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Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend; thirteen parish grade schools in Fort Wayne and Allen County; preschool and prekindergarten through eighth grade
The Diocese: The Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend operates 43 Catholic schools across 14 counties under a Catholic Schools Office at the Archbishop Noll Center in Fort Wayne. The diocese states that its schools exist to evangelize and form disciples of Jesus Christ through education. The thirteen parish grade schools here, eleven in Fort Wayne and two in Allen County towns, are the elementary foundation under Bishop Luers and Bishop Dwenger high schools.
Most Precious Blood School: The parish opened in 1897, and its school followed on September 12, 1898 with 160 students. The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood taught there until 1982, and after enrollment reached 450 by 1928, the present building at 1529 Barthold Street was dedicated on December 8, 1929. It counted 186 students in 2025.
Our Lady of Good Hope School: The newest school here stands at 7215 Saint Joe Road, in a parish founded in 1969. Our Lady School opened on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 2016, with 175 students, and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades blessed it the following month. It teaches a Catholic classical liberal arts curriculum, Latin included, and counted 158 students in 2024 to 2025.
Queen of Angels School: Archbishop John F. Noll sent Father William Faber in 1947 to found the parish, and the school opened on September 21, 1951 at 1600 West State Boulevard, staffed by the Precious Blood Sisters with Sister Mary Sienna Langhois as first principal. The parish history gives 83 students in two classrooms; the principal, marking the 75th anniversary in 2026, said 85, and the figures stand unreconciled. Enrollment was 151.
St. Charles Borromeo School: The parish was established on June 7, 1957 with Father Edward I. Hession as first pastor, and the school opened in September 1958, the parish history's date against a 1959 founding in some directories, to 247 students in six classrooms, staffed by the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart and lay teachers. At 4910 Trier Road it is one of the diocese's larger grade schools, with 817 students.
St. John the Baptist School: The Fairfield Avenue school stands at 4500 Fairfield Avenue, distinct from the diocese's other St. John the Baptist in New Haven. The parish was founded October 19, 1930, and its school and chapel were contracted on January 23, 1930 and the cornerstone laid June 1, 1930, with the Sisters of Providence invited by Bishop Noll to take charge; the parish history states no first day of classes. The sisters' chapel of 1939 to 1940 became the restored Guerin Chapel. The school counted 327 students.
St. Joseph Hessen Cassel School: German families began this congregation on U.S. 27 in 1841, and a parochial school has been connected to the parish since 1859, though the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ set up their convent and school in 1868; the record gives both milestones rather than one founding year. A brick school for 100 students was completed in 1879. At 11521 U.S. 27 the school counted 203 students in 2026.
St. Joseph School: St. Joseph Parish, founded about 1914, first held classes in the fall of 1918 behind its wooden church, eight grades in two classrooms under two Sisters of St. Agnes, before the brick combination church and school opened at Brooklyn and Hale Avenues in 1924. From 1998 St. Joseph shared a joint school with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, and the two separated in August 2014, when St. Joseph reopened as the central city Catholic elementary school at 2211 Brooklyn Avenue, with 190 students.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School: The parish was established in the late 1980s, its church opening in 1990. Its school began as the joint school with St. Joseph Parish that opened in 1998, this campus holding prekindergarten through fourth grade while the older grades sat at Brooklyn Avenue, and became independent in August 2014. At 10650 Aboite Center Road it counts 586 students.
St. Jude School: The school came first here. Bishop Noll dedicated the building and its chapel on March 3, 1929, and the doors opened the next day to 105 children in grades one through four under the Sisters of Providence, weeks before the parish was formally established. The building at 2110 Pemberton Drive was built from May 1928 for about $125,000, and the old church became classrooms after the current church opened in late 1966. The school counted 464 students.
St. Therese School: The Church of the Little Flower serves Waynedale, and its school is a feeder to Bishop Luers High School. Groundbreaking for the school came on June 22, 1958, with the building planned for that fall under pastor Father Albert Senn, though the exact first day of classes is not in the record. After a December 1970 fire destroyed the church, Masses were held in the school for about thirty years. It counted 95 students.
St. Vincent de Paul School: The parish dates to a first pastor named in 1843, but the school is a postwar foundation at 1720 East Wallen Road. The parish page gives a start in 1955, apparently the planning year; the school's strategic plan dates the opening of its first four classrooms to September 4, 1956, with 160 students under three Adrian Dominican sisters and one lay teacher. It counted 762 students, and its English Language Learners program serves a largely Chin Burmese community speaking Zo.
St. Rose of Lima School: In Monroeville, the easternmost Catholic school in the diocese, twenty families founded the mission parish in 1868. St. Rose de Lima Academy was built with its cornerstone laid in 1911, though the school counts its hundred years from 1912. It later operated for over a century as St. Joseph School, then in 2013 bought the town's former public school, moved to 401 Monroe Street on November 25, 2013, and took the parish name again. It counted 114 students.
St. Aloysius School: Yoder's school is the oldest continuously run Catholic school in the diocese. Parish school development began in 1876, when classes opened in a small frame building for a few months a year with 38 pupils; the two story brick schoolhouse followed in 1882. The school at 14607 Bluffton Road celebrated its 140th anniversary in October 2016 with 108 students, and counted 86 more recently. Its parish's founding year is not stated in the sources.
Sources:
- Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Catholic Schools Office pages, diocesefwsb.org: the 43 schools and the mission statement.
- Parish and school histories: Most Precious Blood, Queen of Angels, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Jude (1954 anniversary book), St. John the Baptist (1942 history), St. Joseph (1953 dedication book and history file), St. Rose of Lima and St. Aloysius.
- Today's Catholic, diocesan newspaper, 2006 to 2026: school profiles and anniversary reports.
- Our Lady School, Strategic Plan 2023 to 2028, and St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School, Strategic Plan 2021 to 2026.
- The Waynedale News, 2016 and 2018, and National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey, 2023 to 2024: St. Therese, St. Aloysius, enrollments and grade spans.