With triple-digit growth in last decade, metro-east Catholic school is set to expand

Father McGivney Catholic High School broke ground Wednesday on a new commons building that is part of a larger expansion plan to accommodate the school’s growing enrollment.

The 3,550-square-foot facility will be situated to the southeast of the main 53,000-square-foot high school building and serve as an indoor gathering space used for daily lunches, drama and music performances and other events.

“It’s a really exciting time for McGivney as we continue to grow and just provide the best educational faith experience that we can for our students so they become great leaders,” Principal Joe Lombardi said.

The co-ed college preparatory school originally opened in the fall of 2012 in the north wing of St. John Neumann Catholic School in Maryville — one of its feeder schools — but quickly outgrew the space. After raising more than $5 million from local families, the high school constructed a new building on an 80-acre lot at 7190 Bouse Road in Glen Carbon that opened its doors to students in August 2015. Its first senior class graduated in 2016.

Lombardi, who came to the school in 2017 after 18 years at Belleville West High School, said the school has built more every year he’s been there.

The varied projects have included additional classrooms within the main building, junior varsity and varsity baseball fields, a varsity softball field and a turf soccer field, he said.

“I do really praise the original designers and founders because they built the building with unfinished space, knowing that we would grow,” Lombardi said. “It was just a really financially sound decision to make, and that allowed us to grow and build those areas out as the enrollment increased.”

Enrollment has grown from 19 students in the school’s first year just over a decade ago to 305 students in the 2022-23 school year, according to the school’s profile. Lombardi said the school has also had a wait list for the last three years.

“We just really want to maintain small class sizes here and a strong culture and environment for our students. It’s really important for us to get to know our students one on one and individually,” he said.

The school’s motto, servire culturae vitae, is Latin for “serving the culture of life,” but the motto is also “seeing the whole student” and developing their mind, body and spirit, Lombardi said.

To accomplish that, he said the school offers rigorous academics, including advanced placement classes and dual-credit opportunities with Saint Louis University, athletics and other activities, and faith formation that “is built into everything that we do here.”

“It really helps to create a feeling that everyone is included here, and that we see you for who you are, and that we help you kind of uncover who you could be in the future,” he said.

The ‘McG Master Plan’

The commons is the last part of phase one in the school’s four-phase “McG Master Plan” that spans 10 years. Phase one has also included a back parking lot and three additional classrooms that were built over the past year.

For the next phases, Lombardi said the school will conduct a feasibility study and then continue to raise funding in the hopes of building a new chapel, an additional, larger gym, additional classrooms, a performing arts center, tennis courts and an all-weather track.

He said all phases would depend on need and enrollment.

The school is currently in the bidding process for the commons building construction and hopes to have all bids returned and an acceptance made before Christmas break, Lombardi said. Construction would then begin mid-January to early February and be completed next fall, depending on the weather.

According to the the Catholic News Agency, enrollment in U.S. Catholic schools has fallen sharply since 1965, when more than half of the nation’s Catholic children attended a parochial school. That percentage fell to about 15% as of 2009. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Catholic schools have seen notable increase in annual enrollment, including a 3.5% jump in 2023, the agency reported.