A YEAR TO CELEBRATE: St. Peter’s School students many whose parents also attended the school hold a banner in commemoration of the school’s 50th anniversary. Students from left holding the banner are: Nicholas Aubin (Gr.8), Nicholas Sylvester (Gr. 6), Cameron Beausoleil (Gr. 5), Gianni Martira (Gr. 4), Scarlette Schultz (Gr.7), Erin Isherwood (Gr. 7), Stephanie Langevin (Gr. 5), Samantha McConnell (Gr. 2), Haeleigh DeFeo (Gr. 2), Sara Langevin (Gr. 2), and Emma Galvin (Gr.8). In back of them are Barbara Rossi and Principal Joan Sickinger. Sitting in front of the banner from left are: Sophia Detroia (Gr. 1), Samantha Galasso (Gr. 1), Isabella Martira (Gr. 1), Hannah DeFeo (Preschool), Annabelle Tracy (Preschool), Matthew Friel (Preschool), William Friel (K) and Alexander Mullin (K). The three in the back sitting from left are: Siena Algeo (K), Olivia Tracy (K), and Aidan Moreira (K).
by Marie Hopkins
St. Peter’s Tri-Parish School is celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this year. A grand reunion event is planned for this winter to bring together the many alumni who have graduated from St. Peter’s over the years.
The Parish of St. Peter was founded in 1933 in the Gaspee Plateau section of Warwick. Reverend Patrick W. McHugh served as the first pastor. McHugh had previously served as assistant at St. Paul’s Church in Edgewood. It took 25 years before St. Peter’s church was able to establish a parish school. Father DeVaney, Father Raymond Beaulieu, and Father William Gillooly broke ground in March of 1958. Within one year, an additional ground-breaking ceremony was held for St. Peter’s Convent. Prior to the convent’s opening, the four Sisters of Mercy hired to staff the school had to travel from St. Xavier Convent in Providence. They did this during the first year and a half of the school’s existence. The Convent at St. Peter was completed in 1960 to house the four Sisters. Amazingly, one of these original faculty members, Sister Mary Francis Ryan, RSM, still resides on the campus at St. Peter’s.
The school opened in September of 1959 with two first and two second grades. The first class, consisting of a grand total of 39 students, graduated from St. Peter’s in June, 1966. Additional grades were added as the need arose, including a kindergarten program that began in 1975. Today the school runs through grade eight, and includes two pre-school rooms; a program for 4-year-olds began in 1980 and one for 3-year-olds began in 2007. Photos commemorating each of the graduating classes proudly hang in the front hall of the school today. These graduation photos were the historic preservation work of former long-standing principal, Sister Mary Angelus.
Today, St. Peter’s School has grown to serve not just one, but three parishes. St. Benedict of Beach Avenue and St. Timothy of Warwick Avenue now share the responsibility of running the Fair Street School. Sister Mary Angelus had been sole-principal from 1971-1990, but at the time of the merger, she was joined by Sister Kathleen Farley, former principal of St. Timothy’s. The Sisters served as co-principals until 2000. Sister Mary Angelus had begun her career at St. Peter’s as a teacher in 1966. Maureen Janetta was principal from 2000 until 2007. Joan Sickinger, who began teaching at St. Peter’s in 1980, is the current principal, having taken over from Maureen Janetta.
St. Peter’s has grown through the years in other ways as well. The school boasts a top-notch technology program (you can follow St. Peter’s School activities on schooltube.com). Also, the study foreign language is begun far earlier than most other area schools, with Spanish instruction beginning in formally second grade, but taught by volunteer staff in both kindergarten and first grade. They also have an active extra-curricular sports program thanks to volunteer coaches. The middle-school plays in leagues for both lacrosse and basketball.
Additionally, music instruction is taught from kindergarten through eighth grade. Eighth graders participate in the state science fair, and both seventh and eighth-graders participate in the Rhode Island History Fair. The school also starts science curriculum early, and has an active robotics program running, where children compete in the national Lego Robotics Competition.
To celebrate the achievements of fifty years, the school has organized a committee of alumni chaired by Susan Mantuori Algeo (class of 1975). Mrs. Algeo has one child currently attending the kindergarten at St. Peter’s. She is supported by Nancy Madden Moreira (1986) who has three children at St. Peters; Katie O’Brien Spolidoro (1985), who has two children in attendance; Bethany Mascena Tracy (1987) who also has two children in attendance; and Jennifer Sickinger Galasso (1987) who has a daughter in first grade. Mrs. Galasso is the daughter of Principal Joan Sickinger. Principal Sickinger has a total of three grandchildren currently attending St. Peter’s School.
The alumni committee planned to integrate alumni into school events this year, which included an invite to the kick-off concert back in September. The big anniversary celebration, however, will be held in February.
Billed as “a social event, a spiritual event, and a school event”; Mrs. Algeo and her alumni board will host a dinner dance, mass, and brunch over the weekend of February 6-7, 2010. The highlight of the event will be a “Decades” themed walk-through of the school. They plan for five classrooms to each highlight a different decade from the school’s history. A tribute to teachers, music of the era, class photos, and student work will be on display in each room.
The idea is to reconnect alumni to both the parish and school. The alumni committee has been hard at work, using personal networking as well as technology to locate as many alumni as possible. Approximately 1,200 students have graduated from St. Peter’s in the last 50 years. Amazingly, of those aged greater than 22 (adult-out-of-college alums), 600 of them still live within 25 miles of the Parish.
St Peter’s School has and enrollment of 200 students. Nineteen alumni have children who attend St. Peter’s. This legacy is in the neighborhood of 30 children total. St. Peter’s attributes their strength over 50 years to a tight knit community founded and based in faith and also to the parish ties that carry from generation to generation.
