Rockville Centre's St. Agnes Cathedral School holds Open House

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St. Agnes Cathedral School held an Open House on Jan. 28, to allow parents and other members of the community to tour the classrooms and facilities and see what the local cornerstone has to offer.

The tours followed a mass that kicked off Catholic Schools Week, an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States sponsored by the National Catholic Educational Association, which runs through Feb. 3.

The school is in the midst of a yearlong celebration of its 100th anniversary. Monsignor Peter Quealy built the school in 1917, on the site of what is now St. Agnes Cathedral’s rectory. It had 10 classrooms in its early years, but the demand for Catholic elementary school education grew in Rockville Centre by the 1950s, and in 1957 — the year the Diocese of Rockville Centre was established — the school purchased the Clinton Avenue School, behind the cathedral, from the Rockville Centre Public School District.

Wings were built on each side of the structure, which are now known as Carlin Hall and Newman Hall, named for its two longtime co-principals who recently retired. At its height, the school, which began with 60 children, had about 1,600 students in 32 classrooms.