History of St Anges Catholic school

Construction on St.Agnes School began in 1915 as a growing congregation attending St.Agnes Church expanded. The school opened in 1917, serving grades 1 through 8. The classes were taught by seven IHM Sisters of the Church. In its first year, 180 students attended St. Agnes School, and as the grand St. Agnes Church, as it stands today, was being built, the basement of the school served as a temporary church and auditorium while the permanent sanctuary was being built next door. Just the next year, high school classes started at St. Agnes, and enrollment grew to 471 students. By 1919, as the 10th grade program was added to the school, enrollment again rose to 537. In the spring of 1920, the chronicler recorded wide spread concern about a proposed amendment abolishing all private schools throughout Michigan. "As the non-Catholic vote will far outnumber the Catholic vote, we can only rely on prayer to save our schools." Around this same time, St. Agnes had added classes all the way to 12th grade, completing a full K-12 school. As the prayers of St.Agnes were answered with students receiving their diplomas in 1923, by the mid-1920s, enrollment grew to 800. During the Great Depression,the school remained strong and gave back to the community during hard times. In spite of financial challenges, St. Agnes thrived, instituting a drama club and debate team at the school. Though it is hard to see today, St. Agnes once had a sports team named the Panthers, which grew during the 1940s and 50s. In 1958, as enrollment began to slow, it was decided to turn St. Agnes into a girls-only school.This choice would leave the student pool at 408 for the 1958 school year. The school would never exceed 500 students after it became a girls only institution. Though enrollment increased slightly to 471 at its peak in the school's remaining years, in 1966,the juniors held a dance to help defray the cost of the Junior-Senior Prom, held at Veterans Memorial. Linda Franklin, senior class president, crowned the statue of Mary in May, and in June, the seniors enjoyed a picnic at Kensington Metropark and a breakfast served to them by the sophomores. Graduation took place on June 12 at 11 a.m. The Rev. Francis Granger presented diplomas to the 19 members of the Class of 1966. The girls had chosen light blue and dark blue as their class colors, a white lily as their class flower, and the motto, "Only the educated are free." The next year, the high school program of the school was discontinued. In June of 1967, the high school program was merged with St. Martin de Porres, that July, the heart of the 1967 riots took place on 12th Street, from which the church and school were located. Though the high school program would never resurface,the grade school continued on and closed when the archdiocese closed St. Agnes School along with 55 other private schools around Detroit. The church would still use the school for storage and leased it to the University of Michigan. In 1980, it became the Rosa Parks Community Art Center, offering classes in art, music, and dance to residents. By 1983, however, it had been forced to move out due to problems with the heating system. The school was used for storage for the church until around 2000, when it was fully abandoned.