Upper School

Providence Academy’s upper school is filled with the energy and enthusiasm of high school students, and we would not want to have it any other way. Highly qualified teachers with years of experience learning their subject matter at an advanced level and years of experience teaching and mentoring high school and college students form the backbone of the upper school experience. If the quality of the teachers is the most important factor in a school’s overall quality, we have invested substantially in hiring the best quality faculty members we can find. Students and parents consistently speak about them as the most important factor in PA students’ success at college and love of learning for its own sake that lasts them the rest of their lives.

College preparation requires a focused commitment to the three essential elements of a college preparatory high school--namely, a demanding and coherent curriculum, sound lesson planning and pedagogy, and development of students’ reading, writing, and speaking skills. Providence does all three very well. Students take a substantial number of required core credits that focus on religion, science, history (not social studies), mathematics, world languages, and English. They also have a substantial number of elective possibilities to explore artistic, health-related, and other academic offerings. Some students feel so well prepared for college, they report wishing we had a college here, too!

Finally, no high school is complete without a commitment to all aspects of the human person, most importantly student commitments to learning about and fostering a relationship with God and virtuous interaction with one another. In the arenas of faith and virtue, students need experiences with one another and God that transcend college preparation. They learn the important leadership, personal, and interpersonal skills most fully through extra-curricular arts, athletics, and faith-related opportunities. Students at PA have an abiding commitment to living a life committed to morality and the Church. One alumna reported missing “the fact that the student body has a commitment to a moral life that they are actually trying to live out daily.”