Angelus News | May 17, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 18

Construction has begun on an engineering lab.
A freshly painted hallway at St. John Paul II STEM Academy.
plan the curriculum. The staff also
has attended conferences at the Buck
Institute, the National Conference for
Teachers of Mathematics, New Technology
Network, and the Q-Computer
Conference.
The STEM Academy, which is
co-institutional, (co-ed, but girls
and boys are in separate classrooms)
will offer two tracks: Digital Media
Arts and Engineering. The students
choose their path in the 10th grade.
Juniors and seniors will have the
opportunity to take classes for college
credit, too, through the University of
Texas at Austin, Glendale Community
College, and Los Angeles City
College. The high school will offer
four classes each semester with two
interdisciplinary labs.
“Students can do three years of math
in two years. Teachers are able to
give the students more time with this
format,” said Hilger.
The STEM Academy will begin the
day with an optional lab at 7:30 a.m in
the morning followed by daily Mass.
The actual school day will begin at
9 a.m. Another unique feature of
the high school is that the students
are required to build partnerships
in the community by interviewing
professionals in the media industry
and visiting studios and businesses in
Burbank.
Students are expected to collaborate
with one another and with people in
the community to get projects done.
“A lot of the learning is project-based,”
said Hilger.
According to Hilger, an example of
a project students will be assigned in
the fall entails building a sound-recording
device. Teachers will give the
students equipment, but no instructions.
The budding engineers will
The original archway from the old high school
is being preserved during the renovation.
build a prototype in co-educational
groups and will be expected to build a
real world prototype.
“The students will be graded equally
on the content and processes, and will
receive an individual grade on how
they think,” said Hilger.
An important part of the STEM
Academy will be integrating science
and faith and instructing students that
faith and science do connect, said
Hilger.
“Catholic identity is very important
to me. We absolutely do believe that
faith and science go hand in hand.”
Parents of some of the first students
to sign up for the STEM Academy
were attracted to the school not only
because of the innovative approach to
academics, small size and CYO sports
like track, volleyball and basketball,
but also its approach to form a
balanced understanding of faith and
science.
Theresa Rosette, whose son will
attend the STEM Academy in the
fall, chose the academy because of the
spirit of its namesake, who famously
said “that faith and reason are like two
wings on which the spirit rises.”
“The Catholic faith is both the
steering wheel and the anchor of their
boat. I would like my son to be, as Father
Spitzer says, a ‘credible’ Catholic.
The St. John Paul II STEM Academy
will give him that foundation,” said
Rosette.
Tuition is $14,950, which includes
textbooks, an Amazon Kindle, and
three annual trips during their time at
the school.
The first trip will be nature-themed
and will encourage classmates to
bond; the second trip will be related
to community service such as building
a house in Mexico; and the third
trip the students will go on will be a
college tour to the East Coast, South,
and Midwest.
The founding class will visit the East
Coast first, with the trip beginning
in Philadelphia (in a nod to Bellarmine-Jefferson’s
original founding as a
military academy 75 years ago). The
trip will culminate in Williamsburg,
Virginia.
And uniforms? Those will feature
an updated version of red, white,
and blue, carrying on the colors of
Bellarmine-Jefferson’s traditional
uniform.
St. John Paul II STEM Academy is located
at 465 East Olive Ave., Burbank.
For more information on admissions,
go online to www.jpstem.org or call
818-972-1400.
May 17, 2019 • ANGELUS • 15