Each 10-hour school day begins with breakfast at 7:30 AM. There are seven class periods of 55 minutes, punctuated by morning snack and a lunch period. Academic instruction ends at 3 PM, followed by a 60-minute Activity Period and a 60-minute Homework Club four days per week. During the Activity Period, SHNS offers students seasonal team sports (volleyball, soccer, basketball, and track) and clubs and activities that prepare them for co-curricular programs offered in high school.

Through an academically challenging and highly structured environment, SHNS helps students become bilingual, bi-literate, and computer literate as they engage in a pre-college prep academic program. SHNS anticipates that most graduates will be accepted into private or public college-prep high schools.

SHNS admits students from a range of academic ability levels. A majority of students come from the Sacred Heart Church community and surrounding Washington/Gardener neighborhood. Families are asked to pay $45 per month in tuition, so SHNS is largely tuition-free. No student will be denied admission because of inability to pay.

SHNS is a Catholic school, and religious instruction—as outlined by the Diocese of San José Department of Education and within the Jesuit tradition —is offered. The school day begins and ends with prayer, and students attend regularly scheduled Masses.

Critical to student success, SHNS offers parent education classes that deconstruct the American educational system, outline how they can best support students at home, clarify what to expect in college prep high school programs, and identify ways for parents to get involved with their child’s education. We have an active parent group with monthly meetings and parent volunteer opportunities.

SHNS students attend monthly Saturday School, which offers off-campus trips to universities, student leadership conferences, and trips to local Catholic high schools. Students also receive additional academic instruction on campus or opportunities for community service, a hallmark of Jesuit education.

To help prevent academic regression and to show that learning continues after the school year ends, students attend a six-week summer school at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San José. Students take one English Language Arts class and one Mathematics class.  SHNS also offers summer camp, which provides outdoor education with community building.

Consistent with the Nativity model, SHNS’s relationship with students continues after 8th-grade graduation. In this, the SHNS model is unique. Once admitted to high school, SHNS provides students with tutoring, peer support, and academic guidance – greatly increasing chances for high school success and college admission, while identifying and resolving problems that could cause a student to drop out of high school.

View Sacred Heart Nativity Schools’ Code of Conduct policy.