New Catholic High School opening in Twin Cities area

A new high school set to open in Burnsville in the fall of 2019 hopes to serve Catholic families in the south metro of the Twin Cities. Local Catholic business leader Tom Bengtson, who helped launch Chesterton Academy in 2008, and retired NFL player and former Minnesota Viking Matt Birk are teaming up to open Unity High School at Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville.

The school will use existing classrooms at the church, and will begin with ninth grade in the fall, adding one grade per year until it reaches 12th grade. Bengtson said a Catholic high school was needed in this part of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Archbishop Bernard Hebda has approved the beginning of a three-phase process to determine whether the school would gain official recognition as a Catholic high school in the archdiocese. If that happens, the name would change to Unity Catholic High School.

“I have known forever that the south metro — in other words … below the Minnesota River — has not had a high school, and yet it’s an area of booming population,” said Bengtson, 57, who graduated from the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield in 1979. “You’ve got lots of Catholic families down there, you have 10 Catholic grade schools down there, and yet there are no Catholic high schools.”

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New Chesterton Academy of Milwaukee hosts inaugural opening Mass August 24 at Holy Hill

Celebrate with students, staff, faculty, family and friends as we give thanks to Almighty God for His many blessings throughout this endeavor and humbly request the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the academic year ahead.

Faculty and staff will also take the Oath of Fidelity on Assuming an Office to Be Exercised in the Name of the Church in accordance with Saint Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Ad Tuendam Fidem.

Mass will be followed by a social and refreshments at Holy Hill Café.

Beginning the school year with a Mass of the Holy Spirit is a centuries-old custom. Teachers and students gather and pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit – Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of the Lord. The understanding is that only by the guidance of the Holy Spirit can teaching and learning bear fruit, for only by Him can the truth be discovered. The Dictatorship of Relativism renders education fruitless as it insists there is no objective truth to be discovered. At this Mass, we openly reject this error and joyfully embrace the objective, knowable and central reality that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

details www.chestertonacademymilwaukee.org

This is the first year of this new school located in Brookfield.  As you may be aware, Chesterton Academy in Edina, MN(founded by Dale Ahlquist) has franchised in a sense the school and now has nine locations, three which open this year.  It is a nice option for a school that wants to get into the classical tradition that is sweeping the country.

Second Chicagoland Chesterton Academy location secured in Downer's Grove

Independent Catholic high school opens in Downers Grove with no-frills, classical approach

Imagine a new high school opening without laptops, iPads or tablets. There's no gym, football team or cheerleaders. Students wear uniforms, attend daily Mass and study Latin and Gregorian chant.

The new Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Downers Grove also promises to offer rigorous academics steeped in the classic traditions of Plato, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

Students already have lined up for the Aug. 24 opening in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church, said Sean Tierney, a Western Springs cardiologist and one of the school's founders.

"We have 30 applications now in different phases of the enrollment process" for freshmen through seniors, Tierney said. "We're prepared to start with a little as 10 students and hoping 20 is probably the average we're looking to get."

Students will order books rather than digital devices that become obsolete in a couple of years, he said. In four years, graduates will have built a library of classic authors including Chaucer, Homer, Dostoevsky, Twain and Shakespeare.

continue at Chicago Tribune