Category: Chesterton Academy

As we continue this beautiful season of Advent, our school community is on a journey of watching, waiting, and preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. Advent invites us to pause amid the busyness of life, to make room for silence and wonder, and to remember that God comes to us in love—quietly, humbly, and personally.

Our school environment slowly shifts toward a more prayerful posture: Advent wreaths, purple cloths, and moments of intentional silence woven into the rhythm of the day. Teachers are guiding students to reflect on themes of hope and anticipation, helping them see Advent not simply as a countdown to Christmas, but as a season of spiritual preparation.

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

The 2026-27 GRACE calendar is now live! Check it out on the GRACE website by clicking the button below.

St. John Paul II Catholic School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic schools serving Preschool and Elementary through high school, adding one grade per year. They have with open enrollment and provide an individualized education in a faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

The Christian anthropology of Catholic education is incarnational. It is education that is embodied, involving real relationships, real encounters with beauty, real moral formation, and the shaping of real human beings. It shapes children not into test-takers, but into fully human persons made in God’s image.

It is the culture we live, being in communion with God and one another. And as Pope Leo XIV recently stated in “Drawing New Maps of Hope,” it is a “collective endeavour” (§3.1). 
“If Catholic educators, parents, and others who dedicate themselves to this apostolate fail to keep in mind a high supernatural vision, all their talk about Catholic schools will be no more than ‘a gong booming or a cymbal clashing’ (1 Cor. 13:1) (J Michael Miller, p. 21).”

Embody Catholic Education. Live it at home. Support it in the classroom.
Together we form saints — real, whole, and fully alive in Christ.

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

Please take a moment to read GRACE President Kimberly Desotell’s Thanksgiving letter, filled with heartfelt wishes and gratitude for you and your loved ones! Click the button below to read.

Thank you for being apart of our faith-filled community.

St. John Paul II Catholic School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic schools serving Preschool and Elementary through high school, adding one grade per year. They have with open enrollment and provide an individualized education in a faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

Each day during the 40 Days for Life campaign, individuals, churches, families, and groups are asked to join together in prayer for a specific request so the entire Body of Christ can unite around a common focus.

“If you have not yet experienced how the cross of our culture can be made light, I highly encourage experiencing carrying the cross together in this particular way.  Together, we walk.  Together, we pray.  Together, we speak by our presence alone.  

Thank you to all of you who took time during this fall’s 40 Days for Life vigil.  I have no doubt Our Lord and Our Lady have taken your sacrifices of time and convenience with great joy and gratitude, knowing exactly and fully the seeds sown and fruits of graces born.” Miss McGann

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

“The family remains the first place of education. Catholic schools collaborate with parents; they do not substitute them, because the ‘duty… devolves primarily on them.’ The educational alliance requires intentionality, listening, and co-responsibility.”  Pope Leo XIV’s, Drawing New Maps of Hope

These words renew our call to strengthen the sacred partnership between parents, school, and Church. As we guide our students toward wisdom and virtue, may we do so in deep communion with one another, beginning with parents who first taught our children to know and love God — walking together as co-educators in hope.
  
This fits with the opportunity to come together for the next lecture series, which will be Monday November 24, at 6:30 p.m. at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral. This lecture will look at Imago Dei and the Catholic classical approach to education.

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

On Oct 2nd, our high school parents and potential families took part in the popular Chesterton Academy tradition of the Fireside Chat. This is an informative and engaging evening of getting to know the teachers, the curriculum and experiencing the overall spirit and joy of our high school. A current high school parent describes the event as … “The fireside chat experience gives parents a glimpse into the amazing curriculum and community that Chesterton Academy offers. You leave the evening with new friends, fun memories, and the wish that Chesterton Academy had been around during your own high school years.” Our humanities’ teacher, Mr Horn, describes the evening as “… a great opportunity for parents to come together to receive a taste of their child’s experience in the school. After some social time, we move into a mock morning assembly and break up into different classrooms. This past year, I shared the reason why I chose to work at this particular school (as opposed to other opportunities), as well as presenting an eye-opening lesson on the Greek words for “love” and “life.” This is truly an annual event for parents to catch an inside glimpse of their child’s school day, which integrates subjects like history, literature, theology and science, forms the students in the Catholic faith, and develops their critical thinking.

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

On the feast of our patron, Pope Saint John Paul II, we are reminded of his words that inspire our mission to cultivate beauty, seek truth, and do good:

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”​

As a community, we live this call through shared moments of faith and witness—whether at the 40 Days for Life, the Solemnity of Our Lady of Champion, or our Fireside Chat. In all we do, we seek to live In Illo Uno Unum—in the One who unites us — Mr. Schrieber, Headmaster.

St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic classical schools serving Montessori preschool and elementary through high school. They have open enrollment and provide an individualized education in an integrated faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

The latest GRACE Fall 2025 newsletter is now available to read! This issue highlights the GRACE Board of Trustees, spotlights St. John Paul II Classical School and Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II Classical School’s new headmaster, explores the renovations that were made in GRACE schools over the summer, and more!

Check it out by clicking the button below.

St. John Paul II Catholic School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic schools serving Preschool and Elementary through high school, adding one grade per year. They have with open enrollment and provide an individualized education in a faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.

Welcome back! Please read this letter from GRACE President Kim Desotell by clicking the button below.

St. John Paul II Catholic School and Chesterton Academy are of the Green Bay Area Catholic Education (GRACE) School System. They are private Catholic schools serving Preschool and Elementary through high school, adding one grade per year. They have with open enrollment and provide an individualized education in a faith-based environment. Each child is supported not only academically, but spiritually. Learn more by scheduling a visit.