Pope Francis Preparatory School is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

co-educational

college-preparatory A college-preparatory school (often shortened to prep school, preparatory school, college prep school or college prep academy) is a type of secondary school. The term refers to public, private independent or parochial schools primarily design ...

high school in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is the most populous city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, and its county seat. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ea ...

. The school was originally opened as Cathedral High School in 1883 by the Sisters of Saint Joseph at St. Michael's Cathedral. In 2011, the school's building was destroyed by a tornado. A few years later in 2015, it was announced that it would merge with Holyoke Catholic High School in Chicopee to form a new regional Catholic school. The new building was completed in 2016 and reopened as Pope Francis High School. The school was later renamed to the current moniker. The school's current building is on the site of the original Cathedral High School.

History

Cathedral High School

In 1883, the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

's Bishop Patrick Thomas O'Reilly sought a teaching staff for a high school in response to the growing number of Catholic immigrants in the area. Responding to the call, two members of the Sisters of St. Joseph from Flushing, New York came to Springfield to start up the school. In the years that followed Cathedral High School flourished in facilities on Elliot Street in downtown Springfield. By the 1950s the school had grown to nearly 1600 students. The school had outgrown its facilities, so the Diocese purchased a 30-acre (121,000 m²) farm on Surrey and Wendover Roads in Springfield and built a new school. It opened on September 9, 1959. In the first decade at Surrey Road student enrollment grew to more than 2600 students. In 2002 the school was re-accredited by

New England Association of Schools and Colleges The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. (NEASC ) is an American educational organization that accredits private and public secondary schools (high schools and technical/career institutions), primarily in New England. It also ...

. In an effort to consolidate the Diocese's educational resources in the wake of increasing financial difficulties, Cathedral High School was selected to host the newly establishe
St. Michael's Academy
which hosted students from Grades 6 to 8. From 2008 to 2009, Cathedral was extensively remodeled to accommodate the new facility, which occupied a full wing of the main school facility. On June 1, 2011, Cathedral High School was severely damaged in the tornado that struck Springfield, Massachusetts. The building was declared a total loss. The students had finished the remainder of the 2010–2011 school year at Elms College, located in Chicopee, Massachusetts. The school was based out of Memorial Elementary School in neighboring Wilbraham, Massachusetts from the 2011–2012 school year until 2016. Demolition of the original Cathedral High School building was completed in 2015.

Campus

The school's Surrey Road campus was in Springfield's East Forest Park Neighborhood on a green and hilly plot of land which is now the site of Pope Francis Preparatory School.

Original Building

The school was divided into four main sections. Most of the classrooms were in a building that, from the air, was shaped like a boxy eight with two courtyards in the open spaces formed by the eight. A small chapel took up part of the first floor in one of the courtyards. The school offices were near the main entrance, and the cafeteria extended towards the few athletic fields. Extending north from the main building was the science wing. Because of the hills the school was built in, the science wing's first and second floors were just above the main building's second and third floors. The auditorium abutted the main building and was the largest high school auditorium in the area. On a lower grade than the rest of the school, were the gymnasium, a parking lot, and playing fields which included a full size football field that doubled as a soccer and lacrosse field. Island Pond, on the eastern edge of the property, featured a rare

floating island A floating island is a mass of floating aquatic plants, mud, and peat ranging in thickness from several centimeters to a few meters. Sometimes referred to as ''tussocks'', ''floatons'', or ''suds'', floating islands are found in many parts of t ...

History

Throughout its history, Cathedral High School had predominantly served the students of the City of Springfield. However, many of its students had come from the suburbs of the city and some as far away as

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

, Palmer, and

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. Being a

Catholic school Catholic schools are Parochial school, parochial pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest parochial schools, religious, no ...

, a majority of its student had been Catholic. However, that had never been a requirement for admission. Before merging, the school enrollment had fallen to approximately 250 students. 70% of the students were from Springfield itself. The school had 45 faculty members and administrators. Most of the faculty had a master's degree. Many had taught at the school for 20+ years. For many years the faculty consisted of Sisters of St. Joseph and a small number of lay men and women. In later years members of religious communities remained a vital part of the school community, but in significantly smaller numbers. Nearly all the teachers were full-time. Cathedral High School also sponsored teachers who were in the Providence Alliance for Catholic Teachers, or PACT program, part of the University Consortium for Catholic Education. Through this program, young teachers are given the chance to earn a master's degree in education from Providence College, while devoting two years of service to the school where they are assigned. Before merging there was one teacher in the program at Cathedral and two graduates of the program taught at the school. In 2004, the school welcomed its first lay principal. With this, all Cathedral's academic leadership, including vice-principal, guidance director, business manager, librarians, and all department heads were lay people. Cathedral High School was a college-preparatory program, where 96% of the graduates furthered their education. Members of the Class of 2009 attended Boston College, Boston University, Fairfield University; Fordham University, College of the Holy Cross, Northeastern University, Bryant University, Providence College, Rochester Institute of Technology, St. Anselm's, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, University of Rochester, The Elms College, Villanova University,

The Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Catholic research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is one of two pontifical universities of the Catholic Church in the United States – the only one that is not primarily ...

, and others.

Academics

Cathedral High School offered College Prep,

Advanced Placement Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada created by the College Board. AP offers undergraduate university-level curricula and examinations to high school students. Colleges and universities in the US and elsewhere ...

