History
The school was originally founded as St. Anthony’s Juniorate by the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn, New York in September 1931. At the time, it was designed to be an all-boys preparatory boarding school for prospective novitiates.
On August 31, 1933, ground broke on the Juniorate's new facility in Smithtown, New York. Students interested in the Juniorate attended St. Francis Preparatory School, which was then located in Brooklyn. The ground-breaking marks the founding of St. Anthony's and appears on the school's crest. The school never expanded to more than 50 or 60 pupils at one time during the early years. The first five students graduated in June 1935.
In 1949, the Franciscan Novitiate moved from Smithtown to Wyandanch, New York.
In 1958, the Juniorate expanded into a day school to serve the boys of the nearby towns. Anticipating this change, the school admitted no freshmen for a period of one year and changed its name to St. Anthony's High School. The school began to grow in size to its current population of nearly 2,500.
In June 1969, the school's juniorate program was terminated. Following the end of the program was a substantial increase in the percentage of lay faculty members and the presence of nuns.
On December 5, 1983, Most Reverend John R. McGann announced that, as part of extensive changes in the educational plans of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, Holy Family Diocesan High School, South Huntington, New York, would close in June 1984, and St. Anthony’s High School will re-locate in the Holy Family facility. The two schools were athletic rivals and were forced to blend into one school.
Following this, the school began to admit young women. St. Anthony's is currently located in this former Holy Family location at 275 Wolf Hill Road in South Huntington.
On November 1, 2006 construction began on a Romanesque-style Chapel in the former senior courtyard. This is the first of many projects that make up the school's Strategic Planning Process, a multi-phase construction plan tailored to meet the growing population and needs of the Saint Anthony's student body. In 2007, construction began on a new Student Center, an added building to the school's campus for athletics and other extracurricular activities.
Read more about this topic: St. Anthony's High School (New York)
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