South KC private schools share improvements for 2024-2025 school year

By Collyn Robinson

The Barstow School 

The Barstow School has a plethora of exciting things in store for their upcoming school year. Classes began on August 15.

Knights Drive — After undertaking a massive capital campaign, a second driveway was added on campus; Knights Drive, south of their main drive on State Line Road, was built to be their new arrival and dismissal point for their middle school. This road was created in response to their student growth over the past few decades and a need to ameliorate the “pinch” points in traffic at arrival and dismissal times. Knights Drive extends around the baseball field to the middle school entrance and new parking lot. 

Foster Athletic Center — Named after the president of The Barstow School, Shane Foster, who announced he will be retiring at the end of the 2024-2025 school year, a new athletic building will be opening at the end of the month.

This 12,000 square foot two-story center, located on the south side of their campus, will include team locker rooms, a concession stand, a dance studio, a meeting room, a press box, an event space and viewing deck that overlooks their soccer field. The upstairs area of the building will also be equipped with three state-of-the–art golf bay simulators, where students (and eventually members of the community) can practice their putting on a computerized putting surface. This development will bolster their school’s athletic program. 

Preschool Prep — There will be a whole new grade-level at Barstow this year. For toddlers who turn three between September 1st and December 15, they can attend The Barstow School, bridging the gap home and their first years of school. Ten students will be a part of the program this year. 

Pathways Program — The school is starting the Pathways program this year, which involves a career readiness curriculum for Upper School students. Starting from ninth grade, students can enroll in one of the various pathways, which include an engineering pathway, a digital arts pathway and a theater arts pathway. 

140 year anniversary — Barstow was founded in 1884, and for the first semester of this school year they will be wrapping up their 140 year anniversary celebration with several events with the student body and a Gala in October. 

“It’s really cool to see the growth, the innovation and the new facilities and everything  that’s sprouting around,” said Lisa Tulp, who has worked at Barstow for nine years. “I would say this is the most change and improvement and growth, all coming at once, that I’ve ever seen at the beginning of the school year.” 

IDEA Space KC — After its opening two years ago, it has doubled the number of youth involved. Summer program enrollment was up 118% from last year’s number, according to Barstow.

Rockhurst High School

Classes started on August 19th for the Hawklets.

Expanded Financial Aid Offering — Beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, Rockhurst announced that they intend to meet 100% of the exhibited financial needs of qualifying families. In this effort “to help make Rockhurst High School more affordable for all,” the school will be increasing financial assistance to $3.1 million. 

New class offerings — The school added new dual enrollment courses including College Physics for the Life Sciences and Honors Statics Engineering. New Advanced Placement (AP) courses have also been added to their selection of classes, which include AP Human Geography and AP English Literature.

St. Regis Academy 

In a continued effort to meet all the needs of their students, St. Regis has added a couple of new improvements to their school for the 2024-2025 academic year. 

Sensory Room — Near one of their resource rooms, St. Regis added a new sensory room for students to regulate their emotions and “get back into a space where they can enter the classroom,” said Darby O’Neill, the Development and Marketing Coordinator at St. Regis. The school received a small grant from the FIRE Foundation to update the space. Construction should be complete before the start of classes, which begin on August 21st. 

Care Closet — Outside of the main office, the school has built what they call a “care closet,” which is stocked with extra uniforms, toiletries and personal care items that students and families are able to access as needed. “We find it really important for our kids’ emotional well being and physical well being,” O’Neill added. 

St. Thomas Moore School

Following a survey sent out to the STM community in March of 2024, to gather information on the school’s strengths and areas for improvement, the school staff in concert with a strategic planning task force spent the summer “meeting with architects, technology experts and updating [their] safety protocols,” said Jill Brennan, Marketing Director of the St. Thomas Moore School, in preparation for their upcoming school year starting on August 20th. 

New Strategic Plan — Their updated strategic plan now focuses on five pillars of improvement: Parish/School Relationship, Staff Support & Retention, Technology, Professional Development and Math & Language Arts Curriculum, to better serve their students and community.

Infrastructure Improvements — Replacement of the school’s roof began at the beginning of this month due to hail damage. The addition of new carpet is also in progress at the school, where $190,549 of their $210,000 goal has been achieved. Various hallways, classrooms and separate rooms have been repainted. New phone systems have been installed in all rooms. 

The Lutheran High School of Kansas City

A big construction project is underway on the Lutheran High School campus this year ahead of their August 21 start date. 

New Building Addition — A 2400 square foot addition is being added to the north part of their building, which will house some additional high school offices, a new entrance, security upgrades and create an enhanced look of the school itself. “This creates a new, secure entrance to the high school, which, in today’s day and age, is absolutely essential,” Adam Kirsch, the Executive Director of Lutheran High School, said. Since the school was built in the 1960s, this new construction will replace some of the original infrastructure. The giant glass wall at the school will be replaced with a “more efficient structure,” according to Kirsch. 

Girls Golf Team — a new sports team, Girls Golf, is also coming to Lutheran High School and will be competing against teams across the Kansas City area this year.

Avila University

Avila University is enjoying record enrollment, and with it a need to expand residence halls. 

Avila entered into a lease agreement for Villa Ventura, 12100 Wornall, which allows Avila to provide housing for an additional 355 students this fall. Work has been done this summer to prepare the building for students and Avila has been working with the city to finalize plans to move students into the building later this month. The Villa Ventura site could accommodate up to 400 additional students at a later point.

Ridgway Hall on campus also received a renovation with increased space to house 43 more students, thanks to a $1 million grant from the Mabee Foundation. 

Students can now earn an undergraduate degree in just three years through Avila’s new SwiftPace program. The pilot program offers the same coursework found in traditional four-year plans in an accelerated format to ensure continuous progress. Avila offers three-year degrees in Elementary Education, Kinesiology and Communications, and hopes to expand to other courses of study.

The 2024-2025 year brings multiple new sports. Avila added new varsity teams for men’s and women’s tennis and three new junior varsity teams for basketball, softball and baseball, which allows more students to participate in athletics.

In August, Avila and North Kansas City Hospital/Meritas Health (NKCH/MH) announced a partnership to expand access to nursing education in an effort to address the regional nursing shortage. Beginning in Spring 2025, the hospital will provide hands-on clinical training for Avila nursing students.