The Last Brigade

The boys at St. Catherine’s Military School are under the tutelage of an interesting mix of leaders.

Lay teachers conduct most of the regular classes, which run from kindergarten through eighth grade. Nuns run the dormitory, act as administrators and oversee religious life. Ex-military men teach the boys discipline, a spit-and-polish lifestyle to go with their Army-style uniforms and ranks.

The 110-year-old Anaheim campus holds the distinction of being the last military school west of the Rockies with elementary age students.

But many are mystified by the school’s mix of a military theme with Catholic values of peace.

“The question is a continual one,” said Sister Carolyn Marie Monahan, the school’s principal. “It’s not about war or aggression. What they try to teach here are values and virtues we really admire in the military.”

Courage, selflessness, concern for a buddy, willingness to work hard for principles. All are virtues the military encourages and that aren’t contrary to the gospels, Monahan said.

The Dominican sisters founded the school in 1888 as a learning institution for girls. It later became an orphanage, a coed school and then an all-boys campus.

With the last change, the nuns decided they needed some male influence for the boys. Several ex-military men agreed to work with them, and the all-boys military school was born in 1925.

“We complement one another nicely,” said Lawrence Zaborowski, a former Army lieutenant whom students must refer to as Major. He has worked at the school for a couple of decades. “We don’t have the sisters on one hand saying, ‘Peace and love’ and us saying, ‘We’ve got to go to war.’ We take what the sisters and the military have to offer and we get it into the boys.”

Secular School Curriculum

The military theme isn’t intended to encourage a career in the armed forces. At the 8.5-acre campus, the students don’t learn about war strategies, military history or weaponry. Class offerings seem much the same as at any secular school, and typically only 6% of the students pursue military careers, officials added.

Rather, campus officials said, the military theme, which starts in second grade, provides structure.

For example, good behavior is rewarded with pins, bars and other decorations for the boys’ uniforms. There are pins for doing homework and trying hard in band. Students receive a Liturgy Bar for generously giving their time to religious celebrations.

John Caulfield is a lanky eighth-grader who aspires to be a Navy SEAL, but he points out that he is one of the few in his class who wants to serve in the military.

Of the 177 students who attend the school, 119 are on campus only during the day. The 58 other students board, some of them as young as first grade.

At 6:35 a.m., boarders are roused with the blare of a bugle. The students slip out of their beds and into their tan uniforms. They must shine their shoes, comb their hair, tuck in shirts. Then they rush downstairs and get into formation, backs straight, where they are inspected by one of the school’s three ex-military men.

It’s part of teaching the children responsibility, Zaborowski said.

“They teach the boys there’s a time and a place for certain things,” he said. “If you can learn to discipline your mind and take care of yourself, you can take care of someone else. Taking care of yourself is the first part of being a leader.”

The students are divided into seven companies that come together for formations, meals and afternoon military drills.

When school officials talk about the student body, they speak in terms of military structure. There’s no student president, but rather a brigade commander.

Silverio Estrella, a ruddy-cheeked 13-year-old from Sonora, Mexico, takes courses such as pre-algebra, history and religion. He also holds a military rank, as all boys in the school do. As second lieutenant, he must escort his battalion to the eating quarters and make sure they behave properly.

“I try to set an example to the rest of my battalion,” he said. “My uniform must be clean. Your bars must be straight. I have to care about everybody.”

But rank has its privileges. Silverio sleeps in “headquarters,” a room with fewer boys. He is also allowed to sleep later than most students and has easier access to snacks.

His tan uniform bears circular, gold-colored pins on the collar to indicate his rank, a blue, braided cord slung around his left shoulder showing his position as a battalion commander, a green cord for good behavior on his right shoulder, and 15 pins for his behavior and grades.

The school’s development director, Chris Ragon, sometimes jokes that with all the bars and ropes, the boys “look like they could be running their own juntas.”

Meanwhile, the sisters try to make sure the spiritual aspect becomes part of the child’s education.

“I do think the sense of spirituality is a unique piece of this,” Monahan said. “When we pray together, there’s a real sense of reverence in a way that’s very strong and masculine. It’s not your grandmother’s spirituality.”

Only about 40% of the boys are Catholic, but all boys are encouraged to participate in as many religious activities as they feel comfortable doing.

The nuns also try to emphasize peaceful ways of resolving conflict. “What we are teaching the boys is that problem solving is a greater skill and a greater value than fighting,” she said.

Attendance a Family Tradition

The unusual combination draws its share of loyalty. Some of the boys represent the third generation of their family to attend the school. They come from all over Southern California as well as from Mexico, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.

Yet the school cannot attract as many qualified students as it did during the early 1960s, when it could easily fill up with 300 boys. The school now is a couple dozen students short of its current capacity of 215.

“It’s a struggle, a tremendous struggle,” Monahan said about enrollment.

Up to 2,000 parents a year inquire about sending their sons. But the vast majority of the parents are turned away because they are seeking a school for an intransigent child.

“People don’t understand our program,” she said. “Military schools on the whole have been pegged for boys with disciplinary problems, and that’s not who we are. We are not here as the last step before juvenile hall.”

School officials say the anti-military sentiment of the Vietnam War contributed to a decline in popularity for military schools.

Half a dozen military elementary schools in Southern California have shut down, most recently a Long Beach school in 1987. St. Catherine’s has managed to stay afloat through donations from the community. School officials have also cut back on costs.

The school charges $21,000 for seven-day-a-week boarders, $6,000 for straight tuition.

Janine Wheatley thought military schools were scary, cold places until she visited St. Catherine’s.

“When you hear military, I guess that comes into your head,” the La Habra Heights woman said. “But it’s definitely not that way. It’s warm and nurturing and everyone knows everyone.”

Her son, an eighth-grader, is the school’s brigade commander.

“He’s gained confidence,” Wheatley said, “and he knows that to get something done, you have to work for it.”