The Archdiocese of San Antonio and local boosters have formally begun the push for a new high school in the Metrocom area.

The archdiocese is examining numerous properties along the Interstate 35 corridor, but has yet to choose one for a campus that organizers tentatively propose calling John Paul II Catholic High School, honoring the late papal leader.

A campaign kick-off event was held Monday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Selma. A grassroots planning committee has presented the archdiocese with results of a survey that gauges high community interest in having a regional high school that can serve students from the Windcrest area to San Marcos and Canyon Lake.

The planning committee has also presented estimated preliminary costs and needs to the archdiocese for formal approval. The overall development project is estimated to cost as $20 million.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio currently operates 44 schools, most of which are located inside San Antonio. Officials said a new high school in the Randolph area would enable local youngsters to finish their Catholic educational process closer to home.

A vision document on the Our Lady of Perpetual Help School Web site reads: “Catholic families living in the growing areas around I-35 in the communities of Selma, New Braunfels, Seguin and San Marcos have inconvenient Catholic high school choices. The nearest options, located in San Antonio and Austin, range between 20 and 50 miles for most families. This distance places a difficult burden on families and causes many families desiring a high school Catholic education to place their children in the public school system.”

“Parents mainly in Selma, New Braunfels and Seguin got together and came to us, saying they very much want a high school in the area. We talked about whether it should be a private school and other operational features,” Carla Lusch, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the archdiocese, recalled.

“We then went to the archbishop to talk about it. In March the archdiocese jump in with the parents and started running with the idea.”

The archdiocese’s Catholic schools fundraising committee is helping to form a grant-writing committee, and plans to have additional fundraising efforts to bring the new high school become a reality. Grassroots organizers have said that while the new school may not be a strictly parish campus, it would be under the archdiocese’s authority.

The planning committee consists of members from area parishes and/or elementary campuses that would most likely feed students into the new high school, including Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Monica School in Converse, Saints Peter and Paul in New Braunfels, St. James and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Seguin, and St. John’s in San Marcos. Pastors and other representatives from these parishes/ schools initially met in February to begin discussing a common vision and principles that will guide the development of a regional Catholic high school.

Archdiocese representatives said a new high school likely would be designed and constructed in two phases, emphasizing classroom and administrative space first, and then including a chapel, science laboratories and athletic facilities.

Planners will start looking in January for a principal to be in place for the 2008-09 academic year. Archdiocese officials project initially admitting up to 30 students, but growing the enrollment to 400 or 500. For more information, visit the “John Paul II Catholic High School” link at: www.olphselma.org.