St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School

Fort Wayne; opened 1956 (parish planted by French settlers north of the city from 1840)

Beginnings: The parish is much older than its school. Immigrant families from eastern France settled about six miles north of Fort Wayne in 1840 and called the neighborhood New France, and in 1843 Father Julian Benoit, remembered as the parish's founder, began coming out from the Cathedral to serve them as a visiting pastor, saying Mass in settlers' homes. A log chapel rose in 1846 on the east side of the Old Auburn Road, a second log church followed, a brick church stood at the corner of Auburn and Wallen Roads by 1904, and the present church was erected across the street in 1968. The parish's own page gives a start in 1955 for the modern school plant, apparently a planning year.

The opening: The school's own strategic plan tells the first day plainly: on September 4, 1956, St. Vincent de Paul opened its first four classrooms for grades one through four, with one hundred sixty students, three Adrian Dominican nuns and one lay teacher. The plan's summary of the first decade says instead that the school grew "from a four room school of 180 students," and the two figures are printed here as the school gives them, unreconciled. By April 1957 construction had begun on four new classrooms, and that November the school held three hundred eight students in grades one through five. In 1958 one hundred new first graders arrived and a sixth grade was added, and permission for four more classrooms followed in 1959, when the parish counted four hundred fifty-five families.

The growth years: By 1962 eight more classrooms were under construction, and in ten years the school had grown from four rooms to twenty-two classrooms serving more than nine hundred students. A parish Board of Education study of 1978, carried in the school's plan, puts the peak at nine hundred nineteen students in 1968, dropping to six hundred fifty-two in 1969 after other parishes opened schools of their own. The Adrian Dominican sisters announced in 1972 that they were leaving the school. A fall 1990 decision added classrooms in 1991, enrollment rose to six hundred eighty by 1995, and in 2000, when the new church was built, the previous church building, connected to the school, was converted into an Activity Center with a full gymnasium, seven classrooms, a second computer lab, a science lab and a new library.

Kindergarten, and how the tellings differ: The school's plan says expansion began again in the fall of 2007 with four kindergarten classrooms, adding eighty-four students, and four more general classrooms to open in the fall of 2008. The diocesan newspaper's account of the dedication, in Today's Catholic of September 14, 2008, tells the same work from the other side: Bishop John M. D'Arcy dedicated and blessed the new fourteen thousand square foot addition on Friday, September 5, 2008, and the student body included, for the first time, kindergartners, four of the addition's eight classrooms being used for kindergarten, the school having had no room before for a kindergarten program at all. Both tellings are carried here as they stand.

The school today: St. Vincent de Paul is a kindergarten through eighth grade school at 1720 East Wallen Road, telephone 260-489-3537, and the main body of the school now contains forty classrooms. The plan's enrollment table reads seven hundred fifty in 2016-17, seven hundred thirty-five in 2017-18, seven hundred twenty-four in 2018-19, seven hundred fifty-four in 2019-20 and seven hundred thirty in 2020-21, the shortfall against the school's goal attributed by the plan to COVID and homeschooling; the federal private school survey counts seven hundred sixty-two students and forty-four teachers. The school's English Language Learners program serves a largely Chin Burmese community speaking Zo. Its motto is "Community in Christ," its vision "Building a Community in Christ for Today and Tomorrow," and its teams are the Panthers, in green and black. The school's handbook states that it is accredited by the State of Indiana and by Cognia.

People: The strategic plan's committee page of 2021 names Father Daniel Scheidt as pastor, Cheryl Klinker as principal and Kathleen Mulligan as assistant principal, and the school's leadership is given here as the plan gives it, for the plan's years of 2021 to 2026. The school's own cover styles its name "Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic School" where this entry follows the shorter form the school uses in its text. One directory figure is left open on the record: Private School Review gives the school a year founded of 1958, against the school's own documented opening of 1956, and the directory's figure is printed here as the directory's, not the school's.

Sources:

1. St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School, Strategic Plan 2021-2026 (school.saintv.org): History of the School, the opening of September 4, 1956, the expansions and the enrollment table; Strategy Committee page, Pastor Father Daniel Scheidt, Principal Cheryl Klinker, Assistant Principal Kathleen Mulligan
2. Today's Catholic, September 14, 2008, "Bishop D'Arcy blesses, dedicates St. Vincent school": the dedication of the addition on September 5, 2008, and the first kindergartners
3. History of Saint Vincent's Parish, the parish's centenary history (archive.org): the French settlement of 1840, Father Julian Benoit's visiting pastorate from 1843 and the log chapel of 1846
4. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, Washington Township churches: St. Vincent de Paul, organized 1846, the churches of 1846, 1904 and 1968
5. Private School Review, St. Vincent De Paul School, Fort Wayne (verified school update): 762 students, 44 teachers, the motto and the Panthers, and the directory's year founded of 1958
6. St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School, Parent/Student Handbook, 2023-24: kindergarten through eighth grade; accreditation by the State of Indiana and Cognia
7. Moosed History, "The Catholic Grade Schools of Fort Wayne and Allen County": the parish page's start of 1955 as a planning year, and the English Language Learners program serving the Chin Burmese community