History
Notre Dame High School was one of the first Catholic high schools to open in the suburban Chicago area. It was opened at the request of the then Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, Samuel Stritch, with the supervision of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
The timing of the new school corresponded to the closing of the Congregation's school (Columbia Prep School) in Portland, Oregon. About half of the faculty came east from Portland to start the new school in Illinois. They also brought with them the old school's athletic uniforms, which necessitated the new school's colors to be the same as the Oregon school's (green and white). Even the old school's fight song was brought along, with appropriate new wording changes made by an early music teacher.
The name of the school itself was one to draw a connection between the Congregation's most noted local center of higher learning, the University of Notre Dame, and the Chicago area, which had given its support to the University and the congregation over many years. An excerpt from the Congregation's Province Review in 1954 noted:
For years the University (of Notre Dame) and the Community have been helped by a large group of loyal friends in the Chicago area. It is fitting that the first major high school work undertaken by our Province should be in Chicago. Many elements entered into the decision to accept this school, but one of the most sincere was the desire to express the Community’s gratitude to the Catholics of Chicago for their past support and friendship.
In April 1985 the Chicago Futabakai Japanese School began holding its Saturday school classes for 7th through 12th graders in rented classrooms at Notre Dame, due to a lack of space in the main school in Niles.
In the summer of 2006, the Congregation announced that it would be ending its formal association with the school, effective at the end of the 2006-07 school year. Since then, a board of both religious and lay people have acted to run the school and maintain a relationship with the Archdiocese.
Read more about this topic: Notre Dame College Prep
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