, and Honors classes within the STREAM (

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

Technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

Religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

Engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

Arts The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...

and

Math Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

) program. Cathedral High School had religion, science, English,

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

& business,

social studies In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as ...

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

physical education Physical education is an academic subject taught in schools worldwide, encompassing Primary education, primary, Secondary education, secondary, and sometimes tertiary education. It is often referred to as Phys. Ed. or PE, and in the United Stat ...

and mathematics departments. Within their respective departments, Cathedral offered classes in

scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...

world religions World religions is a socially-constructed category used in the study of religion to demarcate religions that are deemed to have been especially large, internationally widespread, or influential in the development of human societies. It typicall ...

earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

, computer literacy,

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

(painting, drawing, and sculpture), United States History,

World History Human history or world history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Early modern human, Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They Early expansions of hominin ...

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

, Spanish, French,

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

, and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

. Many of these classes and others were available as college prep or honors. Advanced Placements were available in English, Calculus, Statistics, US History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Latin.

Extracurriculars

Sports

The school's teams played sports as the Cathedral High School Panthers. The Panthers had sports teams at three competitive levels (varsity, JV and freshman). *

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

Cross Country Running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and soil, earth, pass through woodlands and ope ...

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

Field Hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

*Indoor

Track and Field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

Softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

*Outdoor

Tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

History

Over the past 70 years Cathedral teams have won countless Western Massachusetts and state titles, including in football, soccer, cross country, basketball, hockey, indoor track and field, baseball, outdoor track and field and tennis. Before the merger, the school's colors were purple and white. Cathedral's mascot was a Panther, and the squads were often referred to as the Purple Panthers. With the exception of Field Hockey and Football, all sports at Cathedral had both boys' and girls' teams. Football, soccer, basketball, and baseball all had freshman, junior varsity, and varsity teams. The others had JV and varsity teams. In the years prior to the merger, the school was perhaps best known for its Ice Hockey team. The Panthers had the only Division 1 hockey program in Western Massachusetts. Cathedral High School hockey won their first state championship in 1996 when they beat Hingham High School 2–0 in a thrilling Division 2 Championship Game. In 2009, the Cathedral High School ice hockey team won the Division 1 State Championship for the first time since 2003, beating Arlington Catholic, the Division 1 North Champions, for the title.

Clubs

Clubs included

National Honor Society The National Honor Society (NHS) is one of the oldest, largest, and most widely recognized cocurricular student organizations in American high schools, with 1.4 million members. The purpose of the NHS is to create enthusiasm for scholarship, to ...

, language clubs, choir, Outdoor Adventure club, and

Model UN Model United Nations, also known as Model UN (MUN), is an educational simulation of the United Nations, which teaches students about diplomacy, international relations, global issues, and how the United Nations is run. During a model UN confe ...

Tuition

Tuition for the 2025-2026 academic year is $13,250 per student. International tuition is $19,500.

Notable alumni

* Scott Barnes - Drafted by the

Washington Nationals The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C. The Nationals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. They play their home games at Na ...

in the 43rd round of the 2005 MLB June Amateur Draft and the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

in the 8th round of the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft. * Angelo Bertelli - 1943 Heisman Trophy winner at Notre Dame * Wayne Budd - Former Assistant US Attorney General *

Nick Buoniconti Nicholas Anthony Buoniconti (, December 15, 1940 – July 30, 2019) was an American professional American football, football player who was a middle linebacker in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL). He played c ...

- NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker * Chris Capuano -

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

pitcher * Bill Danoff - Singer & Songwriter, Member of Starland Vocal Band, Wrote John Denver's "Country Roads" * Vinny Del Negro - NBA Point Guard from 1988 to 2001 and former head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers * Paul Fenton - Former NHL player and current assistant general manager of the Nashville Predators * Mike Flynn -

Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its home g ...

offensive linemen * Nick Gorneault - Former

player (

Los Angeles Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, ...

) * Derek Kellogg - University of Massachusetts Men's Basketball Head Coach * John Leonard - Professional ice hockey player *

Tim Mayotte Timothy Mayotte (born August 3, 1960) is an American former professional tennis player. He was ranked as high as world No. 7 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Mayotte won twelve singles titles during his career. ...

- Tennis Professional *

Larry O'Brien Lawrence Francis O'Brien Jr. (July 7, 1917September 28, 1990) was an American politician and commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1975 to 1984. He was one of the United States Democratic Party's leading electoral strat ...

- Advisor to President Kennedy, Postmaster General and NBA commissioner * Thomas Reilly - Former Massachusetts Attorney General * Joe Scibelli - 15-year veteran in the NFL as a guard for the LA Rams * John Shea - Actor, film producer, and stage director. Best known for such films as the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

-nominated film '' Missing'' (1982) and as Lex Luthor on the TV series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman''. * Tommy Tallarico - American video game music composer and musician. *

Peter Welch Peter Francis Welch (born May 2, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2023 as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Vermont. A member of the Democratic Party (Unit ...

- Democratic Congressman from Vermont * Bob Kudelski - 9-year veteran in the NHL.

References

{{Authority control Sisters of Saint Joseph schools Catholic secondary schools in Massachusetts High schools in Springfield, Massachusetts Educational institutions established in 1883 1883 establishments in Massachusetts Educational institutions disestablished in 2016 2016 disestablishments in Massachusetts