Saint Patrick Academy is education fully alive: Excellence in the pursuit of faith, academics, leadership, and virtue. Anchored on the truths of the Catholic Faith, Saint Patrick Academy’s mission sets us apart from every public school in all 50 states and from most other private schools as well.
At Saint Patrick Academy, children come to see that they are made in the image and likeness of a God who LOVES them. This LOVE, which resides at the center of our curriculum, then becomes the source of our students’ confidence, trust, and joy. It shapes their souls and frees them to live a happy life. The life that God intended.
The lofty goal of our independent school’s program is to inspire children to be fully alive and to equip them with a supernatural vision and a Christian worldview so that they can live as witnesses to the Gospel.
Saint Patrick Academy is living proof that excellence in both spiritual formation and academics is possible. In fact, it is preferable. Each day our private school’s students engage in a rigorous curriculum that has placed them within the top 1-15% of all students in the country. Each day our students gather to ask for the blessing of Our Lord. There are a lot of things that set our private K-8 school apart, but this union of the mind and heart is perhaps the biggest.
Aristotle said that “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Saint Patrick Academy exists to inspire, draw out, and enkindle in the hearts of our children the love of learning and the love of God. This is what it means to educate fully. As it was said of Our Lord, “He came to fill the hungry with good things.”
Our Portsmouth, NH private school bears a tagline: Education Fully Alive. The idea for this came from a quote by Saint Irenaeus: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”
Saint Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians explains, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Saint Paul sums up Saint Patrick Academy pretty well: “that you may have the power to fully comprehend and to know the love of Christ.” This is what we want for our children. A perfect union of mind and heart. This is our measure of success.
Fully alive means to have the ability to fully comprehend. It means to be alert, and awake to the true significance and meaning of all things. It means to hear the inherent harmony of the universe, to see the whole beyond the sum of its parts, and to understand the profound significance of each person. And once you have seen all this, it is impossible not to be grateful.
Watch our video and learn more about Saint Patrick Academy. This virtual tour of our Portsmouth, NH campus will help you see what makes our Catholic education exceptional. We stand out among private schools in the Seacoast NH area. Click below to see why.
Our exceptional faculty includes teachers and staff from a variety of backgrounds with a united mission to love and care for the students of Saint Patrick Academy. They’re devoted to helping develop each student’s character and values, as well as the skills and knowledge necessary for a challenging secondary education.
In 2016 the Hope for Tomorrow Foundation and Saint Patrick Academy were founded in response to the impending closure of St. Patrick School. The City of Portsmouth had provided notice that the Austin Street building required significant repairs and renovations and funding from the Parish or Diocese was highly uncertain. If we wanted St. Pats to survive, we needed to create a new non-profit to revitalize the school as an independent Catholic school — Saint Patrick Academy.
From the outset there were 4 major objectives that had to be achieved in approximately one year.
They were as follows:
We are pleased and grateful to report that through prayer, hard work, generosity, a wonderful community, teachers, and God’s grace we were very successful in meeting our objectives. Following is a summary of each area.
Establish local control of school governance
The previous St. Patrick School Board was purely “advisory”, meaning the Board members could provide thoughts or suggestions, but had no real authority or control. The Hope for Tomorrow Foundation Board is a true “fiduciary” board that has authority, control and is accountable for making decisions for the school and its future. The board’s core responsibilities are to hire, advise and review the Head of School, approve the annual budget and establish a longer-term strategic plan. The board is not involved with day-to-day operations of SPA. The Head of School is responsible for the operations and daily school activities.
Find/build new facilities
Finding suitable property in Portsmouth was very challenging. Again, through the grace of God and a tremendous effort, the Hope for Tomorrow Foundation purchased the current campus property in December of 2016. This came about after several earlier parcels proved to be inadequate after zoning reviews.
Our Groundbreaking event occurred on May 13, 2017, which fell on the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima. On July 1, 2017, Hope for Tomorrow took responsibility for the School while it was still located on Austin Street. On May 13, 2018, we had our Grand Opening. This was about 2 weeks after we moved the school over during spring break! We had to move prior to June due to a variety of issues that were non-negotiable.
The result of all of this was the completion of an absolutely stunning and state-of-the-art PreK-8 Lower and Middle School. Our school is beautiful and provides our students with the best learning environment due to the natural lighting, radiant heated floors, classroom design, acoustics, and top of the line classroom furniture to name but a few of the physical building benefits. The heart of the School, however, is the Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Chapel built in memory of C. Edward Broom (July 6, 1928 – October 1, 2016.)
Financial management & fundraising
As an independent Catholic school, we do not receive any Diocesan or parish funds and therefore must generate all funds necessary for operations through tuition, fundraising or charitable gifts. Consistent with our Catholic mission, we seek to make SPA available to anyone that wants their child to receive an SPA education, regardless of financial means. Accordingly, financial aid to support those who would not otherwise be able to attend SPA is an important part of our annual budget.
St. Patrick School was losing between $120,000 to $200,000 per year when Hope for Tomorrow took responsibility for it.
Fundraising
Most schools have a family fundraising commitment (they go by various names) and charge for many events – basically everything. Saint Patrick Academy has the Auction, Clover Run 5k and, starting this year, an Annual Fund. We aim to provide the best education money can buy, yet we do so on a very tight budget.
Increase enrollment
In September of 2017, we had 97 students. In September of 2019, we had 190 students. We target approximately 20 +/- students per grade. It is important to note that due to our selective admissions process our class sizes do not correlate to class sizes at other schools. The quality of our student body and faculty create an optimal learning environment.
Conclusion
This is a school of hope and joy with extremely dedicated faculty and staff. Our Head of School was a top national candidate, and we could not be more pleased with his appointment. Your children are known and loved at Saint Patrick Academy; we educate the whole person and encourage our students to live virtuous lives. Virtue = Joy which comes from Jesus who is the ultimate joy, hope, and salvation of the world. He is not only invited on campus – He is present throughout the day, everyday. Excellence honors God and inspires people. Saint Patrick Academy is a loving school of excellence and beauty where education is fully alive.
Board Trustees
James Broom, President & Board Chair
Matthew McFarland P’17’19, Treasurer, (Partner, R.M. Davis, Inc)
Joseph Patrnchak, Secretary, (Principal, Green Summit Partners)
Kristen Broom P’14’16’17’18’23’24’27’29
Fr. William Brown, OMV, (Executive Director for Mission & Apostolate, Distinguished Fellow at The Catholic University of America)
Veronica Burchard, (Author, Chief Operating Officer at Sophia Institute for Teachers)
Frank Getman P’11’13’16’20’23, (President & CEO of Great Bay Renewables)
Charles McKinney, (President & CEO of Sophia Institute Press)
Saint Patrick Academy
315 Banfield Road
Portsmouth, NH 03801
Saint Patrick Academy is committed to equal opportunity and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, or gender in its educational programs and activities. Employees and students of any race, color, national origin, or gender are entitled to all rights, privileges, programs, activities, and services generally made available in the programs and activities. It does not discriminate in its educational policies, admission policies, athletics or other school-administered programs.
