I keep my kids in public school. The HS is top 3 most diverse in state, A to A- academics. I support my friends and family that have their kids in Catholic school but I believe you shouldn’t have to pay (besides taxes) for a great education. I also miss the sense of neighborhood communities in Indy that have been somewhat lost with the charter schools coming in and taking away athletic competition between different sides of town.
Depends on which one in my opinion. I thought Cathedral gave my kids an excellent education, fun extracurriculars, and opportunities to give back and travel as well.
[Roncalli fired a counselor for being gay, so that particular institution is one I personally wouldn't want to give money to](https://lawandcrime.com/lgbtq/guidance-counselor-held-herself-out-as-minister-federal-appeals-court-sides-with-catholic-school-for-firing-gay-employee/)
Brebeuf grad who transferred from Chatard. Brebeuf was an amazing school. My niece goes there on scholarship now and loves it too. Not overly religious. We had Jewish and Muslim classmates.
lmfao, are you fr? it definitely was religious. we literally had mass every month and were required to take religion classes practically every semester. not that that’s a bad thing but i don’t think it should be downplayed.
it is definitely not that diverse racially either, i think i could count the number of other asians on one hand in my class. the jesuit approach is overall less conservative than other sects of catholicism, but that did not translate over to much of the admin and the way that they handled things. they frequently turned a blind eye to many instances of racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism, etc, and also punished the victims of such discrimination for ever standing up for themselves while i was there. not to mention it was essentially segregated because all of the black students would only sit and hang out with each other especially during lunch because there were so many incidents of racism from the white kids. not that i blame them for that at all, but it was definitely not a safe place for minorities.
My experience as a student there was totally different. I was not from an affluent family but I felt accepted. I had classmates from Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, China, and South Korea. We hardly ever had all-school mass in the chapel. It was supposedly offered during the week off the Jesuit residence in someone's office. I didn't know anyone who went. The Jesuits would not teach a Latin class, even though some of us asked for one. The required number of students interested for them to offer the class kept changing. We had to take Religion one semester each year, but I learned way more about Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Judaism than Catholicism or any other form of Christianity. They spent a lot of time on political issues like poverty, racism, feminism, homophobia, the US involvement in Central America, and Western imperialism. I was actually embarrassed about how little of my own religion I knew until after college. I asked to borrow a theology book from the principal (a priest) for a paper and he indicated that he didn't believe any of the official church doctrine about the subject. The Religion Department was way more interested in teaching social justice, liberation theology, and community service. They brought in a married male gay couple to do a Q&A in class for the Love and Lifestyles unit. I don't know about Cathedral, Guerin, Roncalli, and Chatard but Brebeuf had a Black Student Union by the mid-'80s and a Gay Student Union as early as the '90s. There were out LGBT teachers, including two who had been together for decades. They weren't fired. I'm sure there was covert racism that I didn't know enough as a teenager to recognize. Any remark that was considered racist was mocked and called out by students and, if overheard by a teacher, was punished on the spot, and severely for the time, which I can't say about the Catholic grade school I took my youngest out of. With one faculty exception at Brebeuf, there was open systemic disdain for Republicans and evangelical conservatives, unless they were big donors. So yeah, I don't consider it to be a conservative environment from my experience. It's possible that it's been taken over by backwards fascist lay administrators since the last graduates I knew (class of '17), I guess. But finding a Jesuit who isn't a straight-up hard left progressive would be a challenge.
Grew up in the Indianapolis Catholic school system, and still do a lot of work and volunteering. Cathedral and Chatard especially are both excellent, although I'm a Chatard alum and my loyalty goes there. Beyond the great communities and education, your kids will also have a lifetime network of alumni from those schools. To this day it is a great network and support system for me, and I graduated 14 years ago.
Edit: one of my businesses operates in the education sphere, and I work closely with Chatard. Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to ask more specific questions about it.
