By Bob Henderson
Staff Writer
MIDDLEBURG – For years parishioners in the three Catholic parishes of northern Clay County petitioned Bishop John J. Snyder for a parochial school. With no Catholic school anywhere in Clay County, parents had to send their children either to Jacksonville or to public school. Getting a Catholic school would be a problem, however; there was no parish in the area with enough families to support a new school.
Then, in the early ’90s, the bishop agreed to an interparochial school to serve the three parishes of St. Catherine’s, Orange Park; Sacred Heart, Green Cove Springs, and St. Luke’s, Middleburg. The search was on for a school site and a principal.
The site chosen was a large vacant tract adjacent to St. Luke’s.
Superintendent Pat Tierney of the Diocese of St. Augustine School System contacted Susan Altieri who was, at that time, teaching junior high grades at San Jose School in Jacksonville.
Altieri demurred, "I’m a teacher," she protested, "I like what I do; I’m not an administrator."
When the new Annunciation School opened in 1993, however, she found herself as its first principal.
Annunciation opened with 51 students in kindergarten and grades one and two. The school added another grade each year through eighth grade. Then it started doubling until now it has more than 420 students in two of each grade.
The first classes were taught in portable classrooms but it was not long before the young school began to grow. Today, the still-growing school has an administration building, a media center with library, a computer lab and kitchen, three classroom buildings with 20 permanent classrooms and new arts and science wing that houses an art studio, music studio, science laboratory and meeting room. Fund raising is already underway for a gymnasium.
Sue is, herself, a product of Catholic schools. She went to Assumption School and graduated from Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville. She is thoroughly committed to Catholic education; her children graduated from Catholic schools and now her grandchildren are following along.
From high school, Sue went on to graduate from Florida State University. She says her husband is a Gator but laughingly says, "I don’t hold it against him."
With her degree in hand, Sue headed for the Gulf Coast and a teaching position at a public junior high in Tampa. Later she returned to Jacksonville where she taught at another public junior high before joining the staff at San Jose.
It takes only a brief visit with Altieri to realize she loves what she does – and she loves "her" kids even more. Her affection is not a one-way street; walk with her around the campus and watch eyes sparkle and smiles light up faces as she comes on the scene. A little hand pops out of a line here; a little voice chirps, "Hi, Ms. Altieri," there. She seems always to have a ready smile and a word of her own to greet them.
Altieri is proud of graduates’ accomplishments, too. A large percentage of them go on to Catholic high schools, particularly Bishop Snyder in Jacksonville, and then on to college.
One of her favorite anecdotes is this: a girl in the first grade of the school’s very first year always said she wanted to teach. She graduated from Annunciation and then high school and went on to college. She is now on the teaching staff at Annunciation School. Altieri says it is one of the greatest satisfactions a teacher can receive.
bhenderson@jcpgroup.com