Bellarmine Preparatory School

Bellarmine Preparatory School is a Roman Catholic high school in the Jesuit tradition in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It is located in the Archdiocese of Seattle. Today it serves just over 900 students from the Greater Tacoma area, including Olympia and Gig Harbor.

For the school in San Jose, California, see Bellarmine College Preparatory.
Bellarmine Preparatory School
Address
2300 South Washington Street

Tacoma, (Pierce County)
Washington 98405-1304

United States
Coordinates47°14′16″N 122°29′7″W
Information
TypePrivate, Coeducational
MottoChristus Exananvit Semetipsum
(Christ Emptied Himself)
Religious affiliation(s)Roman Catholic, Jesuit
Patron saint(s)St. Robert Bellarmine
Established1928 (1928)
FounderFr. David McAstocker, S.J.
PresidentRobert Modarelli
DeanKevin Meines
RectorFr. Thomas Lamanna, S.J.
PrincipalCindy Davis
ChaplainFr. Gerry Chapdelaine, S.J.
Staff45
Faculty76
Grades9–12
Enrollment904 (April 5, 2015)
 • Grade 9259
 • Grade 10285
 • Grade 11172
 • Grade 12188
Average class size26
Student to teacher ratio14:1
Campus size42 acres (170,000 m2)
Campus typeUrban closed
HousesThérèse of Lisieux, Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, Lady of Guadalupe, Maximillian Kolbe, Kateri Tekakwitha
Color(s)Blue and white         
Slogan"Where potential becomes purpose"
Fight song"Fight Lions"
Athletics43 athletic teams
Athletics conference4A SPSL
Sports18 sports
MascotLion
Team nameLions
RivalCurtis High School
AccreditationAdvancED [1]
NewspaperThe Bellarmine Lion
YearbookThe Annual
Endowment$19,376,000
Tuition15,476 USD (2018-19)
Vice President for DevelopmentDean Hanks
Vice Principal of Curriculum and InstructionBill Baerg
Vice Principal of Student LifeKevin Meines
Vice Principal of Formation and Professional DevelopmentJody DeGroot
Websitewww.bellarmineprep.org

The institution

School history

Bellarmine was founded in 1928 as an all-boys school, and became the second coeducational Jesuit school in the nation in 1974 after its merger with Aquinas and St. Leo's schools. The date of the school's creation is commonly accepted to be 1928 despite the fact that both Saint Leo's Grammar and High School and Aquinas Academy for girls were founded earlier (in 1912 and 1893 respectively). This can cause confusion since the current parents club, Philomathea, was founded at Saint Leo's and continued at Bellarmine after the merger, so that the club predates the present school. The first graduating class of Bellarmine was in 1929, with 19 students graduating.[2]

Campus

The school sits on a large campus, at the highest point overlooking the city of Tacoma. Poplar trees planted to remember the sacrifices of Bellarmine Alumni in World War II still stand near Memorial Field.[2] Memorial Field remained a grass field up until 2017, laying out a new turf field the summer before the 2017/2018 school year. The school quad has the qualities of a Grad at Grad printed in metal letters on the concrete and the letters AMDG printed at the quad's center-most point.

Student life

Houses

Besides being divided by years, the school is divided into six houses, each named for a famous Catholic figure. This is intended to help students bond outside their grade levels. Most competitive activities internal to the school are divided by house.

House Color
Alphonsus Rodriguez Red
Kateri Tekakwitha Orange
Thérèse of Lisieux Yellow
Francis Xavier Green
Lady of Guadalupe Blue
Maximillian Kolbe Purple

Co-curricular activities

FIRST Robotics

The school competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) as Team 360, The Revolution.[3] Established in 1999, the team has been recognized for the quality of the robots produced and for their commitment to community service.[4] They are the oldest sustaining team in the Pacific Northwest District at 19 years. They have won multiple awards:[5]

  • 2016 World Championship Woodie Flowers (Eric Stokely)
  • 2016 PNW District Championships Winner
  • 2015 Auburn District Competition Winner
  • 2012 Autodesk Oregon Regional Winner
  • 2011 Autodesk Oregon Regional Winner
  • 2011 Microsoft Seattle Cascade Regional Chairman's Award
  • 2009 Microsoft Seattle Regional Chairman's Award

Model UN

Established in 2013, Bellarmine's Model UN program, BellarMUN, continues to expand. Attending several conference conferences every year, including PACMUN,CAIMUN,AmeriMUNC and VMUN, BellarMUN hosts its own middle school conference, BELLARMUN.

In 2017, the school’s Model UN program was recognized as one of the best in the west coast region being the only program to represent the state of Washington

[6]

Athletics

Over 70% of the student population competes in at least one athletic activity.[7] It has been named All-Sports Champions by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association the past four years, winning it for the first time in school history in 2004 with the second highest All-Sports score recorded in state history, and the highest score for a 2A, 3A, or 4A school. In 2004, the men's soccer team won its first state title in school history with an undefeated record of 20-0-2. In 2008, the men's soccer team went on to win its second state title, over Puyallup High School; it was determined by penalty kicks.

Bellarmine has excelled in all sports with the men's golf team gathering seven state championships, including four individual champions. The wrestling team has had two state champions. The girls cross country has four state championships as a team and three girls who have combined for 5 individual championships. The boys tennis team has recorded 9 individual/doubles state championships and nine team state championships including a run of four in a row from 2005-2008. The girls soccer team has five state championships to their credit, and the boys have two. The girls volleyball team won their first state championship in school history in 2012, and repeated in 2013. The fast pitch team has one state championship in 1985. The girls tennis team has six team state championships to their name along with four individual titles won in a row by Sonja Olejar from 1989-1992, and four state titles in doubles. The girls golf team has won seven state championships in a row plus three more from 2003-2005 giving them a total of ten along with four individual champions.

