The first semester of the initial year of Nazareth High School was spent at the newly completed Bishop Kearney High School, since Nazareth’s building was yet unfinished. In the spring of 1963, Bishop Brian McEntegart dedicated the new building, and the first class of freshmen joined the small Nazareth faculty in moving into their own school. Brother John Olsen, C.F.X., served as first principal until 1966. He and the other Xaverian Brothers and Catholic laymen who administered and staffed the new school centered the goals of Nazareth around the theme “wisdom, age, and favor with God” because these were the qualities of Jesus as described in Scripture as he grew up in the town of Nazareth.

 

The first class of Nazareth Kingsmen graduated in June of 1966. Nazareth prospered as a forward-looking, progressive educational institution.

 

In 1974, the Principal, Brother Mathew Burke, with the encouragement of Bishop Francis Mugavero, formed a new Catholic school governed by a Board of Trustees because the diocese could no longer continue to subsidize the school. The new school was called Nazareth Regional High School and was staffed mostly by Catholic laypersons along with some religious men and women. In 1976, the school admitted women for the first time, and in June, 1980 the first female valedictorian was selected.

In 1994, Nazareth Regional High School was formally affiliated with the network of schools sponsored by the Xaverian Brothers’ American Province. As a Xaverian Brothers sponsored school, Nazareth is part of a proud and distinguished legacy of educational excellence that is the Xaverian Brothers’ tradition.

 

Today, Nazareth is a fully developed Catholic, co-educational, secondary school serving students from parochial, private, and public schools throughout Brooklyn and parts of Queens. Nazareth stands ready to meet the educational needs of its students, and will continue its mission with the same spirit and dedication that created Nazareth in l962.