Chesterton Academy of the Holy Hearts, which describes itself as a classical high school in the Catholic tradition, is expected to open in Visalia this fall.
Earlier this year, the plan was to start on a small scale by offering classes downstairs in the Montgomery Square building at 208 W. Main St., Visalia. Plans still call for the school to start small, but now the school is expected to open at 603 N. Court St., just south of Oval Park.
“We are saying our prayers that we get it,” said Jeff Hohne, founding board member, about the new location. “We received a conditional use permit from the city of Visalia on Monday, June 22. We have to do some work, and we’re working closely with the planning commission to get that work done.
“Hopefully, we can meet the conditions that they have set out, and I’m confident we can,” he said. “We have a tremendous amount of support from people that are tradesmen and can help us meet the requests of the planning commission.”
Enrollment will be between 15-20 students for the fall semester, and six employees, mainly part-time, will teach or run the school’s offices.
“We will have somebody teaching Latin and drama,” he said. “We’ll have somebody doing Euclidean geometry and philosophy, and we’ll have a gal that comes and does music.”
The new location will be better able to serve the spiritual needs of the students.
“Part of the mission central to our school is our Catholic faith, and central to that is participation in and adherence to sacraments,” Hohne said. “We will attend mass daily, and the daily mass is at St. Mary’s Church, which is just one block east. It really is a great location for us because we can walk to mass and walk back from mass.”
The proposed location will provide enough space for three classrooms and some office space, but no facilities for the school’s athletic program.
“We really are committed to having a sport per season this first year, one in the fall, one in the winter, one in the spring,” Hohne said. “We’re working with the city to try to secure some space for that.”
Serving a niche
There is currently no Catholic high school in Tulare County.
George McCann Memorial Catholic School in Visalia serves local pre-kindergarten to eighth grade students, but the closest Catholic high schools are San Joaquin Memorial in Fresno and Garces Memorial in Bakersfield.
“We really hope to serve that niche,” Hohne said, before talking about the students already enrolled for the fall semester.
“Our students come from a pretty wide background,” he said. “We have kids from public school in Visalia and in Hanford and Lemoore. We have kids that are Catholic homeschool students. We have students from one of our local Christian schools.
“We are where we projected our opening enrollment two years ago,” Hohne said. “In fact, as of a couple days ago, we may even be a couple above it.”
Each coming school year should bring an increase in enrollment.
“We have a big group of kids that will be eighth graders next year, so we will have pretty good year-over-year growth in the ’27 school year,” Hohne said, noting that enrollment is expected to be about 150 in seven years.
“Looking at our trajectory and our projected enrollment, do we take the leap of faith and move into something that is quite a bit bigger than we need, knowing we’ll grow into it, or do we move again for two, three years, and then find our ‘forever home’?” he said. “That’s something the board will have to come together and discuss.”
The first Chesterton Academy opened in Minneapolis in 2008 and has since developed into a network of more than 70 schools across the U.S.
Hohne is confident that Chesterton Academy of the Holy Hearts will also succeed in Visalia.
“We have had so much support from the Visalia community, and Kings County and Tulare County farmers and dairymen,” he said. “They have been just astoundingly generous, and we’ve had great support from people that aren’t Catholic but recognize the need for options for families.”
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Catholic school to open near Visalia’s Oval Park in the fall
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta | USA TODAY Network
