St. Michael's High School

St. Michael's High School is a private Catholic junior/senior high school located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is privately run under the auspices of the international Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, better known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers. St. Michael's teaches grades 7 through 12 and has an enrollment of approximately 450 students. The school has a president/principal structure and is overseen by a board of trustees. The school operates on a semester schedule. History St. Michael's High School was founded in 1859 as El Colegio de San Miguel in an adobe hut next to the San Miguel Mission on present-day Old Santa Fe Trail (formerly College Street), in what is now the Barrio De Analco Historic District. The school was established at the behest of Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who had arrived in New Mexico in 1851 to find that formal education in the territory was almost nonexistent. After establishing the Loretto Academy for girls in 1852, Lamy recruited four De La Salle Christian Brothers from his native France to open a similar school for boys. Brothers Hilarien, Gondulph, Geramius and Galmier Joseph arrived on October 27, 1859, after two and a half months of travel by ship, train and covered wagon, and St. Michael's held its first classes shortly afterward. In 1870, the school nearly closed due to financial hardship and falling morale of the Brothers and students. Brother Peter J. Schneider, known as Brother Botulph, arrived to open a novitiate to train local student Brothers and recruit more Brothers to Santa Fe. Under Botulph, St. Michael's began offering high school diplomas, and later, teaching certificates. In 1874, the territorial legislature granted the school a charter as the College of the Christian Brothers of New Mexico. In 1876, St. Michael's conferred diplomas on its first graduates. In 1877, Brother Botulph started a fundraising campaign to construct the school's first permanent building, which still exists in modified form as the Lamy Building. Ground was broken on the building in April 1878 and it was ready for classes by November. In 1887 the school completed a second building, now known as the Lew Wallace Building.