
softball, baseball, wrestling, basketball, track, tennis, golf, soccer and
cheerleading. The facilities include a soccer field, track, competition and
practice football fields, a baseball field, softball field, three tennis courts
and a lighted football stadium which seats 2,000.
All sports have varsity coaches who teamed up and “have been
working extra hours to have everything set up on time,” Turner said.
“The (archdiocese) has ordered a lot of great equipment ...
It’s made it a lot easier on us coming in. We’ve got a lot of good
things that we need,” he said. “We have the best equipment to put in
our weight rooms for our athletes to work out in ... We have enough room for
every sport to be able to practice and compete on this campus.”
He hopes to fuel kids’ athletic drive. “Just keeping as
many kids involved as we can in athletics is a top priority so we can build for
the future,” he said. “We’ll have varsity sports in everything
in two years ... It will take a while to build a program, but we have a good
base to build on in the new facilities.”
Science teacher Dr. LaTonia Anthony was attracted to the
opportunity to experiment both with labs and curriculum. “It’s not
like you’re walking into a school where they do things a certain way, (but
a) chance to really try new things,” she said. “I have a really good
feeling about it.”
She said her science equipment is “state-of-the-art.”
Students can use the Internet to follow related current events and do things
like simulated lab work on computers as well as practical labs. “Some
people are more visual (and) some people are more hands-on, so we have
both.”
On orientation day, students, either gravitating toward peers or
sticking by parents, expressed a mixture of excitement, nerves and curiosity.
En route to his locker, sophomore Chris Dixon of Alpharetta said that he
enrolled “to be better prepared for college.” With an interest in
computers, he looks forward to taking computer systems, where he’ll learn
about the school’s high tech network.
“I’m kind of excited,” he said, but also “a
little anxious. I just don’t know anybody. I know it’s going to be a
lot harder.”
His mother, Carolyn Harrison, said they decided to check out
Blessed Trinity because of “the reputation of Catholic schools and the
size of the school and just the academic excellence and the overall teaching
standard it will have and the teaching of values they’ll try to instill in
students.”
“It’s a win-win situation,” she said. As
non-Catholics, they may feel uncomfortable at Mass initially but will develop
an appreciation for it, Harrison said.
She regrets that Chris won’t be able to have upper class
courses this year but believes that “both academically and morally it will
be a wonderful school. I’m thrilled ... He’s very bright and I think
it will be good for him to be in an environment where he’s more
accountable.”
For Adams’ mother, Ramona, the biggest draw was the
school’s low student-teacher ratio despite her “mixed feelings”
about leaving the public school system. “I just think she’s going to
get more one-on-one attention to a certain degree. Just the values and
structure of the school is going to be a plus.”
Kate McWilliams, who has always valued attending a Catholic
school, commuted nearly an hour to attend St. Pius after moving to Alpharetta a
year ago. She is grateful to attend Blessed Trinity, which is practically next
door to her home, and will provide the same Catholic values. “It helps me
know where I’ve come from and how God can help me and I can pray and he
can lead me to what’s right and wrong,” she said.
A product of Catholic schooling, Patricia Rann of Roswell, whose
son, John, is a freshman, said the new high school was a long time coming.
“We’re very excited to have a Catholic school in this
area,” she said. “I can’t wait to meet parents and get active. I
want our whole family to be active.”
John Rann said he looks forward to using the athletic equipment,
making new friends and checking out the chapel, where Mass will be offered
regularly by chaplain Father Tim Hepburn.
“I hope to start off a good day just praying to God and
stuff, just to say a few prayers in the morning,” he said.
Yearly tuition at the high school is $6,500 with scholarships of
$750 from a multi-foundation scholarship fund available to assist prospective
students in the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years at both new Catholic high
schools.
An open house will be held at Blessed Trinity, 11320 Woodstock
Road, Roswell, on Oct. 29 from 1-4 p.m. and the school will be formally
dedicated by Archbishop John F. Donoghue on Dec. 5. Tours will be given at 7:30
p.m. on Tuesdays, Aug. 29, Sept. 5 and 12, and at 9:30 a.m. on Thursdays, Aug.
31, Sept. 7 and 14. For information call the school at (678) 277-9083.
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