Xavier High School (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

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Xavier High School
Established	1998
Type	private/Catholic
Affiliation	Mississippi Valley Conference
Principal	Tom Keating
Students	approx. 720
Grades	9-12
Location	6300 42nd St. NE Cedar Rapids, Iowa USA
Colors	Navy Blue and Silver
Mascot	Saint Bernard
Website	www.xaviersaints.org

Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is affiliated with twelve area Catholic parishes and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque. It opened in 1998 after two previous Catholic high schools, Regis and LaSalle, merged. Xavier High School is a member of the National Catholic Education Association and is accredited by the State of Iowa. All administrators and teachers are certified in their areas of responsibility. Fifty-eight percent of the faculty has a M.A. or Ph.D. in their area. There are approximately 720 students enrolled at the school.

[edit] Student Information

Students at Xavier High School come from primarily three "feeder" middle schools, Regis Middle School and LaSalle Middle School, the former high schools that were merged to form Xavier in 1998, as well as Saint Joseph's School in Marion, Iowa. Staff to student ratio is less than 20:1 at Xavier. 100% of Xavier students graduate and 96% of Xavier graduates plan to pursue postsecondary education. Xavier scored in the 99th percentile on 11th grade ITED tests in 2006. Well over 90% of Xavier students are involved in at least one extra-curricular activity, while three-fourths of the student body are involved in three or more activities. Xavier High School is considered to be one of the leading high schools in the country for Catholic education.

[edit] Athletics

Xavier is well known throughout the state for its excellence in athletics. Men's baseball, women's basketball, women's cross country, men's cross country, women's soccer and men's soccer have all achieved dominance throughout the state of Iowa, recently winning state championships in classes 3A, 3A, 1A, and 1A, respectively. Men's basketball, women's tennis, volleyball, and women's softball have all qualified for the state tournament recently as well. Xavier qualified four wrestlers for the state tournament in 2007, and Michael Pederson placed 7th statewide in the 160 pound group. Xavier's football program, led by Coach Duane Schulte, recently won the Class 4A State Championship, finishing 13-0 and ranked #24 in the nation by MaxPreps.com. Xavier's first championship of 2007 was the 3A girl's basketball title, won on March 10. They have had many athletes go on to play college and professional sports including Ryan Sweeney (2003 alum) who now plays for the Chicago White Sox.

[edit] Fine Arts

Xavier has two extra-curricular show choirs, Xhilaration and Xcitement, three curricular choirs - Women's Chorale, Chorale, and Xavier Singers, and one extra-curricular select ensemble, Voce. Xavier's varsity show choir, Xhilaration, has been very successful under the direction of Andrew Last, who arrived at the school in 2003. Xhilaration has won Grand Championships in both of its trips to Sioux City's show choir competition "Sing All About It" in 2005 and 2006 and was crowned Grand Champion at Benton Community's competition "A Touch of Class" in 2007, defeating such high profile groups as Lincoln Southwest HS, Cedar Rapids Jefferson HS, & Cedar Rapids Kennedy HS. Andrew Last has also directed the Xavier musicals Damn Yankees, Once on This Island, and directed She Loves Me along with drama director & assistant music director Kim Mackey in 2006. This is Kim Mackey's first year at Xavier. She also directs the all girl show choir, Xcitement. Xcitement had its best finish of all time in 2007 at Davenport's "Great River" competition, placing 5th out of 11 groups in the prep category.

Xavier's speech program grew tremendously in 2006 & 2007. Already one of the largest speech programs in Iowa, Xavier qualified three groups for All-State in the Choral Reading, TV News, & Musical Theatre categories. Xavier also qualified three individual speech members for All-State in 2007. This is by far Xavier's largest amount of All-State qualifiers in speech. Xavier will also produce "While The Lights Were Out" in April of 2007, under the direction of Kim Mackey.