Claremont
“I have had such a beautiful outpouring of support and enthusiasm and excitement about the school,” Raeside Wilton said on Thursday at the school.
In one instance, Raeside Wilton said, a man approached her after church one Sunday and offered his services to help get the school ready.
“He said ‘I can do plumbing. I can check your furnace. This is my number. Call me anytime.’ He then showed me his first grade classroom (when he went to St. Mary).
“This is what I have been getting from the community. It is one of many stories of people I’ve met telling me they love the school and can’t wait to help.”
A call is out for volunteers to come to the school on Saturday morning beginning at 9 to help get the building ready for the first day of classes on Sept. 4.
“We are looking at this point to clean and organize,” Raeside Wilton said. “We will be going through the building assessing each room.”
The Academy is for grades Pre-K through 12, with an emphasis on early childhood education starting at age 3. Raeside Wilton said there are no high school students enrolled right now and while she was not sure of enrollment figures, said she would like to have at least 100. “But we will open, regardless.”
John Paul II Academy, named for Pope John Paul II, who was pontiff from 1978 until his death in 2005, restarts a long tradition of Catholic education in Claremont. In 1823, the Rev. Virgil Barber, a convert to Catholicism, built the first Catholic Church in New Hampshire — which still is in use today — on Old Plains Road. In that same building on the second floor, Barber opened the first Catholic boy’s school in New England, though it was only in existence for a few years. The church on Central Street opened in 1870 and St. Mary Catholic School began in the late 1800s. It was a K-8 school when it closed in 2009.
Raeside Wilton said she looks forward to the challenge of re-establishing a school that is “authentically Catholic” in its teaching and curriculum but emphasized that John Paul II Academy will be open to all students regardless of faith or culture.
“We will provide a rigorous academic experience that is authentically Catholic but it will be an academic experience for all in the community,” Raeside Wilton said.
The academics will be partnered with the “Education in Virtues Program,” which emphasizes Christian discipleship through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“The goal is to educate young people in living Christian virtues,” Raeside Wilton said. “These include kindness, patience, justice, prudence and what it means to live as a disciple of Christ. It will shape the culture of our school.”
Raeside Wilton and her husband, James, recently moved to Claremont from the Seacoast region where they were active in their parish in Portsmouth. Raeside Wilton has taught in the community college systems, directed youth ministry programs and developed the office of evangelization in Corpus Christi parish. Her husband, a deacon in the church, has been a surgeon at Valley Regional Hospital since 2014 and before moving here with his wife would spend the week in Claremont then return to the Seacoast on weekends. The couple has five grown children and has had eight foster children for varying lengths of time.
Roxanne Raeside Wilton said St. Mary’s pastor, the Rev. Shawn Therrien, got to know her husband because on occasion he assisted during church services while in Claremont and Therrien reached out to her to become the school’s headmaster.
“I understand God has called me to be here and that my role is to provide leadership and opportunity for the children and families in the community,” Raeside Wilton, 58, said.
As she prepares for the first day, Raeside Wilton, sitting before her laptop in an office furnished so far with only a desk, talked about the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead and breaks them into three areas. The first will be to bring the school up to contemporary standards, including computer technology.
She plans to announce a capital campaign at Masses this weekend in which donations can be made to various funds including one for a chapel in one of the school rooms, a scholarship fund or a technology fund.
“There will be options in terms of what they want to see in the school,” said Raeside Wilton, who also is planning to develop partnerships with area businesses and nonprofit organizations.
The second challenge, she said, is to convince the community that the school is here for the long run given that St. Mary’s, grades K-8, closed in 2009 and the diocese’s former high school, now a public elementary school, closed in the early 1970s.
“We have to convince people this will be different. We have had great leadership at the diocesan level with support from the bishop and the superintendent of diocesan schools,” Raeside Wilton said. “Father Shawn has worked so hard for years behind the scenes to reopen the school. And there are so many with roots in this school in the community. I think that is a plus.”
Finally, with annual tuition between $5,600 and $7,900, Raeside Wilton recognizes the financial challenge facing many but promises to do all she can to help families that want to send their children to John Paul II Academy.
“It is our goal to serve the children in the community regardless of economic circumstances,” Raeside Wilton said. “That is going to be the driving force of the school. It is going to be a challenge to provide quality education for those who can’t afford it, but that is what Catholic schools have done throughout history.”
For more information, visit www.jp2academynh.org or call the school at 603-542-2157.
