St. John the Baptist Catholic School

Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, 4500 Fairfield Avenue; preschool through eighth grade; the school and chapel contracted on January 23, 1930 and the cornerstone laid that June, months before the parish itself was founded

Contracted Before the Parish Existed: The building came first on paper. This history's group entry, resting on the parish history, records that the school and chapel at 4500 Fairfield Avenue were contracted on January 23, 1930, and that the cornerstone was laid on June 1, 1930. The parish of St. John the Baptist was founded afterward, on October 19, 1930. The Allen County genealogical church list dates this parish's start to 1926, four years earlier than the parish history's founding; the two records are printed together here, and the parish's own history governs the date this entry uses. Bishop John Francis Noll had invited the Sisters of Providence to come and teach, and the school they staffed is the school on Fairfield Avenue still. The parish history, as the group entry gives it, states no first day of classes, and this entry does not invent one: it keys the school to 1930, the year of its contract and its cornerstone, and says plainly that the key is a building year, not a documented first day of school.

The First Ten Years: The parish told its own first decade in print, in the history catalogued as The First Ten Years: St. John the Baptist Parish, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Its statistical report for 1933 counted two hundred twenty seven families in the parish and one hundred eighty four children in the school, a young school already carrying most of the parish's children. The school staff of those years worked under Sister M. Gregoria, the superioress named in the parish's record. Late in the decade the sisters gained a chapel of their own, built in 1939 and 1940; restored in the present century, it stands as the Guerin Chapel, named for the Sisters of Providence's foundress, and the group entry counts it among the parish's treasures.

In the Diocesan Record: The school surfaces in the diocesan newspaper as a working school of the present century. In February 2016 Today's Catholic named Elizabeth Straley of St. John the Baptist School among the Fort Wayne teachers honored at its Light of Learning luncheon, the diocese's award for teachers who carry its core values into their classrooms. The next month the paper recorded the school's eighth graders walking in the Eucharistic procession of March 4, 2016, when nearly one hundred twenty faithful processed from Bishop Luers High School through the south side streets to St. John the Baptist Church. The church the school serves keeps a Kilgen organ of three manuals and twenty five ranks, on the Fort Wayne chapter of the American Guild of Organists' list of the region's pipe organs, updated June 30, 2026.

On the Field: The school's own published pages, read for this entry, name no mascot, and none is printed here. What the record does hold is a combined team: in November 2011 the Waynedale News reported the Fort Wayne St. John and St. Joe Eagles, a joint Catholic Youth Organization football squad of the two parishes' boys, winning the diocesan consolation game against South Bend's Holy Cross and Christ the King. The Eagles of that account belong to the combined squad, and this entry claims no more for them than that.

Today: Maggie Javins is the school's principal, named on the school's own document of September 2023, in the parish bulletin of 2025, and on the Indiana Department of Education's nutrition review for program year 2024, which carries the school's state code, K418. The bulletin names Maddie Noble as assistant principal, and Father Paolo Degasperi is the parish's pastor. The enrollment counts stand with their instruments: this history's group entry counts three hundred twenty seven students; the federal private school survey, as republished by Private School Review on a verified school update, counts two hundred eighty seven students in preschool through eighth grade with seventeen teachers. The two figures are printed side by side, unreconciled, as the record leaves them.

Sources:

1. This history's published group entry, The Catholic Grade Schools of Fort Wayne and Allen County, resting on the parish history: the school and chapel contracted January 23, 1930, the cornerstone laid June 1, 1930; the parish founded October 19, 1930; Bishop Noll's invitation to the Sisters of Providence; no first day of classes stated; the sisters' chapel of 1939 and 1940, restored as the Guerin Chapel; 327 students; 4500 Fairfield Avenue.
2. The First Ten Years: St. John the Baptist Parish, Fort Wayne, Indiana, the parish's early published history, as catalogued by LDS Genealogy among Allen County church records: the statistical report of 1933, 227 families and 184 children in the school; the school staff under Sister M. Gregoria, superioress.
3. St. John the Baptist School document, September 2023, and the parish bulletin, 2025 (saintjohnfortwayne.com and stjohnsfw.org): Principal Maggie Javins; Assistant Principal Maddie Noble; Pastor Father Paolo Degasperi; school office phone 260-456-3321.
4. Indiana Department of Education, school nutrition review, program year 2024: Principal Maggie Javins; school code K418.
5. National Center for Education Statistics, as republished by Private School Review (verified school update): 287 students, preschool through grade 8, 17 teachers.
6. The Waynedale News, November 18, 2011: the Fort Wayne St. John and St. Joe Eagles, the combined Catholic Youth Organization football squad, winning the diocesan consolation game.
7. Today's Catholic, February 9, 2016: Elizabeth Straley of St. John the Baptist School among the Fort Wayne teachers honored at the Light of Learning luncheon; and March 13, 2016: the school's eighth graders in the Eucharistic procession of March 4, 2016, from Bishop Luers High School to St. John the Baptist Church.
8. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list of Allen County (acgsi.org): St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Wayne Township, start 1926; American Guild of Organists, Fort Wayne chapter (fortwayneago.com), pipe organs of northeast Indiana, updated June 30, 2026: St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, a Kilgen organ, III/25.