The St. Jerome Institute, a classical education high school founded by Catholic parents in Northeast Washington, has announced plans to open a second campus in Northern Virginia.
Daniel Gibbons, president and board chair of the school’s nonprofit corporation, informed families in a recent email that St. Jerome Institute Northern Virginia will launch in fall 2026 with 9th- and 10th-grade classes in the school building at St. Philip’s parish in Falls Church.
His email cited requests from Northern Virginia parents over the past year and “international attention” from media outlets in the school’s “distinctive Catholic liberal arts curriculum, seminar style classes, and faculty community.”
“Visitors to SJI in Washington, D.C., see that there is something special going on in our classrooms and in the whole life of the school,” Mr. Gibbons, a Catholic University of America English professor who has sent two sons to the high school, said Monday. “We have found new ways of doing traditional Catholic education designed to meet the challenges of our time.”
Mr. Gibbons and other families struggling with a lack of traditional education options in the Archdiocese of Washington founded the high school in 2019. Enrollment has grown steadily from three students in its first year to 65 this year, including 10 who graduated this month.
The archdiocese, which oversees the District and suburban Maryland, is now vetting the institute for approval as one of a handful of “independent” Catholic schools run by non-clergy.
St. Jerome, which occupies a wing of Perry Street Prep Charter School, previously announced plans to relocate its main campus to St. Hugh of Grenoble parish in Greenbelt. The school is awaiting final approval from Prince George’s County.
The curriculum revolves around students reading and debating primary sources in the Western intellectual tradition – including Plato, Dante, William Shakespeare and Thomas Aquinas.
Final approval of the institute’s second campus is pending from the Diocese of Arlington, which oversees Northern Virginia and must also vet the institute separately as an independent Catholic school.
“The school has been and remains in communication with Saint Philip’s pastor and the Diocese about the possibility of Saint Philip being the location for SJI NOVA and both sides continue to work through the details of the potential arrangement,” said Mary Shaffrey, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Arlington.
