St. Marguerite soon to add eighth-grade class

Courtesy photo/Saint Marguerite Catholic School

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Students at St. Marguerite Catholic School participate in Fire Safety Week.

TOOELE — Saint Marguerite School has grown from a long-time pre-school and kindergarten to a school that will add an eighth grade next year.

"There was a pre-school and kindergarten here for about 25 years," said Marcella Burden, principal. "We started establishing the elementary school four years ago and when we opened registration we filled both the first and second grades. We started with 35 students and added grades each year according to demand. The school is pre-kindergarten for 3-year-olds to seventh grade and we now have 150 students."

Because of the growth in the parish, St. Marguerite needed a new facility for religious education. Last year a capital campaign began and this project officially broke ground last week. During the first phase of the capital campaign, the new facility will accommodate 3-year-olds through third grade; fourth through eighth grade will remain in the basement of St. Marguerite Church, Burden said. "It will be about five years before we begin Phase II," she added.

The parish has been of great support to the school, said Burden. "The school in turn helps the parish by providing altar servers and the children’s choir for funerals," she said. "The children’s choir began with 13 children and now has 50 members in second through seventh grade. The students also sing at the first Friday Masses and sponsored the family Mass on Christmas Eve by providing lectors and altar servers."

Monsignor Matthew Wixted and Father Hernando Diaz, previous pastors of the parish, offered tremendous support for the school, said Burden. "Father Sam Dinsdale (the current pastor), has been awesome," she said. "He’s young, so the kids really relate to him. He helps teach and holds a weekly Mass and confession for the classes on a rotating basis. The school attends Mass once a month."

There are 15 to 20 students per classroom. This year a math/science teacher was hired to teach kindergarten through seventh grade students. They will participate in the diocesan science fair for the first time this year.

Burden teaches French to fourth through seventh grade; advanced French students from Tooele High School assist with kindergarten through third grade. "We tie French into the heritage of the school because St. Marguerite was French and there were some French miners among those who came to the area during the development of this parish," said Burden.

St. Marguerite received lockers from St. Francis Xavier Regional School, which remodeled its school last year. "Every year brings something new; it been exciting," said Burden. "All of the Catholic schools have been generous in donating excess resources to us and the local school board has been supportive."

Janet Barberio, director of the pre-school and kindergarten for 25 years, kept the school alive, said Holy Cross Sister Catherine Kamphaus, superintendent of Utah Catholic Schools. "Janet continues to teach in the St. Marguerite pre-school. She asked for several years if she could start a first grade and I said ‘No.’ I felt there were too few Catholics in the area. We finally agreed to add a first grade, and then several years later added more grades. We agreed because Marcella Burden had been the director of religious education at St. Marguerite Parish and she had an education background.

"St. Marguerite Parish was holding religious education classes three times a week to accommodate all the students and some families had children in class during each of the three days," she added.

The new education center will allow the school to grow and provide for all the needs of religious formation, said Fr. Dinsdale. "Parishioners have been waiting a long time for this addition and with the digging beginning, it has really boosted people’s spirits to see it coming about, he said.