Los Altos Catholic school turns 50

By Michelle Sklar, Special to the Town Crier

In September 1953, the city of Los Altos had just celebrated its first anniversary and St. Nicholas School was preparing to open its doors to 180 local students in grades one through four.

Looking back on the founding of St. Nicholas provides a revealing snapshot of what the area was like 50 years ago and offers a perspective on the strong community spirit that characterized both the city and the school.

Father Stanley J. Reilly, founding pastor of St. Nicholas Church on Lincoln Avenue, led the drive to build and open the new school. From the start of his appointment in Los Altos, Father Reilly had two driving ambitions — to build a school and to provide the best possible spiritual guidance for his parishioners. In 1950 the first step toward the realization of a new school was taken when a 5.7-acre site on Rosita Avenue, off Campbell Avenue, was purchased.

In 1952 the parish received official permission to proceed with the building of a parochial school. Three nuns from the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose in Fremont agreed to take on the teaching and administration of the school, along with one lay teacher. Classes began 50 years ago this month.

Many in the new city of Los Altos pulled together to ensure the success of the venture. Parishioners of St. Nicholas Church raised the $125,000 needed for the construction of the new school. Numerous local merchants and businesspeople chose to advertise in the school’s “dedication booklet,” including Sondgroth Bros. Contractors, The First National Bank of Los Altos, Walther’s Tile and Linoleum, the Los Altos News and Village Guide, Mancini Motors, Sibley G. & T. Company, Loyola Corners, Pink Horse Ranch and Spangler Mortuary, among many others.

The original principal, Sister Mary Helen, remembers the students and community members as being incredibly involved and committed. “We never had a shortage of volunteers,” she said. “No matter what we needed, people were ready to help.”

Additional students entered the school each year, and the first eighth-grade class of 44 students graduated in 1957. In just two years, St. Nicholas Parish had grown too large to serve all of the Catholics in the community. The parish boundaries were split: The original school buildings were given to the area’s new Catholic parish, St. William, on Rosita Avenue; and St. Nicholas students were relocated to the current school site on El Monte Road, which opened in 1961.

“It was a difficult time,” recalled Lorraine Schemel, a school parent from the school’s early days.

“Depending on what side of the street your house was on, classes were split, and children were sent to one or the other school based on geography,” she said. The Dominican Sisters remained at the Rosita Avenue school, and the Sisters of Mercy from Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland, staffed the “new” St. Nicholas.

Today, St. Nicholas serves close to 300 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Though just minutes from downtown Los Altos, St. Nicholas sits on 13 acres of property with two sports fields, ample blacktop space, and a gymnasium with a kitchen, stage and new sound system. The Irish sisters no longer staff the school, but their years of service and dedication to Catholic education will always be remembered. The school recently changed its mascot to the Celtics in honor of the nuns.

St. Nicholas has always been known for its close-knit, community-oriented environment. The school offers one class per grade. Every student is known by name.

Kevin Kannengeiser, a veteran St. Nicholas eighth-grade teacher and newly appointed assistant principal, has been at the school for 27 years. Several other teachers have been at the school 15 years or more.

Parents are involved in the library, supervising on the playground, coaching after-school sports and moderating clubs or other activities.

Kannengeiser thinks this investment is crucial to the health of the school. “Without the help of the dedicated volunteers who assist us in running our extracurricular programs, the children’s experience at school would be incomplete,” he said.

Much has changed in the past 50 years, but St. Nicholas’ founding principles have remained the same. Tradition, discipline, the development of positive self-esteem and civic awareness are still valued.

One reason for the strong sense of community at St. Nicholas is the high number of alumni who return. The school has close to 20 alumni currently putting their own children through the school; 24 students are “second-generation” Celtics. Stacey Osorio, class of ‘89, is the fifth-grade teacher at St. Nicholas; librarian Mary O’Shea is both an alumna parent and a grandparent to a current student; and alumna Cathy Robins Day is both a school parent and the girls athletic director.

The St. Nicholas Community Outreach program keeps students rooted in the surrounding community. Depending on their ages, students are involved in a range of activities from visiting the retired sisters at Seton in Los Altos Hills, to providing clothing and toiletries to local families in need, and singing for the residents of Pilgrim Haven.

Not everything at St. Nicholas is the way it was 50 years ago, or even five years ago.

In 1999 the school added a state-of-the-art science facility, featuring a combined lecture and lab space. There is a mini-computer lab in the science center, which allows students to integrate what they are learning in their books or in a lecture with the technology available through the Internet.

Science teacher Deborah Bodony thinks this is a great tool for students. “When we talk about earth science, the students can walk over and watch a moving demonstration of the plate movement going on under the surface, which further cements the concepts for them,” she said.

The school has a dedicated technology center with 34 eMac computers, each with DSL Internet access and digital capabilities. All of the school’s 60 computers feature Office v. X for Mac software. Each classroom has iMac mini-labs, and there are eight computers in the library.

“Because of our school’s commitment to technology,” said technology coordinator Nanci Ice, “we have been able to bridge the gap between teachers and technology. For example, in fourth grade, students research the California missions both on the Internet and in our library, write their reports in the tech center or on their classroom computers, and then create a PowerPoint presentation that they ultimately deliver in front of their classmates.”

The campus library, which has been tended by countless volunteers over the decades, contains more than 14,000 books, catalogued and available for checkout. The accelerated reader program, championed by O’Shea, provides students with an impartial assessment of how well they comprehended books that they have read at home or in the classroom.

Another inevitable change at St. Nicholas over the years has been an increase in the cost of tuition. In 1953 tuition was approximately $5 per month. Twenty years ago, it cost $780 a year for in-parish families with one child; for two or more children, tuition was $1,150. Today, tuition for one child in-parish is $4,715. While this cost is significantly lower than local private schools, it is still a challenge for many families.

“The increase in our tuition is directly related to increased salary and benefit costs,” Principal Matt Komar said. “In order to maintain the excellence of our programs, we need to be able to provide our teachers with competitive salaries. Since we receive no state or federal support, our income has to come primarily from tuition and fees.”

Tuition accounts for approximately 80 percent of the school’s income. The remainder of the school’s revenue comes from a contribution from St. Nicholas Church, traditional fund raising and proceeds from an endowment fund.

“Accessibility is an important hallmark of Catholic education,” Komar said. “We are constantly working toward growing the value of our endowment and securing funds for tuition assistance, because we don’t want to put unnecessary financial strain on any of our families. Our goal is to remain accessible to anyone who desires a St. Nicholas education for his or her children.”

Komar, in his first year as principal at the school said, “This will definitely be a year full of activity and celebration.”

St. Nicholas has scheduled a celebratory wine tasting and reception Oct. 17, to be followed with an alumni reunion at the school Oct. 18. The parish’s annual Fall Festival will be held on the school grounds Oct. 19. The annual auction will be a 1950s-theme sock hop, scheduled for April at the Crowne Plaza Cabana Palo Alto. Father Gary Thomas, pastor of St. Nicholas Parish, will offer a Mass of Thanksgiving, and the school will host a 1950s-style family picnic in May. In addition, teachers are working with the students on a variety of projects to commemorate the 50-year mark.

For information about St. Nicholas Catholic School, call 941-3682 or 941-4056.

Michelle Sklar is the director of development at St. Nicholas School.