Dear St. Mary’s Families and Friends,

Welcome to St. Mary’s High School, a Catholic, private, college-preparatory community where academic rigor, spiritual growth, and character development meet. Our mission is to provide a transformative education that nurtures the spiritual, academic, and personal growth of every student, and our vision is to graduate compassionate, ethical young men and women who are ready to thrive in college and beyond and to make a real difference in their communities and the world. Nowhere is that mission more visible than in the academic program we have built for our Lancers.

Every course, program, and opportunity described below points toward the same destination: our Portrait of a Graduate. A St. Mary’s graduate is a critical thinker, an effective communicator, a compassionate leader, a responsible global citizen, and a capable problem-solver grounded in sound research. Qualities we teach, expect, and require in every classroom, at every grade level, from every adult in the building. What follows is how we get our students there.

LIFE CORE CURRICULUM

Our academic program is built on the belief that high school should prepare the whole student, not just the transcript. Alongside their coursework, every Lancer moves through our Life Core Curriculum, rooted in our core value of Preparation for Life — practical instruction in leadership, personal finance, public speaking, and organization. It is our answer to a simple question: what does a student need on graduation day that a course catalog alone won’t teach?

SEMESTER-BASED SCHEDULING

To make room for the breadth of opportunity described on this page, St. Mary’s runs on a semester-based schedule. Rather than locking every course into a full year, students move through their academic career with far more flexibility — able to pursue electives, career Academies, and college-level coursework alongside a core curriculum that remains every bit as rigorous. It is a structural choice made for one reason: to give our students more room to grow into the graduates we know they can be.

THE LANCER ACADEMIES

That room is put to immediate use in the Lancer Academies, now in their fourth year and grown to fifteen distinct programs — from Law, Engineering, and Business Management to Health and Science Professionals, Education, Entrepreneurship, and more. With more than seventy guest lecturers last year alone, along with field trips and hands-on experiences — a Mock Trial in our Law Academy, real kitchen work in Hospitality, student teaching in Education, running an actual event in Event Planning — students get an honest look at a career path long before they have to choose a college major.

DUAL ENROLLMENT WITH ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY

For students ready to go further, our Dual Enrollment Program, offered in partnership with St. Bonaventure University, lets Lancers earn college credit and high school credit at the same time. Courses are taught by St. Mary’s faculty who have trained under St. Bonaventure’s standards, using St. Bonaventure’s curriculum, grading scale, and rubrics — and a passing grade of C or better earns students a real St. Bonaventure transcript alongside their high school credit. A student who completes just a handful of these courses can graduate high school with fifteen or more transferable college credits, at a fraction of the cost of university tuition.

Life Core Curriculum, semester-based scheduling, fifteen Lancer Academies, and Dual Enrollment with St. Bonaventure University — four different initiatives, built toward one shared purpose: forming graduates who lead with faith, integrity, and excellence. I am proud of what our faculty and students have built together, and I invite you to explore each of these programs further on our website.

Sincerely,

Mr. Keith Junik

Principal | Dean of Curriculum and Academic Affairs

St. Mary’s High School