In The Beginning... Catholic Education In The Shakopee Area The ...

St. Francis and the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Lay teachers also taught when nuns weren’t
available from 1901-1921.
Beginning in 1921, as a three room school,
the two upper rooms were a parochial school
taught by a lay teacher under the supervision of
the county superintendent of schools. The parish
didn’t ask for rent for use of the building. The
district paid the lay teacher’s salary and allowed
a certain amount for maintenance of the building.
According to the archives at Mankato, high
school grades 9 and 10 were taught by the
School Sisters of Notre Dame from 1927-1937.
One teacher taught both grades. Five students
were enrolled in the high school in 1934-35; ten
students in 1936-37. Some of the subjects taught
were English, Algebra and History. A small
tuition fee was charged for the students attending
the high school. Since this was considered a
parochial high school, no state aid was received
for its operation.
The school closed in 1970 and joined with
St. Mark’s and St. Mary’s of Shakopee to form
the Shakopee Area Catholic School (SACS).
The 98 year
old school was
torn down to
make room for
a parish center
in 1990.
SACS
In early 1969, at the request of the archbishop,
the school boards from the three schools met to
consider consolidation. It was felt that by consolidating
a better educational program could be
offered, including special and enrichment programs.
Many meetings were held and on January 28,
1970, three plans were presented to parents and
parishioners to provide a cooperative system of
parochial education between the schools.
The plan adopted was for St. Mark’s to provide
20 classrooms for grades 1 though 5 and St. Mary’s
of Shakopee to provide 12 classrooms for grades
6 through 8. St. Mary’s of Marystown would
close completely.
The fall of 1970 saw the Shakopee Area
Catholic schools (SACS) begin their first school
year with an enrollment of 862 students, 574
in grades 1-5 and 288 in grades 6-8. 494 of the
students were from St. Mark’s, 288 from St. Mary’s
and 80 from St. Mary’s, Marystown.
1971 — First Graduating Class of the Consolidation
Morning and afternoon kindergarten classes
were added in 1976. Pre-kindergarten began as a
half-time program in 1989. SACS Kids Club, an
after-school latchkey program, started in 1991. In
1995, the SACS School Board discussed at length
the possibility and consequences of increasing
the school enrollment to three sections per grade
level. The decision was made to start with three
sections of Kindergarten in the fall of 1996.
And in 1999, SACS opened its first full day
kindergarten sessions.
The opening of the Blomington Ferry Bridge
in 1994 saw the beginning of tremendous population
growth in the Shakopee area. The SACS
buildings were beginning to burst at the seams
and were in dire need of repair, remodeling and
updating. Both buildings were also land-locked
which would limit the previously planned-for
expansion.
In 1999 the decision was made to begin
searching for land for construction of a new
free-standing school building.
And the rest is history.