[simage=6,400,y,right,]In 1942, STA’s freshmen class consisted of 24 students; this year’s freshmen class is up to 149 girls, the largest class in recent years.
‘There has been more qualified students applying than we have had in the past years, so that makes it harder to turn down students,’Â Roseann Hudnall, director of admissions at STA said.
STA has reached what principal for academic affairs Barbara McCormick calls maximum capacity without hiring additional staff. The school currently has 556 students enrolled, which is 25 more girls than last year.
‘There has been a city-wide increase from every grade school and I think St. Teresa’s is just in a more blessed place than others,’Â Hudnall said.
According to Ms. Diane Wilmot, who works with marketing and public relations at STA, a lot of hard work goes into advertising STA to hundreds of girls around the city. Within the last three years, the marketing crew at STA has launched three news pieces, which are sent to area girls in grades fourth through eighth.
‘We send things like posters and calendars to introduce St. Teresa’s to the girls, things that are more visual to get them to remember the school,’Â Wilmot said.
To accommodate the larger class sizes, STA has considered hiring additional faculty and staff.
“Whatever staffing we add will all depend on what we need,” McCormick said. ‘The math requirements have increased to four credits instead of three so maybe we should be looking for some staffing in that field. We also are thinking about adding an additional foreign language.”
With the completion of the chapel, four additional classrooms will be added. According to McCormick, the classrooms are more about adding new programs and courses to the school, not additional students.
‘The classrooms are all going to be high-tech rooms with interactive video conference to allow student to video conference internationally,” McCormick said. “Whether it’s our sister school in Japan or NASA for something science related.’Â
According to McCormick, the administration is content with the number of students the school has and STA will continue to accept as many students as they feel comfortable with.
‘We are happy with the number [of students] in these economic times,” McCormick said. “That was a big concern for us with the economy, and we are pleased with enrollment with that current situation.”