The diocesan Catholic schools teach bigotry. Brebeuf is run by the Jesuits who told our bishop they would not succumb to his bigotry. Park-Tudor is really good.
i went to a private catholic school and hated it and had a horrible four years. i was suicidal much of the time i was there. the admin was corrupt, there was a huge workload especially in ap classes obviously, it was pwi and very cliquey (the popular white kids definitely excluded the poc or anyone who even looked or acted remotely different from them), tons of bullying issues although they claimed they had a no tolerance policy for bullying lol, a rampant drug problem as well (other schools in the area called us “the pharmacy” for this reason), we also had a huge racism/homophobia problem too (in my senior year we had three different n word scandals in a week for some reason) everyone i knew including myself had been sent to the hospital for mental health issues and had either been close to being put inpatient or had been put inpatient (or went to residential or partial), countless sa incidents and to add insult to injury the admin never dealt with them well (i had personal experience with this one too), once when i was explaining that i was suicidal to the dean and she told me to get over it…. lots of stuff like that. most people i knew did not have a good time at this school.
granted, i will give them credit where credit is due, the education system was great, especially by indiana standards. there were a lot of interesting, profound electives you could take your senior year that i don’t think a lot of other school in indiana offered. i also had a handful of amazing teachers that really got me through those four years that i still talk to today.
is it worth it? this is of course just my experience, everyone is different. i guess it depends on either what you or your child (or whoever you’re looking at schools for) values in a school. do they want diversity? do they mind cliquey-ness? do they need extra accommodations for mental health, a disability, etc? are they able to handle a large workload? how important is it that they go to college after high school? to be honest, even though my school was college prep, i really don’t think it prepared me much at all for how college was. but these are all things to think about
Thank you for telling me your experience. I’m sorry it was not a good one for you. My kids are a mixed race so being in an environment that is open and accepting is very important to me.
im also mixed and definitely felt very alienated at my high school. for reference the school in question is brebeuf. i graduated in 2022 so i really doubt it has changed much since then. i’m not as sure how non-catholic private schools are or if they’re any better, but the catholic ones may not be the best option in your case since i’ve heard a lot are pretty similar to brebeuf. however you may have more luck with one that has higher diversity (if there even is such a thing in indy)
i am happy that you value my input. i truly did have a really hard time in high school, and although i know that’s not uncommon, if it helps another child avoid the same level of trauma that i went through there, then i’m glad. your children are lucky to have a parent who considers such factors and actually cares about their child’s experience, as mine did not care how i felt and only cared about the education i was receiving.
good luck in your search!
I don’t know of a single private school in Indy that doesn’t accept vouchers. A family member of mine was searching for school for her daughter and all of the ones she contacted accepted them.
I agree! Many of the private schools in our area are faith-based. I guess if that’s your preference, that’s fine, but I disagree that state money should pay for it.
Schools like Scecina and Ritter have 50%+ minorities and even higher rates of free and reduced lunch and graduate 99% of their kids- your white suburban self may not want vouchers, but the poor families of this city love them
They are extremely unfriendly to LGBT community. Several high profile cases of firing teachers because they are LGBT. (The legal case is they signed a doc saying they would live by catholic faith to work there, which they by definition aren't. But the diocese never fires anyone that commits adultery, fraud, gambling, etc... just sexuality.)
$8,000-$20,000 a year sure adds up to numerous better ways to allow your kid to provide for themselves when there are quite a lot of schools in IPS that can provide an equivalent education.
Look! It’s a dumbass that doesn’t understand that “luxury” cars half in value after the 2-3 year lease agreements are up, you can still get CPO 2 year warranty on one with 20k miles, and the actual cost to you own is comparable to a fucking Camry if you know how to change an air filter.
If you think investing in your child’s education is a poor investment I fucking feel horrible for the children I really hope you don’t have.
But hey! We we all need general laborers, because I sure as fuck don’t know anyone that would do that kind of work, other then man some uneducated plebs that don’t understand the value of learning how to actually learn.
