House System

The JPII House System allows us to create smaller groups within our school community. The House System promotes positive peer pressure, as well as increased school spirit and healthy competition. When students begin at JPII, they are randomly assigned to one of our four houses: Kolbe, Lisieux, Savio and Sebastian. Since the House System is a family system, siblings are placed in the same House together.

JPII instituted the House system in 2015 to help students acclimate quickly to their new school and feel an immediate sense of belonging. During House meetings each week, students have an opportunity to interact regularly with students from all grade levels, creating mentoring opportunities. Recent studies show that House systems have happier students and build more school spirit than they did before a House system was implemented.

Houses compete for points in several ways: attending designated athletic and fine arts events, making honor roll, and taking part in house tournaments and other house competitions throughout the school year. Points are tallied up to award the “House Cup” each year, a source of school and House pride!

One of goals of the House system is to instill leadership skills in our students. We need and rely on good student leaders at JPII, and we hope that students carry these learned qualities throughout their lives. The faculty leadership for each of our Houses consists of a House Dean and House Mentors. The student leadership for each of our Houses consists House captains and grade level representatives. The leadership team in each House also play a vital role in Student Leadership Council, students are given a lot of responsibility and do an excellent job in their roles.

Lisieux

Lisieux House is named after St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries, florists, and tuberculosis patients. As a young girl, she was determined to devote all her life to God. She joined the Carmelites at the age of 15. Living a hidden, simple life of prayer, she was gifted with great intimacy with God. After a long struggle with tuberculosis, she died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Her last words were the story of her life: "My God, I love You!" In her autobiography, Story of a Soul, she described her life as a "little way of spiritual childhood." She loved flowers and saw herself as the "little flower of Jesus," who gave glory to God by just being her beautiful little self among all the other flowers in God's garden. Thérèse’s spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love. Inspired by St. Thérèse, Lisieux House’s motto is “To Live in Love.” Through daily service and sponsoring projects like Mercy Mission can drive and quarterly blood drive, Lisieux House expresses faith and charity by small actions. Mentors in Lisieux House encourage their students to show kindness and leadership through small deeds and be the “little flowers” in God’s garden just like St. Thérèse.

Savio

Savio House is named after Saint Dominic Savio, the patron saint of choir boys and the falsely accused. Dominic Savio was born in Italy in 1842. When he was seven years old, he chose a motto: “Death, but not sin.” He stayed true to this in every aspect of his life. At age twelve, he entered a school run by St. John Bosco. He said to Bosco: "You are a good tailor, so if the material is good, take me and make a new suit out of me for Our Lord!" St. Savio remained pious and holy throughout his life, but when he was just fifteen, he became sick. Right before he died, he whispered goodbye and then exclaimed with a smile on his face, “I am seeing such wonderful things!” Savio House strives to also be steadfast in our beliefs and commitment to a life of prayer and good deeds. Savio House participates in service projects to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a charity that provides advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. House mentors believe that Savio House success can be attributed to our Savio family’s faith and service within our community, school leadership, athletics, and academics.

Sebastian

Saint Sebastian, Sebastian House’s patron, was thought to have been born in southern France and educated in Milan, Italy. He was a prominent soldier in the Roman Praetorian Guard protecting Emperor Diocletian in 283 A.D. purportedly to help other Christians being persecuted. While he was in the army, a pair of Christian Deacon brothers, Marcus and Marcellian, were jailed for refusing to offer sacrifices for the Roman Gods. Their parents tried to convince them to renounce their faith so they could be released. Saint Sebastian ended up converting their parents to Christianity as well as successfully converting several people to Christianity, ultimately leading him to being outed as a Christian and being condemned to death. His initial sentence – being tied to a stake on a training field and shot with arrows – didn’t kill him and he was nursed back to health. He then sought out Emperor Diocletian and publicly admonished him for his persecution of Christians which resulted in him being beaten to death and his body being thrown into the sewers where it was discovered by a Christian named Lucina and secretly buried in the Roman catacombs. St. Sebastian is the patron saint of athletes, soldiers, and those who desire a saintly death. Like its patron saint, Sebastian House prioritizes serving others and showing kindness to all of God’s creation. In addition to helping to organize activities for Catholic Schools Week, Sebastian House leads a service project for the Jasper Animal Rescue Mission. It involves collecting and then donating goods to the Mission, sponsoring a dress-down day to collect much needed funds, as well as sponsoring a ‘Blessing of the Animals’ for the Feast of Saint Francis of the Assisi. The well-being of animals is an issue that is very important to Sebastian House and with the addition of our therapy dog, Monty, to our JPII family, it’s even more important to us to support our four-legged friends.

Kolbe

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Saint Kolbe’s Feast Day is August 14 and he is the Patron Saint of drug addictions, families, imprisoned people, journalists, political prisoners, prisoners, the pro-life movement, and amateur radio.

Kolbe House is home to founding dean, Mrs. Woodham, who describes this group of Golden Warriors as “fierce supporters of all things JPII and one another. These are the kids that usually fill the fan section at our sporting events but also excel in the classroom. We’ve had three salutatorians and two valedictorians come out of Kolbe House as well as three SLC presidents.”

Winners of the first House Cup, and again in 2021, this House understands all components of our SHIELD values. Kolbe House motto is “To Sacrifice is to Love” and they live that out by hosting events that raise money to sponsor JPII students in their travels to March for Life, held in Washington, DC, every January.