Our History

St. Monica Academy, located in Montrose, opened its doors in 2001 with 44 students in grades two through eight. The high school began in 2002 with the addition of ninth grade. The first class of high school seniors graduated from St. Monica Academy in 2006. Now in its twenty-second year, St. Monica Academy serves over 300 boys and girls in grades one through twelve.

St. Monica Academy imparts a classical education in the Roman Catholic tradition. The school uses solid classical
methods and materials and is in full conformity with Church teaching. “Faith – Reason – Virtue,” the motto
adopted by the founding families, expresses the aim of the school—to form the minds, hearts, and characters of
students through the development of the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues.

St. Monica Academy has achieved the following milestones:

• In 2008 the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and the Western Catholic Educational Association granted the Academy a six-year term of accreditation—a rarity for a new school. In 2014, the same Association granted us another six-year term of accreditation.

• The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has recognized the Academy as an independent Catholic school.

• In 2013, out of all the Catholic high schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, St. Monica Academy earned the highest mean SAT scores on all three sections of the SAT.

• In 2014, the Cardinal Newman Society named St. Monica Academy in its Catholic Education Honor Roll as one of the nation’s 71 Schools of Excellence, for its academic excellence, Catholic identity, and civic education.

• In 2018, the Cardinal Newman Society renewed St. Monica’s Catholic Education Honor Roll membership for another five-year term. St. Monica Academy is the only Catholic school in the Los Angeles metropolitan area that has been given such an honor.