Pope John XXIII High School is a Catholic school in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States. The school is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, led by Archbishop Daniel DiNardo.
Pope John XXIII serves the west side of the Houston area in the Greater Katy Area. The school has a Katy address. The current principal is Tim Petersen.
Pope John XXIII High School is located on a 35-acre (140,000 m2) parcel of land. Twelve million dollars was raised to construct the campus buildings. The school was opened in 2004 with an inaugural freshman class of 40 students. Since then, each year has seen more students enrolling as the school added new classes and expanded into larger facilities. The current enrollment is 362 students and the school is preparing to continue expansion after the newly constructed Crosthwait Student Center and a Competition Gymnasium.
The school's mascot, nicknamed PJ, is the lion. The school offers 14 different athletic teams, including football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, swimming, tennis, boys and girls soccer, cross country, track and field, golf, and cheerleading. The women's swim team won the state title in TAPPS 4A in February 2012. The girl's soccer team won the state title championship in TAPPS 3A in 2010. The TAPPS 4A Men's Cross Country champion has been from Pope John XXIII High School in the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years.
Upon admission, students are sorted into one of five houses, much like the Oxford colleges system. These houses are Aquinas, Borromeo, Lisieux, Loreto, and Neri. Each house has its own form of internal student government, senior house captains, and has faculty and staff associates who work with the members of their house. This house system is the first to be implemented in Catholic high schools in the state of Texas.
Famous quotes containing the words pope, john, high and/or school:
“To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Could it be that those who were reared in the postwar years really were spoiled, as we used to hear? Did a child-centered generation, raised in depression and war, produce a self-centered generation that resents children and parenthood?”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“What generous beliefs console
The brave whom Fate denies the goal!
If others reach it, is content:
To Heaven’s high will his will is bent.
Firm on his heart relied,
What lot soe’er betide,
Work of his hand
He nor repents nor grieves,
Pleads for itself the fact,
As unrepenting Nature leaves
Her every act.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Bodily offspring I do not leave, but mental offspring I do. Well, my books do not have to be sent to school and college, and then insist on going into the church, or take to drinking, or marry their mother’s maid.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)