A Legacy of Learning

School Opening Pens Next Chapter in Our Hilltop’s History

In March, we told you about The Saint Constantine School of Pittsburgh (SCSP) coming to our property this fall. Just days before its August 19 opening, the school hosted a special blessing in our gym on August 15, officially kicking off the 2024-2025 school term and a new chapter in the storied history of our hilltop.

For 50 years — from 1928 to 1978 — Mount Assisi Academy (MAA) drew female students here to be educated by the School Sisters of St. Francis. The order of Slovak Catholic nuns came to Pittsburgh from Bohemia in 1913 at the request of local clergy to educate the children of a growing population of Eastern European immigrants. Although the Sisters taught at many Catholic grade schools over the decades, the academy was the local cornerstone of their teaching ministry until it closed in 1978 amid declining enrollment for Catholic schools everywhere.

Children continued to bring learning and laughter to our property with Mount Assisi Academy Preschool (MAAP) until 2018. In the six years since, the classrooms in the convent and high school buildings have fallen silent. The arrival of Saint Constantine brings new life to these spaces, with some 75 students in pre-K through Grade 12 enrolled for the first term.

Their presence likely will not be at all obvious to most of our Residents. For the safety and security of the school and for the peace and privacy of those in personal care, the daily functions and physical footprints of the school and of Mt. Assisi Place (MAP) will be kept separate. But for the School Sisters of St. Francis — with 12 Sisters in residence here — the presence of the Orthodox Christian school just feels fitting.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” exclaims Sister Georgette Dublino, who graduated from Mount Assisi Academy in 1951, taught there during the 1970s, and now leads weekly Bible study for our Residents. “They are carrying on our legacy of teaching.”

The history and heritage of our campus was among the factors that drew the Texas-based program to establish its first satellite campus here. Throughout the transition, Jesse Cone, SCSP’s head of school, has learned about that legacy from several Sisters, including Sisters Cecilia Jacko and Pat Marie Buranosky, MAP residents and former MAA teachers. He’s also had emotional conversations with Sister Elaine Hromulak, the last principal of the academy. Both have been moved to tears by the exciting new threads that bind the past with the future.

“We are standing in a special place,” Cone told those gathered for blessing. “For nearly 100 years, this building has been dedicated to service to our Lord and to the education of children.”

Although founded on Eastern Orthodox principles, the school welcomes Christians from many traditions and is not affiliated with any one ethnic heritage. Its opening blessing gathered incoming students and their families, school faculty, representatives from the anchor school in Houston, and many clergy, including His Grace, the Right Reverend Thomas Joseph, bishop of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, and His Eminence Metropolitan Melchizdeck, archbishop of the Holy Archdiocese of North America.

The tears flowed freely when faculty members surprised the Sisters in attendance by performing the Mount Assisi Academy school song before the blessing began. It was a poignant moment that elicited a standing ovation from the former MAA teachers.

“I’m really happy we ended up at Mt. Assisi,” says 13-year old Gregory Cone, Jesse’s eldest son and member of Saint Constantine’s inaugural eighth-grade class. Gregory was along for the ride as the SCSP team scouted potential locations in Pittsburgh over the course of two years. “Of all the buildings we visited, I wanted us to be here.”

Connections to Mount Assisi Academy live on here already — graduates Joanne Osborn (1973) and Cindy Zawojski McCullough (1975) work here, and Betty Aiello Oberst (1952) and Rita Patchan Hirschfield (1968) live here. Such ties continue to evolve with the opening of SCSP, as instructor Justine Bossard teaches baking to elementary students in the former MAA home economics room; as the pre-K class explores the world in Sister Theophane Jacko’s former sewing room; and as SCSP students of all ages have gym class in the very same space where MAA students played basketball, gathered for Mass, and staged Assisi After Dark productions.

As things get underway, surely there will be some adjustments as we adapt to living and working in connected spaces. Cone hopes that once the dust settles and everyone finds their groove, there may be opportunities for intergenerational activities that engage SCSP students and MAP Residents.

The school has already created a garden and greenhouse at the back of our property where students will spend varied parts of their school day interacting with and caring for nature. Fitting, perhaps, as the seeds of Mount Assisi Academy’s yesterday serve as fertile soil for Saint Constantine’s new generation of students and educators.

“Thank you for paving the way,” Cone told the Sisters. “We will do our best to carry it forward.”