Saint Patrick Catholic School is the oldest Catholic parish school in Tacoma — and likely in the broader Pacific Northwest — having opened on September 8, 1893 in the Stadium District, two years after Saint Patrick Parish itself. The Tacoma Dominican Sisters launched the school with their first cohort, and the parish describes it as the first parochial school west of the Mississippi River. Enrollment runs around 360 students PreK through 8.
Within the Catholic Schools of Pierce County system, Saint Patrick is grouped with the parish-school cohort that includes St. Charles Borromeo (the larger Tacoma school, ~530 students at 21:1 ratio), Holy Rosary Regional School, Visitation Catholic Academy, and the smaller South Sound parish schools. Saint Patrick differentiates on its founding date and on the breadth of specialty staffing — full-time teachers in literacy, music, art, physical education, Spanish, performing arts, and robotics, which is unusual at this enrollment scale.
In 2024 the school was placed in Parish Family 36 alongside Holy Cross and Saint John Vianney as part of the Archdiocese of Seattle's Partners in the Gospel restructuring, though it continues to operate under its own administration. The school is accredited through the Western Catholic Educational Association and publishes a weekly Blarney Stone newsletter for families.
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