Middle school students from the now-closed Visitation Academy were welcomed to their new academic home on Sept. 3, as Fontbonne Hall Academy cut the ribbon on its new middle school, The Visitation Program.
The all-girls Catholic high school, a ministry of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, adopted The Visitation Program after Visitation Academy closed its doors at the end of last school year, leaving parents and students wondering what the future held for their schooling.
For 85 years, Fontbonne, a member of the International Coalition of Girls Schools, has educated young girls grades 9 through 12. Faculty, nuns, students, and parents were thrilled to celebrate the new middle school, which will serve grades 6-8, and honor the legacy and values of Visitation Academy.
Fontbonne’s Principal, Rocco Gentile, said the event celebrated the merging of two institutions, which shared a long partnership and vision of empowering young women.
“This moment is a powerful testament to our shared values, our rich collective history, and our unwavering belief in the transformative power of education to shape not only minds but also hearts,” Gentile told the crowd.
Sister Maria Pascuzzi, liaison for the congregation to Fontbonne Hall Acadamy and The Visitation Program, then led through the blessing of the school with holy water by guest speakers Mother Susan Marie Kazprzak, mother superior of the Brooklyn Visitation Monastery, and Sister Tesa Fitzgerald, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
Fitzgerald called the sight of the young women dressed in their Fontbonne school uniforms “wonderful.”
“[Today] is an important milestone in the long stellar legacy of Catholic education for girls and young women, sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph and now in partnership with the Visitation sisters and Visitation Academy, [it is] a great day for us all,” she remarked.
Kazprzak referred to the opening of The Visitation Program middle school as a birth, and said the Holy Spirit was “very active” in creating the school.
“So let’s thank the Lord for that, and especially for the children, the students who are going through a transition, and we hope this transition is going to be something that will bring them joy,” Kazprzak said. “The model [the middle schoolers] will see in the older students could be something they can look forward to when they go to high school.”
Alexander and Danielle Anastasiades’ 17-year-old daughter Joan Anastasiades is a senior at Fontbonne. When they learned that the school added The Visitation Program, which keeps class sizes at 15 students per grade, they saw it as an opportunity to enroll their younger daughter, 12-year-old Chrystalla.
“We feel like Chrystalla would thrive in a smaller environment,” Danielle told Brooklyn Paper. “It’s such a family atmosphere here, and Joan’s been so happy that we said, ‘You know, why not give Chrystalla the opportunity to have what her big sister has.’”
Her daughter Joan agreed with her mom’s sentiment that Fontbonne provided a family atmosphere for its students.
“Everybody knows everybody. Everyone’s close with each other, even though, if you’re in different grades, you always have somebody to go to, even the teachers [we are] very close,” the high school senior explained.
Chrystalla had already planned to attend Fontbonne for high school but was excited that her dream had come true a few years earlier.
“When this opened up, I was very excited, and immediately I said, ‘Yes,’” Chrystalla said.
Isabella Henao is transferring to The Visitation Program from Queen of All Saints Academy. After touring the Fontbonne campus, Isabella told Brooklyn Paper she liked what she saw.
“I really like it here because, first of all, [the campus] is really beautiful. And it’s an all-girls school, so I’m going to be around girls my own age and also girls who are a little older than me,” Isabella said.
Her dad, Hugo Henao, praised the school environment’s family-like feel.
“I am happy to be invited into this family and accepted by this family,” Henao said.
Fontbonne prides itself on empowering female students, and in a one-on-one interview with Brooklyn Paper before the ceremony, Gentile said he was thrilled Fontbonne would serve middle school students on their educational journey. He pointed out that research has shown that female students thrived in an all-girls school setting.
“There is tons of research that shows that young ladies who go to single-sex education are more likely to go into fields that tend to be traditionally male-dominated,” Gentile told Brooklyn Paper. “There’s lower levels of anxiety, lower levels of stress, higher levels of success in every single metric [like] the percentage of students going to college, finishing college.”
Sister Maria Pascuzzi told Brooklyn Paper that initially, Fontbonne tried to take over Visitation Academy in conjunction with Fontbonne. When the plan didn’t materialize, Fontbonne extensively renovated and updated one of its buildings, turning multi-purpose rooms into brand-new classrooms featuring the latest technology with configurable student desks promoting collaboration or quiet study.
“We thought it was very important to keep as many children together and in the neighborhood as possible because it’s a neighborhood school,” Pascuzzi explained.
She was thrilled to welcome the students, providing opportunities they might not have at co-ed schools.
“The sky is the limit,” Pascuzzi said. “You know, anything a woman is capable of, that’s what we help them to accomplish here in this school.”