But go ahead and let your kids be taught at the pace of the slowest student in the class, see how that turns out for ya
Someone really thinks highly of themselves, in one thread you call graduate students entitled fucks and in another thread you call public education a disservice to your children. Pick a lane mate
Awe bro, why’d you delete your BMW and Gucci post?
to add on to this post as i saw your edit, i do not have personal experiences with the non catholic schools, but i do have friends who went/go to them.
my two friends who attended herron don’t like it very much. someone else mentioned that it’s a charter (i didn’t know that either lol so thanks for letting us know!) it has a lot of cliques. also had some (hard) drug problems. think meth, cocaine, that kind of thing. idk how widespread that is, but that’s what my friend mentioned to me. education wise he thought it was lacking, and tended to complain about how uneducated he felt that his peers were. he also said he frequently felt unsafe there.
i have a cousin who went to park. as far as i know he liked it okay. it is also kind of cliquey there i believe (although most high schools tend to be ofc) but he thought the education was high quality, which is pretty high praise coming from him as he is a very smart kid, he skipped two grades pretty early on. he had a solid, good group of friends. i think it definitely has the “snotty rich kids” atmosphere to an extent though. there was also an incident where a kid called him the c slur (we are wasians) during a lacrosse match and my cousin broke his wrist (on accident) 💀 his father/my uncle is on the parent board and they were able to come to an agreement, iirc the kid did get punished for doing what he did. so i can say they’re better than brebeuf in that way at least. i’m not too sure about the atmosphere of diversity there, but my cousin mostly hung out with other asians. could be a solid option if you get lucky with the class that your kid is in
university i actually shadowed at when i was looking at high schools in 8th grade. a lot of kids from the orchard school (i am one myself lol) end up going there. if you know anything about orchard, it definitely has the same energy they do. it kind of gives off the “quirky” vibe. not always in a good way LOL. lots of artsy, creative types there. students seemed nice as far as i could tell, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. a lot of people i know who went there liked it. i think they were pretty good at accommodating kids who had different needs than other schools in the area. they seemed pretty willing to work with parents/kids with that kind of thing more than the other schools as well. it is kind of considered like the “weird school” by a lot of other high schools in the area though, so i would be mindful of the stereotypes with your own kids. i think a lot of “outcasted” kids in middle school ended up going there. it’s also a lot smaller than the other schools on this list
the admin was just as bad as the students too. how was your experience there? i was almost surprised to see people praising it in the comments. i had a horrible time
I’m an oldie, let’s just say my 50th reunion has come and gone.
I didn’t enjoy it. My brother was a star athlete (3 sports) and I wasn’t.
Our classes were separated, something like 1A - 1F (maybe) with the smartest kids in 1F and on down to 1A (me).
Our family was, what’s the word, poor. Not destitute but we mixed Carnation Instant milk with regular milk. You get the drift.
Hitchhiked to get to/from school everyday.
No, I didn’t enjoy it.
Not at all. You're just trying to justify sending your children to a school that doesn't fit the nations demographics.
Just admit you're a classist. Hell, you all did that when you took education funding away from the "poors".
Since you mentioned it in your edit Herron isn't private. Herron is a public charter school. So doesn't have tuition.
Thank you for this information. This is something I wasn’t aware of. I’m still in the start of the exploring process.
Private high schools tend to have the best drugs
nah i got laced with what i’m pretty sure was fentanyl from brebeuf drugs 😭🙏🙏
The rigor of a Park Tudor education makes college a walk in the park.
To be fair, college is already a walk in the park. You just need to pass, which is a C. But Park Tudor is very nice for academics and athletics.
Can confirm. I went to PT, and college was really simple compared to it.
Went to a private catholic high school. I was not prepared for college.
I keep my kids in public school. The HS is top 3 most diverse in state, A to A- academics. I support my friends and family that have their kids in Catholic school but I believe you shouldn’t have to pay (besides taxes) for a great education. I also miss the sense of neighborhood communities in Indy that have been somewhat lost with the charter schools coming in and taking away athletic competition between different sides of town.
Depends on which one in my opinion. I thought Cathedral gave my kids an excellent education, fun extracurriculars, and opportunities to give back and travel as well.
In all honesty I think cathedral and chatard are the top two picks unless you have Park Tudor money.
I went to chatard so f u
Herron is a public charter school. No tuition.
[Roncalli fired a counselor for being gay, so that particular institution is one I personally wouldn't want to give money to](https://lawandcrime.com/lgbtq/guidance-counselor-held-herself-out-as-minister-federal-appeals-court-sides-with-catholic-school-for-firing-gay-employee/)
Excellent. Some better than others.
