Gavin Colvert is the top of college for Stella Maris Academy, a classical Catholic faculty at Star of the Sea Parish that may open in Fall 2021. (Courtesy picture)
Dec. 21, 2020
Christina Grey
Catholic San Francisco
Star of the Sea Church has introduced the re-opening of the parish elementary faculty as Stella Maris Academy in Fall 2021 in keeping with its new head of college.
“We’re presently within the course of of selling the varsity and recruiting potential households,” San Francisco native Gavin Colvert advised Catholic San Francisco Dec. 17.
The academy will initially begin with early childhood training and the first grades, Colvert stated. It shall be a parochial faculty of the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s faculty system in partnership with the Catholic Institute for Liberal Training.
Virtually 100 folks registered to study extra concerning the new faculty and the classical training motion throughout a Zoom info evening the week earlier than, he stated.
The college’s new web site at stellamaris.org describes its mission as one in all “cultivating marvel and knowledge in pursuit of excellence” by an built-in classical curriculum.
Stella Maris (Star of the Sea in Latin) Academy revives the Richmond District parish’s hope to create an built-in, classical Ok-8 academy there in 2019. In a parish weblog submit in April of that 12 months Pastor Father Joseph Illo introduced that the varsity would shut in June to refine and ‘reboot’ the idea for re-launch sooner or later.
Colvert stated what shall be most distinctive concerning the curriculum isn’t just the themes college students will study — classical languages together with Latin, the sciences, arithmetic, music, the humanities and literature — however the integration of topics with theology on the heart.
“The built-in strategy helps college students to make connections between the issues they’re finding out and see them as an built-in entire,” he stated. “We imagine {that a} Catholic faculty the place our religion is an organizing precept on the heart of curriculum will assist serve their improvement as younger folks.”
The web site addresses among the false impression round classical training being “out of contact” with fashionable information and up to date wants.
“Nothing might be farther from the reality. Classical educators observe our greatest understanding of the pure improvement of the human individual they usually put together college students to enter fields like science and engineering, in addition to regulation, enterprise, drugs, theology and the humanities,” it reads.
In a promotional video for Stella Maris Academy Father Illo talks concerning the distinction between information and knowledge.
“Kids at the moment know a variety of issues,” he stated. “However I’m undecided how effectively they will put these issues to the service of a flourishing life, to combine what we all know now with the knowledge of the ages.”
Colvert grew up an Irish-Catholic household that belonged to St. Monica Parish and later, to St. Dominic Parish. A self-described “product of classical training,” he obtained a philosophy diploma from Santa Clara College and his doctorate from the College of Toronto. He taught on the School of the Holy Cross and chaired the Philosophy division at Assumption School (now College) in Worcester, Mass. He and his spouse Danielle, a Catholic faculty principal, moved again to California to be nearer to their kids in Los Angeles.
“This very particular alternative got here up in the course of a pandemic,” he stated of his serendipitous introduction to Father Illo by mutual pals. He discovered concerning the pastor’s longtime dream to open a classical academy at Star of the Sea.
“As an act of religion and intrigued by the mission, I accepted his request to carry one thing new to the Catholic faculty panorama in San Francisco,” he stated.
Go to stellamaris.org
