127 YEARS OF TRADITION

St. Joseph Notre Dame High School is a consolidation of Notre Dame, founded more than 100 years ago by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, and St. Joseph’s, founded in 1935 by the parish of St. Joseph’s and originally conducted by the Marianist Brothers.

In 1881, at the invitation of Father William Gleason, pastor of Brooklyn (East Oakland), five Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur opened a school for girls in grades 1 to 12, four years before St. Joseph Parish was established. The Sisters purchased the present site in Alameda, erected a convent, and opened a school. When St. Joseph Grammar School was built in 1922, the original school buildings became the high school, Notre Dame Academy, a combined boarding and day school. Early in 1958, the newly appointed pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Rev. Alvin P. Wagner, suggested constructing a new high school on the site of the old. Thus a new parochial high school, St. Joseph’s Notre Dame High School, opened in 1960.

St. Joseph High School, a school for boys, was under the direction of the Marianist Brothers for 35 years until their departure in June 1970. Father Bernard J. Praught, then pastor of St. Joseph’s, opened the school in the fall of 1935. The first faculty consisted of two Marianists, and the first student body contained 35 freshmen and 24 sophomores.

Work began during the 1984-1985 school year to facilitate the consolidation of St. Joseph's Notre Dame High School and St. Joseph High School into a coeducational high school. The current Saint Joseph Notre Dame High School began in September 1985. The school serves the cities of Alameda, Oakland, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Hayward.

Monsignor Alvin P. Wagner, pastor for 25 years, retired in August 1983 and was replaced by Sacred Heart Father Patrick A. Goodwin. The Sacred Hearts Fathers, founded during the French Revolution, is a teaching order of priests and brothers with their provincial house in Southern California. Father Jeremiah Holland, SS.CC. succeeded Father Goodwin as pastor (1995-2001) and Father Richard Danyluk, SS.CC., succeeded him and served until 2007. Father Fred Riccio began as pastor in August 2008.