My dear friends, This month we focus the spotlight on another one of the outstanding educational institutions in the diocese - Xavier High School in Middletown.
Months before Xavier High School opened in Middletown in 1963, Brother Robert Sullivan, C.F.X., the school’s first principal, said, “I am confident that the establishment of this new school will prove a blessing to the area for years to come.”
How prophetic.
In the 2021-22 school year, students came from 70 cities and towns. The 2022 graduation edged Xavier close to 10,000 alumni. Virtually every conceivable career path has been taken.
The school has changed over time; there has been construction yielding everything from a music suite to an art room, from science labs to playing fields. Yet the mission remains: allow students to explore many opportunities in the academic, spiritual, athletic and extracurricular areas. Find your passion, your gifts, then take them out into the world and be of service to others.
At the heart of Xavier is service. To graduate, students must have 65 hours, 30 as a senior. Community outreach is integral. This school year, students raised $4,600 for St. Jude’s; brought in more than 2,400 toiletries for those in need; collected 2,938 items in its March Madness Can Drive for the Amazing Grace Food Pantry in Middletown; and purchased 450 books for families and babies in the NICU at Connecticut Children’s Hospital. That is just a sampling.
The Class of 2022 will send students to colleges and universities across the country, and there have been acceptances to Ivy League schools Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, and Dartmouth, as well as the U.S. Military Academy, Air Force Academy and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Xavier was recognized for the 2021-22 academic year as a Top 10 high school in the UConn Early College Experience program. Xavier was No. 7 with 220 students enrolled, and No. 4 with 1,710 UConn credit hours taken. This year the school has a National Merit finalist, and only 1 percent of 1.5 million students achieve that honor each year.
Xavier’s spiritual life includes Masses, peer ministry, retreats, prayer services, religion classes, and pastoral advising. TheXavier Leadership Institute (XLI), a weeklong summer retreat for rising seniors, has been crucial to building leaders for more than 50 years. Xavier is one of 13 Xaverian Brothers Sponsored Schools in the country.
Its athletic teams have won 98 state and New England titles. Its five robotics teams always fare well at the state championships, with the FullMetal Peregrines winning a title this year. Its engineering team competed in the Real World Design Challenge national competition.
Xavier has concert, jazz and pep bands as well as a string ensemble and choral group, and this year produced two All-State musicians. Its joint theater program with Mercy produces a play and a musical each year. The school has numerous art courses, an art club, and a photography club.
As one senior said, “Xavier allowed me to explore my interests and myself as a person. I know it sounds clichéd, but it has also allowed me to become a man, the school motto, and that’s the goal really.”
Xavier honors its past but knows it cannot live there. The school has nearly 1,200 solar panels that produce up to 586,000 kilowatts annually.
Last summer, new gas-fired boilers to provide heat and hot water were added, and this summer will see the completion of a building control system, which will help reduce the carbon footprint and lower operating costs annually.
Xavier is forever evolving, but still it remains rooted in the same values that have always pushed its students forward to face new challenges.
May God bless you and keep you safe.
Dr. Gail Kingston
Superintendent of Schools