About Sacred Heart

The Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, founded in 1887, has continued to serve as a Catholic, independent college preparatory school for girls, offering 15 years of instruction from nursery school through high school.  The Rosary, as Sacred Heart is affectionately called, is part of an international group of academic institutions directed by the Society of the Sacred Heart, a teaching order founded in France in 1800 by St. Madeleine Sophie Barat.  Schools of the Sacred Heart commit themselves to:

• A personal and active faith in God;
• A deep respect for intellectual values;
• A social awareness which impels to action;
• The building of community as a Christian value;
• Personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.

Customs and traditions which characterize Sacred Heart Schools change throughout the years, but the vital force always remains the same: a deep, personal love of Christ which will inspire the student who has been touched by it to share this love with others in a life of concern and service. It is important for each student at Sacred Heart to grow in the knowledge that she is loved for herself. This conviction will help her to develop into a truly integrated person, aware of her own worth and ability, able to judge and to decide for herself on principle rather than on random reflection or emotional response, capable of denying herself for the good of others, and willing to live the truth regardless of personal cost.

Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart Education

[ General Information | History | Administration | Board of Trustees ]

General Information

The Academy of the Sacred Heart is comprised of four levels:

• Pre-School (nursery-kindergarten)
• Lower School (grades 1-4)
• Middle School (grades 5-8)
• High School (grades 9-12)

Each division focuses on the development stages of its students, while maintaining its commitment to a quality, Catholic education.

The student body numbers 820, and there are 125 full and part time faculty, administration and staff members. The school is governed by a Board of Trustees composed of lay and religious members.

Sacred Heart is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest, and the Network of Sacred Heart Schools.

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History

The Academy of the Sacred Heart is a legacy of the Society of the Sacred Heart, an international teaching order founded in France in 1800. The story of these nuns and their endeavors in and around New Orleans parallels the history of the city itself.

St. Philippine Duchesne, a missionary to the New World, arrived in New Orleans in 1818, exactly one hundred years after Bienville founded the city. After fifty years of pursuing missionary work in unsettled areas along the river, the nuns returned to establish a convent in the Vieux Carre.

In the late 19th century, the French Quarter was in decline. Most importantly, the established French, Catholic families from the Quarter and Esplanade Ridge, whose daughters were the mainstay of the student body, were moving across town into what was the American sector. In addition, second generation English and Irish families, who were already uptown, were seeking for their daughters a school that provided the same type of education that the religious had been providing downtown.

It was therefore no surprise that the religious sought refuge from their deteriorating urban environment and turned their attention upriver. Demographically, the nuns and the city were moving in the same direction.

The new location chosen by the nuns was the John Calhoun-S. J. Peters Greek Revival mansion built in 1847. The estate comprised two squares. The first contained the main house set far back from the major thoroughfare, St. Charles Street. The second was separated from the first by Apollo Street, now Carondelet. It was spacious enough for a vegetable garden , orange grove and farmyard. When the Mother Superior requested permission in June 1886 to purchase these two lots for $30,000,the Mother General in Paris sent a one-word telegram: "Achetez." Soon after this concise mandate "to buy," the Academy was ready to open.

This charming villa served the nuns admirably for thirteen years. By then, however, the house proved inadequate for the volume of students. As a result, the religious decided to demolish the old house and to construct a new building. The lone reminder of the Academy's origins is the large, wrought iron fountain with a swan atop that still stands today.

The new building, Colonial Revival in style, designed by the architects, Diboll and Owen, was dedicated in 1900.

As spacious as the new Academy was, it underwent three expansions in 1906, 1913, and 1996. For the first expansion the same architects added two wings to the front of the building. One wing housed a chapel of French Gothic design and the other wing served as an assembly room on the first floor and as a study hall on the second.

In the 1913 expansion, the structure grew vertically rather than horizontally. The architects added a third floor to the original building. 

The 1996 expansion included the new academic wing on the corner of Jena and Carondelet Streets.  The building includes six state of the art science labs, additional classrooms, computer labs, and conference room.  

In this manner the building evolved, doubling its size while retaining its classical style. Today, the Academy, which is 115 years old, stands as a monument in uptown New Orleans. Like the city itself, it is characterized by change, but it remains a harmonious blending of the old with the new.

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Administration

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Board of Trustees

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