Holy Cross High School (Connecticut)

Holy Cross High School is a Catholic secondary school founded in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1968 by the Congregation of Holy Cross. It is the largest Catholic secondary school in Connecticut, situated on thirty-seven acres in the West End of Waterbury, Connecticut, accessible via Route 8 and I-84. It is not part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford.Holy Cross has a total enrollment of 500 students and an average class size of 125. Originally an all-boys institution, it became co-educational in 1975 when it merged with the Waterbury Catholic High School, an all-girls school. The Holy Cross High School campus maintains a campus-wide wi-fi signal; a computer-equipped, Internet-connected library; a large instrumental and choral music room with adjacent practice rooms; science labs; a multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art foreign language lab; a guidance complex; a 750-seat tiered auditorium; a full-service cafeteria; a gymnasium; the Stephen J. Ross Fitness Center; and state-of-the-art digital classrooms and art studios in the recently constructed two-million-dollar Alex Family Gallery Art and Technology Center.The school's founding faculty (1968) included among others, Brother John McGovern, first band director of the school, who became Academic Vice Principal in 1972 prior to his leaving for New York to lead Holy Cross High School, Flushing. In 1989 McGovern returned to the CT area to become Superintendent of Schools of the Archdiocese of Hartford.AdmissionAdmission to the school is competitive, requiring a 3.5 hour placement test, a transcript from the applicant's grammar school, a letter of recommendation, and an essay.