St. John Paul II Catholic High School (Arizona)

On April 21, 2015, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix announced plans to construct a new high school to open in Avondale for the 2018–19 school year, to be known as St. John Paul II Catholic High School, on diocesan property adjacent to St. Thomas Aquinas parish.[1] The announcement was years in the planning; in 1998, the then-pastor of the parish lobbied the diocese to buy land for a future elementary and high school. Already, in 2015, 70 students from the St. Thomas Aquinas elementary school were commuting 22 miles to Brophy College Preparatory and Xavier College Preparatory.[1] The diocese tapped the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, known colloquially as the "Nashville Dominicans", to establish a presence in Phoenix and operate the new school; Sr. Mary Jordan Hoover, O.P., who had been the founding principal when the order built Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School in northern Virginia, would serve as the principal.[2] The school in Avondale would be the westernmost operated by the Nashville Dominicans and just the second diocesan high school to open west of Interstate 17.[2]

Ground was broken for the new school at a ceremony on January 21, 2017.[3] Later in the year, the diocese launched a $100 million capital campaign, "Together Let Us Go Forth"; the largest grant of the funds to be raised from the program, $23 million, was earmarked for the new high school.[4]

The 107,000 square feet (9,900 m²) first phase, consisting of a three-story academic building and gymnasium, opened in August 2018 to allow the school to receive freshmen and sophomores.[5] John Paul II would be the second Catholic high school in the diocese to use a "house" system, in which all students are assigned to one of six houses.[5] In its first year of operation, the school educated 150 freshmen and sophomores, with about 40 percent of the student body coming from public schools.[6] In March 2019, Bishop Thomas Olmsted dedicated the new chapel altar, which features a relic: a lock of hair of Saint John Paul II.[7]

The JP2 girls basketball team won the Canyon Athletic Association state title in its first year, with the school moving into the larger Arizona Interscholastic Association for 2019–20.[8]