Mission Statement

The philosophy of St. James School is based on the Church’s doctrine and moral principles, with specific reference to its concept of human and Catholic education as portrayed in the Second Vatican Council Documents, The Papal Encyclicals, the General Catechetical Directory, and the teachings of the United States Catholic Bishops as stated in “To Teach as Jesus Did," and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Our school aims at providing the fullest and best opportunity for the harmonious development of each student in his/her physical, moral, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual endowments. This leads him/her to become a self-directed, responsible, integrated Christian, aware of his/her cultural heritage, his/her social responsibilities. We strive to provide appropriate opportunities for leisure, while being consistently inspired by truth and justice, in the light of living faith and love.

We, the faculty, see ourselves as a group of people gathered in a faith commitment to Jesus, to His Father, and to His values in the scriptures. We pray, plan, work and recreate together in a spirit of whole-hearted cooperation. The pupils, as it were, are the junior members of their faith community, where they experience the Christian unity exemplified by their teachers.

We believe that the faculty of the Catholic School must be an authentic faith community if they hope to present the faith in its fullness to youth. Individual teachers will not be able to present the faith to youth in an effective manner unless the faculty, as a whole, portrays Christian ideals in the way they relate to one another and to students in all areas of school life.

As a school, we see our specific function to be the intellectual development of the pupil, supplementing the role of the family and the Church in religious and moral training, and contributing to his/her aesthetic and physical development. In fostering personal, temporal, and eternal good, we envision an America and a world filled with truth, justice, and the love of Christian principles.