MISSION STATEMENT

St. Clare Catholic School is a partnership of motivated students, dedicated faculty and clergy, involved parents, and supportive parishioners.  We believe a quality Catholic education to be an essential ministry of the Church.

Our mission is to teach our children to know, love, and serve God and prepare them to be responsible members of the world community.  We strive for academic excellence and development of the whole person, while fostering self-respect and respect for others based on the example of Jesus Christ.

PHILOSOPHY OF ST. CLARE CATHOLIC SCHOOL

St. Clare School is a Catholic School whose staff members work as co-workers with parents and the parish communities, striving to encourage each student's faith to become more living conscious and active through the light of instructions.

Traditionally, the school is a place where pupils learn the three R's.  In St. Clare School this concept has been broadened to include much more than mere knowledge of basic skills, important as they may be.  Today, along with skills, we expect children to develop attitudes, interests, concepts, and habits that will result in well-rounded individuals of purposeful character.

Were we to neglect a fourth R - Religion or Christian Living - we would fail measurably in the love of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

The primary reason for the existence of any school is to serve each child so that he/she will, to the utmost of his/her ability, retain the accumulated knowledge of the past, gain an ability to use the knowledge in the present, and learn to think critically and creatively beyond the frontiers of that knowledge.  Our students are taught that education is a responsibility shared both by the students and the teacher.

In a Catholic school such as St. Clare, Christianity should and does color all our efforts for education includes far more than the mere accumulation of facts.  We intend to form strong Catholic men and women, well-equipped with Catholic doctrine and the intellectual stamina necessary to meet today's complex and challenging problems.

Priority  is given to:

..... Helping students understand what our Catholic faith means to them in today's world.

..... Incorporating religious consideration and values into all parts of the school program.

..... Helping each student assume responsibility for his/her own learning.

..... Engaging students in meaningful activities.

..... Reporting progress according to individual ability.

Cooperative efforts are made to:

..... Create healthy, honest interaction among faculty, parents, and students.

..... Ensure consistent expectations.

..... Provide positive reinforcement of students and co-workers.

..... Parent involvement.

..... Provide opportunities for parent-teacher conferences.

..... Promote cooperative programs involving parents as teacher aides.

..... Meet with parents to gain their insight and concern.

..... Maintain an "Open Door" policy regarding classroom visitation.

The spiritual, cultural, physical, aesthetic, and intellectual training of our children is very important and our primary concern.  We also aim to develop attitudes, interests, concepts, and habits that will result in well-rounded individuals of purposeful character.  We will use every means available to teach him /her how to use his/her God-given gifts of body and soul in the best way so as to bring happiness in this life and in the next.  Working together (parents, teacher and child), the child will be taught to uphold, respect, obey, and cooperate with his/her parents, teachers, fellow students, and those in authority.

St. Clare School must guide each child to realize certain objectives as an aid in achieving his/her potential and his/her final goal.  These objectives may be stated as follows:

1.  To understand and choose religious and spiritual values.

2.  To live in accord with ethical and moral values.

3.  To think and act as a free person.

4.  To achieve self-realization.

5.  To grow intellectually.

6.  To appreciate his/her cultural heritage.

7.  To be mentally healthy.

8.  To develop responsible home membership.

9.  To practice self-enriching use of leisure time.

10. To practice and follow the Catholic doctrines related to the democratic way of living.

History

Since its founding in 1868, St. Clare Catholic School has continuously provided a Catholic education to the O’Fallon community. In 1925 a new brick structure was built for the school.  Since that time there have been several modifications made to the structure to accommodate growth and changing needs.

Saint Clare School In Its Early Days

Until recently, St. Clare was the only private school within the city of O’Fallon.  Since 1999, a private education has also been offered at the nearby Governor French Academy.

Size and Enrollment

Who Was St. Clare?

Meet Clare of Assisi.  Not the sweetly compliant lady of pious stories, but the rebel with a cause.  In an age when docility was expected of the "fairer sex", she showed courageous independence and leadership.

