Students attending St. Mary School don’t go home, walk to the
ice cream shop or dribble a basketball when classes let out. More
than 100 St. Mary students
– or one-third of the school – in first through seventh grade
meet in classrooms to play chess.
Students attending St. Mary School don’t go home, walk to the ice cream shop or dribble a basketball when classes let out. More than 100 St. Mary students – or one-third of the school – in first through seventh grade meet in classrooms to play chess.
As members of the chessmasters club, the students spend an hour exercising their brains with unexpected relish.
The extracurricular activity is one example of educational alternatives offered by private schools in Gilroy. Several schools in town offer a private education from preschool all the way through 12th grade.
Two private schools with phone book listings offer an education based in religion, while another offers an alternative program that often sees what would be high school seniors complete an Associate’s Degree from Gavilan College.
At Gavilan Hills Academy, a small student body is grouped into even smaller groups based on ability. The school admits a maximum of 55 students, who are placed in groups of five to 10 students, depending on their skill level.
“If somebody’s a chronological sixth-grader, but their reading comprehension level is at an eighth-grade level, they will be in an eighth-grade reading class,” Principal Marguerite Kennedy said.
Similarly, if a student is struggling in math, he or she is placed in a group with students of the same ability.
“The thing is, it gives every child the ability to be challenged and nobody struggles because they can’t meet the criteria,” Kennedy said. “But nobody is held behind because the curriculum is too easy.”
The school, which opened in 1970, does not have sports teams but has off-campus physical education and elective classes like foreign language, music and art.
While Gavilan Hills technically covers kindergarten through 10th grade, many students complete their high school coursework, enroll in Gavilan College and earn their high school diploma and an Associate’s Degree by the time they would normally be graduating from high school.
Academic excellence, creative self-expression and positive character development are the three core values of Mount Madonna School. Located on a 350-acre campus on Mount Madonna Center property in the hills west of Gilroy, at 445 Summit Rd. in Watsonville, the school mixes math and English with a thriving theater arts program, field trips and a budding athletic program.
“We’re unusual in that, although we have a well-rounded curriculum in academics, we also have a theater arts program that spans, really, preschool through 12th grade, as well,” said Supriya McDonald, elementary director. “Our high school is college prep and our children are usually, by the time they’re done with our program, able to go to the college of their choice.”
To encourage self-expression, students from all grade levels are welcome to perform in an annual Ramayana, an epic Indian morality story.
The school offers classes in art, music, Spanish, martial arts, yoga and dance in addition to the usual suspects.
Positive character development is encouraged through interaction between students. Older students in middle and high school spend time each week with an “adopted” younger student, playing games, reading and completing art projects.
“Learning through travel” is another Mount Madonna priority, as students take overnight field trips beginning in third grade. The trips bring students, parents and faculty together as they backpack through Yosemite or visit science camp.
One area the school is expanding is athletics.
“Sports is really part of our character development program,” McDonald said.
Although small – the school offers boys and girls volleyball – the boys team has been consistently competitive and won its league title two years ago.
Pacific West Christian Academy, at 9 years old, is a relatively young school, but is growing rapidly.
After opening with fewer than 60 students its first year, the school now houses 350 students, said Principal Donna Garcia, who has been with the school for five years.
Subjects are taught from a Christian perspective and textbooks are purchased from Christian publishers, so religion is embedded into lessons.
“We are a ministry of South Valley Community Church, which is the largest non-denominational here in town,” Garcia said. “You’ll find that there’s a freedom to pray in the classrooms.”
In fact, each morning starts with common announcements and prayer. A children’s worship service is also held once each week with Bible lessons, singing and biblical stories.
Music and art, often absent from public school classrooms, are also a regular part of the curriculum.
The school, at 1575 Mantelli Drive, has 350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with roughly two classes per grade level.
Family participation in the school is as important as its Christian identity, Garcia said.
“We have a requirement for family participation, and we rely on parents to work together with us,” she said. “We believe philosophically that parents are responsible for the education of their child, and we are here to help them with that.”
Because of the strong bond between parents and the school, “it’s like a family atmosphere around here,” Garcia said.
Pacific West students are active in community service, participating in an adopt-a-family program each Christmas and Easter season.
Across town sits a long-standing religious private school, St. Mary School, formed in Gilroy in 1871.
Catholicism is the bedrock upon which the school was founded, it still maintains that goal.
“We have the Catholic identity, we teach religion and we offer chances for worship,” said Principal Christa Hanson, who has been with the school for 14 years.
Adjacent to St. Mary Parish, the school at 7900 Church St. offers kindergarten through eighth grade, with one class per grade level and roughly 35 students per class. To accommodate the larger class size, a full-time teacher’s aide helps out in grades Kindergarten through third.
Although it is more than 130 years old, St. Mary School boasts a cutting-edge computer lab and students even use laptops in the classroom. The school is currently working on building full-service science labs.
Elective subjects abound at St. Mary, including the after-school academic chess program and athletics for fifth through eighth grades.
Family involvement is a core element to students’ education.
“This is serving the school in many different ways, it can be helping in the classroom, reading to the kids … ” Hanson said. “Especially in junior high, we have parents who are here once a week in the afternoon to help set up science labs.”
The men’s and women’s clubs at St. Mary host annual fund raisers for the school. The men serve up a spaghetti feed and the women promote a read-a-thon.
“All these things are different opportunities for the parents to be involved in their children’s education,” Hanson said.
