New Catholic High School Coming To Southwest Valley

Published: Monday, April 4, 2016 - 6:25pm
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Pope John Paul II became a saint in 2014, and the Phoenix Diocese said the southwest Valley’s first Catholic high school will be named after him.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted will be in Avondale Tuesday to bless the future site of St. John Paul II Catholic High School.

St. John Paul II will be built for 600 students, but will have the capacity to grow to 1,000. A recent feasibility study revealed the area is underserved, said MaryBeth Mueller, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Phoenix.

“We have two elementary schools in the far West Valley,” Mueller said. “We could easily have three more elementary schools built to serve the population because it’s growing.“

St. John Paul II will open first to 9th and 10th graders. Plans are to grow the school by a grade a year after that, Mueller said.

Annual tuition is expected to be about $10,000, but Mueller said the Diocese wants its seventh Catholic high school to be affordable. It plans to do that by using the tax credit program to fund scholarships and applying for grants, Mueller said.

“We don’t want to price our self out of business,” Mueller said. “We want families to indeed choose to send their children to St. John Paul the second Catholic high school and be able to afford it with some assistance.”

The order of Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia will run the high school when it opens in fall 2018.