Life should have been very predictable for this beautiful golden-haired daughter of the wealthy Favorone family.  She would marry, of course, the man her family chose for her.  After prolonged dickering between the fathers to obtain favorable returns from a generous dowry, there would be the nuptials, and the newly-weds would settle down to comfortable inanity. But Clare chose not to be the bargaining chip.   She had selected a spouse of her own.  He was Christ.

Clare became infatuated with the Jesus proclaimed by Francis.  It was a very human savior Francis preached about in the streets of Assisi:  one close to the poor and the weak, one who shared our cares and bore our sufferings.  Francis addressed the concerns of the day in the language of the common people, and in so doing raised their consciousness to authentic nobility.   His joyful chivalry charmed generous hearts and fired up indifferent souls.

Among his most ardent listeners was Clare.   Like Francis, she translated into the action the urgings of her heart, but since she was a woman she had special difficulties to overcome.  In 13th century Italy, a woman was practically chattel.  She was under the control of her father until she married, and then her husband was her master.  Only revolutionary tactics could free her from domination, and Clare met the challenge.

On the evening of Palm Sunday, 1212, Clare fled her home under the cover of darkness, met with Francis and his companion friars in a chapel outside the city, and donned the habit and veil of a nun.

The following day she moved on to a Benedictine convent, while her male relatives hunted her as a fugitive.  They traced her to the cloister and found her actually clinging to the altar, claiming sanctuary.   That was a courtesy her furious family was unwilling to observe, and so Clare invoked her final strategy.  She tore off her veil and showed her ravaged head.   Her glorious hair had been hacked off.  She was practically bald.

In that condition she was hardly negotiable merchandise in the marriage market.  Her shocked relatives backed away from her, considering that the notoriety of her willful actions would discourage genteel suitors anyway.  Her long tresses are now a precious relic displayed near her tomb in Assisi.   Once she made her formal vows, her religious status emancipated her from her family.   Her successful break with convention inspired her younger sister and her mother  to later join her growing community of nuns.

Clare became to Francis a spiritual companion.   She was at once his disciple and advisor.  While he was her protector, she interceded for him in prayer and helped discern his ministry.  Together they championed a radical fidelity to gospel teachings and church authority which profoundly changed the course of their society.

Clare's loyalty to church leaders was tempered by a clear understanding of vocation.  She felt a strong call to practice complete poverty, relying on providence literally for her daily bread.  When even the Pope tried to impose some mitigation of her poverty, Clare responded with respectful candor:   "You can absolve me from my sins, Holy Father, but you cannot absolve me from living the gospel."

Beyond her prayerful cloister, battles among political factions in Italy were draining the lifeblood of the various city-states.   Into the power vacuum swept the infidel troops of the Saracens.  One day they showed up outside Assisi, menacing the townsfolk wit brutal reprisals if they would not surrender.  Clare's unprotected convent lay in the path of these marauders, but when they approached, she stood at the window, holding aloft the Blessed Sacrament while her sisters knelt in adoration.  "This is your concern now, O Lord," she prayed.  And the attacking army retreated.

Clare outlived Francis by 27 years, almost all of them in ill health.  Her special joy was prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.   Although she never left her convent, she became one of the most influential religious figures of her age.  She guided the spread of her sisterhood.  She continued to be an inspiration to the friars as they evangelized throughout Europe and in mission territories.  Prelates and even popes sought her advice and prayers.  Meanwhile she served her spiritual daughters humbly, leading them by example far more than by precept.

When Clare died at the age of 60, she was already a legend.  Legends have a way of being reshaped in the course of retelling.   Thus the unique dimensions of Clare's achievement were frequently normalized into merely conventional piety.  Her own writings and authentic deeds reveals a vibrantly independent woman, wise beyond her age and culture.  She was a religious genius, a holy nonconformist who opened avenues of grace unsuspected by her contemporaries.