Reply to St. Mary's Open House (Alexandria)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We attended this morning. There are definitely pros and cons to the school. More cons if you are not Catholic or not a particularly devout Catholic.

The gym was packed full with prospective families, and it was the most crowded open house we've seen, thus far. The tour groups were packed, which made it difficult to hear the tour guides and have questions answered. Older St. Mary's students accompanied the tours, and they were very well spoken and seemed to have a lot of pride in their school. It's a very large school, I think over 700 students. Class size target is 26.  The school seemed very orderly and disciplined, and the children appeared well behaved. We did not see any chaos, but a lot of engaged learning. Not much diversity. We got the impression that it is a wonderful community, with very friendly parents and students.  Several students came over and introduced themselves to us. Also several current parents. A nice community....if you are Catholic. Apparently 87% of graduates go on to Catholic high schools, e.g., BI, Gonzaga, Visitation.

What surprised us was just how indoctrinated the school is. Even as a Catholic family, we were surprised to hear that the students pray before and after every single class. The open house opened with a prayer followed by Hail Mary. There was much more conversation and presentation about religious studies than there was discussion about the basic academic curriculum. The principal spoke at length about how religion is infused into the curriculum in every way possible, right down to discussion of the sun (God), moon (Mary), and stars (Students). They spoke about how the children walk 6 blocks to the church for services and also have weekly mass in addition to that, in the school.  The student tour guides discussed religion at length, as they have religion class every day, not to mention praying before and after every class, and also classes on learning how to pray.

This was our first Catholic school tour, and we also plan to visit Blessed Sacrament and St. Ritas.  Can anyone comment if the other Catholic schools are this conservative? We want our child to have a Catholic education, but I am not confident if St. Mary's is the right fit for us. We want DS to be exposed to other things besides all religion all the time.
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I was there, too. This is a spot-on summary. Also, for the "closet liberal" parent--is your child non-Catholic? We are Catholics but have not baptized or children and are clearly thus non-practicing. I loved the school and the kids, but I think our son would be at a disadvantage there--would be an outsider. I didn't fully realize that until I went to the open house. If we were practicing Catholics, I would definitely apply. I liked it very much in a lot of ways.[/quote]

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