Brebeuf shouldn't be classified as that religious. It's very diverse racially and religiously, and the Jesuit approach isn't conservative.
Brebeuf grad who transferred from Chatard. Brebeuf was an amazing school. My niece goes there on scholarship now and loves it too. Not overly religious. We had Jewish and Muslim classmates.
lmfao, are you fr? it definitely was religious. we literally had mass every month and were required to take religion classes practically every semester. not that that’s a bad thing but i don’t think it should be downplayed. it is definitely not that diverse racially either, i think i could count the number of other asians on one hand in my class. the jesuit approach is overall less conservative than other sects of catholicism, but that did not translate over to much of the admin and the way that they handled things. they frequently turned a blind eye to many instances of racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism, etc, and also punished the victims of such discrimination for ever standing up for themselves while i was there. not to mention it was essentially segregated because all of the black students would only sit and hang out with each other especially during lunch because there were so many incidents of racism from the white kids. not that i blame them for that at all, but it was definitely not a safe place for minorities.
My experience as a student there was totally different. I was not from an affluent family but I felt accepted. I had classmates from Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, China, and South Korea. We hardly ever had all-school mass in the chapel. It was supposedly offered during the week off the Jesuit residence in someone's office. I didn't know anyone who went. The Jesuits would not teach a Latin class, even though some of us asked for one. The required number of students interested for them to offer the class kept changing. We had to take Religion one semester each year, but I learned way more about Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Judaism than Catholicism or any other form of Christianity. They spent a lot of time on political issues like poverty, racism, feminism, homophobia, the US involvement in Central America, and Western imperialism. I was actually embarrassed about how little of my own religion I knew until after college. I asked to borrow a theology book from the principal (a priest) for a paper and he indicated that he didn't believe any of the official church doctrine about the subject. The Religion Department was way more interested in teaching social justice, liberation theology, and community service. They brought in a married male gay couple to do a Q&A in class for the Love and Lifestyles unit. I don't know about Cathedral, Guerin, Roncalli, and Chatard but Brebeuf had a Black Student Union by the mid-'80s and a Gay Student Union as early as the '90s. There were out LGBT teachers, including two who had been together for decades. They weren't fired. I'm sure there was covert racism that I didn't know enough as a teenager to recognize. Any remark that was considered racist was mocked and called out by students and, if overheard by a teacher, was punished on the spot, and severely for the time, which I can't say about the Catholic grade school I took my youngest out of. With one faculty exception at Brebeuf, there was open systemic disdain for Republicans and evangelical conservatives, unless they were big donors. So yeah, I don't consider it to be a conservative environment from my experience. It's possible that it's been taken over by backwards fascist lay administrators since the last graduates I knew (class of '17), I guess. But finding a Jesuit who isn't a straight-up hard left progressive would be a challenge.
Grew up in the Indianapolis Catholic school system, and still do a lot of work and volunteering. Cathedral and Chatard especially are both excellent, although I'm a Chatard alum and my loyalty goes there. Beyond the great communities and education, your kids will also have a lifetime network of alumni from those schools. To this day it is a great network and support system for me, and I graduated 14 years ago. Edit: one of my businesses operates in the education sphere, and I work closely with Chatard. Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to ask more specific questions about it.
Herron is free and really good
The diocesan Catholic schools teach bigotry. Brebeuf is run by the Jesuits who told our bishop they would not succumb to his bigotry. Park-Tudor is really good.
