WOODLANDS ACADEMY
http://www.woodlandsacademy.org/
WoodlandsAcademy’s origins date back to 1800, when St. Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart in France.
Inspired by the belief that educating the whole child was fundamental to social reform, St. Madeleine Sophie dedicated her Society to girls’ education. She and her fellow Religious of the Sacred Heart (Religieuse du Sacré Coeur de Jésus, or RSCJs) established girls’ schools in France with the goal of forming Christian women who lives and leadership would serve the common good.
Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne and four other French RSCJs brought the Society of the Sacred Heart to American shores in 1818. They founded the Society’s first American school on the Missouri prairie.
Other Sacred Heart schools were established in America, including the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Chicago, founded in 1858 by Reverend Mother Margaret Galwey. The Convent quickly outgrew its home on Wabash Avenue, moving first to the corner of Rush Street and Illinois Avenue, and in 1860, to Taylor Street under the new name, “Academy of the Sacred Heart.”
In 1904, Chicago’s RSCJs moved the Academy to Lake Forest. The “Convent of the Sacred Heart” (as the school was once again named) occupied a beautiful new building on 44 acres of wooded property, and served both elementary and secondary students, all of whom were boarders. The secondary school’s advanced educational efforts led to the founding of Barat College of the Sacred Heart in 1918. Both Convent and Barat students attended classes in the large “Old Main” building.
In 1961, a new structure for the elementary and secondary school was built on a 12-acre portion of the Barat campus under the name we know today, “Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart.” Over the years, Woodlands evolved into a college preparatory day and boarding school for young women. In 1998, an addition was built to house conference areas, a clerestory gallery, and offices.
WoodlandsAcademy of the Sacred Heart is a member of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools, an association of 21 Sacred Heart schools across the United States. The Network schools, together with Sacred Heart Schools in 44 countries around the world, continue to renew St. Madeleine Sophie Barat’s founding mission: the cultivation of each student’s spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical potential, with the goal of forming women and men who lead and serve their communities with wisdom, integrity and compassion.