Boys' sports offered: Cross country, Basketball, Wrestling, Tennis, Golf, Track and Field, Baseball, Soccer, Lacrosse, and Football.

Girls' sports offered: Volleyball, Cross country, Basketball, Fast pitch, Track and field, Lacrosse, Soccer, Tennis, and Golf.

Theater

Bellarmine has a theater program which puts on two shows a year: a fall musical and a spring play, as well as a Dramafest featuring student-written one-act plays.[8][9] In recent years, the department's musical productions have been nominated for several 5th Avenue High School Musical Theatre Awards, with one win in 2014 and two in 2015. The students work in six sub-departments of the theatre program: acting; set building; costume, hair, and make-up design, sound design; lighting design; and stage management.

Community service

As part of the required curriculum, sophomores must complete a total of thirty hours of community service, as well as helping out at the local L'Arche farm with their Community Period (homeroom). Additionally, a community service class is required for graduation. Several community service clubs are active on campus such as Habitat for Humanity and Key Club, and there is a sophomore retreat offered that involves several hours of community service. There is also Nativity House and Operation Keep ‘Em Warm and Fed.

In 1993 Bellarmine started a tradition of housing temporarily homeless families in academic buildings during non-school hours for a small span of the year, called Phoenix Housing. Bellarmine provides these persons dinner, breakfast, and overnight accommodations with the help of student volunteers.[2]

Religion

Religion is an integral part of the Bellarmine curriculum, with eight credits required for graduation (new for the class of 2018), as well as an additional half credit of community service class.[10]

Retreats

Bellarmine holds a required student body retreat for the freshmen, called "My Place in this World". Freshmen and sophomores are also required to attend Faith in Formation meetings.[11] These generally occur during Community Period (homeroom). The sophomore meetings focus more on volunteer work, including participation in a Habitat for Humanity build or work with L'Arche.

An optional overnight retreat, the Francis Xavier Urban Plunge, is offered in the fall and spring for sophomores. The retreat focuses on "street life" in the Tacoma Area.[12]

The Junior Encounter is an optional three day off-campus retreat during the weekend. Six occur each year, three for males and three for females. The details of the retreat are a tightly-kept secret from underclassmen, and the entire event is generally considered to be a strong bonding experience for the class.

Four retreats are offered to seniors. Senior Pilgrimage is a weekend hike up a mountain. Montserrat is an Ignatian, directed retreat which is made in complete silence for a 24-hour period, and the Manresa is also a silent retreat over a 48-hour period. The Magis is a three-day overnight retreat.[12]

Bellarmine students may also work on crew or team for the Senior Pilgrimage, Magis retreat, and Junior Encounter.[13]

Mass

All-school Masses are rare, normally on Ash Wednesday, the last day before Christmas break, and the Feast of Saint Robert Bellarmine. The entire school attends, but active participation is optional. There are also occasional Masses during lunch, and Mass is offered on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays prior to the start of school

.[14]

Academics

Bellarmine offers a number of AP classes, along with other special programs.

Art

Bellarmine is home to an art program with many resources, including pottery wheels, kilns, and glaze required for a wide variety of ceramics.[15] There is also a photo lab and photography classes are offered.[16]

Marine chemistry

The marine chemistry program is available to students who score sufficiently well on the school entrance examination and opt into doing extra research work to fulfill this requirement. It is a four-year program where students learn the skills needed to do chemical and biological marine research in their first two years, and then apply those skills in their own research projects during their junior and senior years.

Notable alumni
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gollark: Deploying egg shipment railgun.
gollark: A mere hallucination.
gollark: ++delete <@319753218592866315> from existence
gollark: I am allowed to, yes.

References
  1. "AdvancED". Archived from the original on 2013-07-30. Retrieved 2013-07-30.
  2. 1929
  3. FIRST Team 360
  4. Chief Delphi
  5. The Blue Alliance
  6. "Home - BELLARMUN". BELLARMUN.
  7. "Record of Excellence > Bellarmine Preparatory School". www.bellarmineprep.org. Retrieved 2018-05-22.
  8. 5th Avenue
  9. Goodnow, Cecelia (June 5, 2007). "Bellarmine wins top honors in high school musical theater awards". Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  10. Religion Archived 2008-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Retreats Archived 2010-09-18 at the Wayback Machine
  12. Street Life
  13. Retreat crews Archived 2008-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  14. Masses Archived 2008-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  15. Pottery Archived 2008-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  16. Photography Archived 2008-05-22 at the Wayback Machine
  17. Steve Mullen (January 13, 2010). "B-Town". Tacoma Weekly. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
  18. "Galbraith Advances". Seattle Times. September 3, 1990. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
  19. "Port Orchard family hoping to hear from Haiti". The Associated Press. Seattle Times. January 14, 2010. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
  20. "Bellarmine Prep High School (Tacoma, Washington)". The Baseball Cube. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
  21. Friedman, Sam (2015-03-27). "Fr. Louis Renner". Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Retrieved 2015-04-21.
  22. Milles, Todd (January 15, 2014). "Gig Harbor's Kyle Stanley rested, ready to live it up on tour". The News Tribune. Archived from the original on February 15, 2014. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
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