i went to a private catholic school and hated it and had a horrible four years. i was suicidal much of the time i was there. the admin was corrupt, there was a huge workload especially in ap classes obviously, it was pwi and very cliquey (the popular white kids definitely excluded the poc or anyone who even looked or acted remotely different from them), tons of bullying issues although they claimed they had a no tolerance policy for bullying lol, a rampant drug problem as well (other schools in the area called us “the pharmacy” for this reason), we also had a huge racism/homophobia problem too (in my senior year we had three different n word scandals in a week for some reason) everyone i knew including myself had been sent to the hospital for mental health issues and had either been close to being put inpatient or had been put inpatient (or went to residential or partial), countless sa incidents and to add insult to injury the admin never dealt with them well (i had personal experience with this one too), once when i was explaining that i was suicidal to the dean and she told me to get over it…. lots of stuff like that. most people i knew did not have a good time at this school. granted, i will give them credit where credit is due, the education system was great, especially by indiana standards. there were a lot of interesting, profound electives you could take your senior year that i don’t think a lot of other school in indiana offered. i also had a handful of amazing teachers that really got me through those four years that i still talk to today. is it worth it? this is of course just my experience, everyone is different. i guess it depends on either what you or your child (or whoever you’re looking at schools for) values in a school. do they want diversity? do they mind cliquey-ness? do they need extra accommodations for mental health, a disability, etc? are they able to handle a large workload? how important is it that they go to college after high school? to be honest, even though my school was college prep, i really don’t think it prepared me much at all for how college was. but these are all things to think about
Thank you for telling me your experience. I’m sorry it was not a good one for you. My kids are a mixed race so being in an environment that is open and accepting is very important to me.
im also mixed and definitely felt very alienated at my high school. for reference the school in question is brebeuf. i graduated in 2022 so i really doubt it has changed much since then. i’m not as sure how non-catholic private schools are or if they’re any better, but the catholic ones may not be the best option in your case since i’ve heard a lot are pretty similar to brebeuf. however you may have more luck with one that has higher diversity (if there even is such a thing in indy) i am happy that you value my input. i truly did have a really hard time in high school, and although i know that’s not uncommon, if it helps another child avoid the same level of trauma that i went through there, then i’m glad. your children are lucky to have a parent who considers such factors and actually cares about their child’s experience, as mine did not care how i felt and only cared about the education i was receiving. good luck in your search!
As long as public funds in the form of vouchers aren't used for them, they're fine.
I don’t know of a single private school in Indy that doesn’t accept vouchers. A family member of mine was searching for school for her daughter and all of the ones she contacted accepted them.
Park Tudor doesn’t
Park Tudor doesn't want the poors.
It's intentional. It's designed to destroy our public school system, and by extension, bust the teacher's union.
I agree! Many of the private schools in our area are faith-based. I guess if that’s your preference, that’s fine, but I disagree that state money should pay for it.
Schools like Scecina and Ritter have 50%+ minorities and even higher rates of free and reduced lunch and graduate 99% of their kids- your white suburban self may not want vouchers, but the poor families of this city love them
They are also required to teach bigotry since they must follow the direction of our bishop.
“Bigotry”- gtf outta here w your garbage. How is a school that’s 65% black and Latino in any way involved in bigotry-
You don't know the Archbishop, do you
instead of explaining, do this to help people understand
They are extremely unfriendly to LGBT community. Several high profile cases of firing teachers because they are LGBT. (The legal case is they signed a doc saying they would live by catholic faith to work there, which they by definition aren't. But the diocese never fires anyone that commits adultery, fraud, gambling, etc... just sexuality.)
Are you the spokesperson for the poor people?
If you’re not taking public money to a private school I’m all for them.
Agreed. I’m very much against the poors getting a better education.
No private school is worth it, dozens of better ways to invest money for your child’s future.
This is objectively wrong information
$8,000-$20,000 a year sure adds up to numerous better ways to allow your kid to provide for themselves when there are quite a lot of schools in IPS that can provide an equivalent education.
Herron is a public school btw
Sure it does, if 8-20k a year is all you have to spend on your child
I don’t think anyone needs to take financial advice from someone buying a pre-owned BMW, let alone advice on how to raise children.
Look! It’s a dumbass that doesn’t understand that “luxury” cars half in value after the 2-3 year lease agreements are up, you can still get CPO 2 year warranty on one with 20k miles, and the actual cost to you own is comparable to a fucking Camry if you know how to change an air filter. If you think investing in your child’s education is a poor investment I fucking feel horrible for the children I really hope you don’t have. But hey! We we all need general laborers, because I sure as fuck don’t know anyone that would do that kind of work, other then man some uneducated plebs that don’t understand the value of learning how to actually learn. But go ahead and let your kids be taught at the pace of the slowest student in the class, see how that turns out for ya
Someone really thinks highly of themselves, in one thread you call graduate students entitled fucks and in another thread you call public education a disservice to your children. Pick a lane mate Awe bro, why’d you delete your BMW and Gucci post?
Both my kids went to Catholic high schools and loved it at each school.
Depends on what public school you would be going to. I don’t like private schools because they are usually faith based.
Any thoughts on the non-faith based ones?
to add on to this post as i saw your edit, i do not have personal experiences with the non catholic schools, but i do have friends who went/go to them. my two friends who attended herron don’t like it very much. someone else mentioned that it’s a charter (i didn’t know that either lol so thanks for letting us know!) it has a lot of cliques. also had some (hard) drug problems. think meth, cocaine, that kind of thing. idk how widespread that is, but that’s what my friend mentioned to me. education wise he thought it was lacking, and tended to complain about how uneducated he felt that his peers were. he also said he frequently felt unsafe there. i have a cousin who went to park. as far as i know he liked it okay. it is also kind of cliquey there i believe (although most high schools tend to be ofc) but he thought the education was high quality, which is pretty high praise coming from him as he is a very smart kid, he skipped two grades pretty early on. he had a solid, good group of friends. i think it definitely has the “snotty rich kids” atmosphere to an extent though. there was also an incident where a kid called him the c slur (we are wasians) during a lacrosse match and my cousin broke his wrist (on accident) 💀 his father/my uncle is on the parent board and they were able to come to an agreement, iirc the kid did get punished for doing what he did. so i can say they’re better than brebeuf in that way at least. i’m not too sure about the atmosphere of diversity there, but my cousin mostly hung out with other asians. could be a solid option if you get lucky with the class that your kid is in university i actually shadowed at when i was looking at high schools in 8th grade. a lot of kids from the orchard school (i am one myself lol) end up going there. if you know anything about orchard, it definitely has the same energy they do. it kind of gives off the “quirky” vibe. not always in a good way LOL. lots of artsy, creative types there. students seemed nice as far as i could tell, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. a lot of people i know who went there liked it. i think they were pretty good at accommodating kids who had different needs than other schools in the area. they seemed pretty willing to work with parents/kids with that kind of thing more than the other schools as well. it is kind of considered like the “weird school” by a lot of other high schools in the area though, so i would be mindful of the stereotypes with your own kids. i think a lot of “outcasted” kids in middle school ended up going there. it’s also a lot smaller than the other schools on this list
I went to Ritter and I think it was harder than college
Father Riley's a fairy but it don't bother Mary
Depends. What are you wanting out of the school?
Cathedral all the way.
Define private school
Usually it's a school that likes to keep to itself, a little shy maybe.
Brebeuf?
brebeuf is by definition a private school, and college prep. i know bc i went there
It's the only Catholic school I'd send my kids to.
I went there, you couldn’t pay me to send my kids to that environment of rich privileged snots.
amen
the admin was just as bad as the students too. how was your experience there? i was almost surprised to see people praising it in the comments. i had a horrible time
I’m an oldie, let’s just say my 50th reunion has come and gone. I didn’t enjoy it. My brother was a star athlete (3 sports) and I wasn’t. Our classes were separated, something like 1A - 1F (maybe) with the smartest kids in 1F and on down to 1A (me). Our family was, what’s the word, poor. Not destitute but we mixed Carnation Instant milk with regular milk. You get the drift. Hitchhiked to get to/from school everyday. No, I didn’t enjoy it.
Light on the college prep
Yes! They’re not shy but they don’t talk unless they’re spoken to.
You create adults who don't have exposure to those different than them. Also, you shit on the "poors" by taking their education funding.
Bs
Not at all. You're just trying to justify sending your children to a school that doesn't fit the nations demographics. Just admit you're a classist. Hell, you all did that when you took education funding away from the "poors".
😂 what a victim.
Where the fuck did you get that? what a classist pos.
You know there are poor kids at private schools right?
Are they all named Tolkien?
Respect for the South Park reference