The year Josephine Castillo Danko was a high school senior, a new school opened in downtown San Antonio.
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When she and her friends walked through the front door in their knee-length, navy blue skirts and saddle shoes, they were greeted by youthful nuns in full habit who taught business and college-prep courses, science and home economics.
“When you go somewhere [new], with all the different classrooms, you kinda were lost, but it was really nice to be there, to be the first class and be able to just hang around,” Danko said.
On Monday, 242 students in grades 6-12 entered those same doors facing a palm tree-lined courtyard on North St. Mary’s Street, the start of a new school year and the 75th anniversary of Providence Catholic School’s founding.
The faith-based middle and high school for girls is one institution among many in the lasting legacy of the Congregation of the Sisters of Divine Providence (CDP), a community of Catholic women who believe in the “profound confidence in God’s providential love and care for all,” according to their charism.
One of 36 schools located in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Providence was founded in 1951 by the same women who started Our Lady of the Lake University in 1895 and other educational and social services institutions across the city.
The Sisters still operate and fund the school despite a decreasing number of students at Providence — from a high of about 600 at one point — and across a diocese where Catholic schools have experienced declining enrollment and several have closed in recent years.
The school was established to help consolidate the upper-level grades and relieve financial stress on five other downtown Catholic schools at the time.
On land at 1215 N. St. Mary’s St. acquired from the Drought family for $110,000 in 1950, the sisters built the school next door to an all-boys institution run by the Brothers of the Society of Mary for a century already by that time.
Sister Rose Kruppa, CDP, Superior General, said the move was financially risky — and also innovative and entrepreneurial.
“Collaboration or pooling resources has been a big part of our values and our desire to create something new,” Kruppa said. “Providence is about creating newness — what’s possible? What does God intend? And Father [Jean-Martin] Moye would say if it’s God’s will, God will provide one thousand ways and one thousand means to accomplish it.”
‘A good person’
That first year, Providence brought together 380 girls from all across the city. Sister Maureen Glahn served as principal with 21 sisters and five lay teachers. A gymnasium and auditorium were added in 1966.
“The sisters who taught there were young [and] always joyful,” Kruppa said. “We saw the joy in their life. They enjoyed being together.”
They lived in the 1901 Henry P. Drought house, which was restored and reopened in 2010,and now serves as the Najim Campus Center housing a library and offices.
Danko recalled the nuns’ exuberance, but also their insistence on pulling the window shades to block the students’ view of the boys’ school next door, and a strict adherence to the dress code.
“The thing you learned there was a lot of good moral thoughts, in other words, to be a good person,” she said.
In those days, tuition at the all-girls school was $5 a month and there were 62 students in the senior class.
At age 92, Danko’s memories of that time are fading. But through the years she remained close through mini-reunions with most of her classmates, one of whom was Vivian Liberto, who introduced her to American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash before the famous couple married.
Gold status
In the early 1950s, the school curriculum was based on a program called Christian Family Living, according to “Living in God’s Providence” author Mary Christine Morkovsky, CDP, which taught family values.
Today, while the students learn theology and attend mass, the curriculum is centered around college preparation, including Advanced Placement (AP) courses, STEM and arts programming, professional internships and opportunities that help students develop confidence and leadership skills.
Some Providence students also interact during the school day with Central Catholic High School students through the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) and the marching and concert band programs.
Longtime Providence athletics director, teacher and assistant principal Elise Denoux was named school principal in 2025. She succeeded Alicia Garcia, who became principal in 2011 and recently transitioned to a role as business manager and religion teacher.
Last year, the College Board awarded Providence “gold status” for having 65% or more of the graduating class enrolled in at least one AP exam and 35% or more scoring a 3 or higher on an AP exam.
The top two students from the 36-member Class of 2026 are attending the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Chicago-Loyola.
Denoux said the school works to ensure the students have opportunities like earning an associate’s degree before ever leaving high school or writing their own business plan, but also developing a reliance on their faith to solve problems for themselves, their family and the community.
At least three Providence graduates have served on the San Antonio City Council — Rebecca Viagran ‘92 and Phyllis Viagran ‘91, who have represented District 3, and Mary Alice Cisneros ‘67, representing District 1.
‘Whoever I wanted to be’
Fifty years ago, a top student from the 100-member Providence Class of 1976 was accepted to St. Mary’s University and majored in science, eventually earning a doctorate degree.
Alum Carmen Hinojosa-Laborde spent the first 15 years of her career working as a research scientist at UT Health San Antonio, and has worked for the past 15 years as department chief of pain and sensory trauma at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.
Hinojosa-Laborde said she chose to attend Providence after attending public grade schools. Her three sisters followed, then her own daughter, Veronica, in 2010.
She said the school and the nuns helped Hinojosa-Laborde figure out she enjoyed science.
“It was a very comfortable environment,” she said. “I learned really quickly that I could be whoever I thought I wanted to be, and what was my real personality, and it was acceptable.”
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What is a Provet?
Providence students are known as Provets, a moniker adopted by the school in 1965 that has evolved to mean “Providence woman” and “female warrior.”
In 2019, Hinojosa-Laborde joined the school board and has remained involved with fundraising efforts for the school ever since.
She acknowledges that she spent four years at the high school likely not appreciating what she was taught about the concept of providence. But it dawned on her in later years as the source of her outlook on life.
“In the past 50 years, I have experienced those types of situations where things aren’t going like you want them to go, but you just have to trust in God and things work out,” she said.
Growing enrollment
The annual tuition to attend Providence as a high schooler is now $12,000, and for middle school $8,500, a revenue source that covers about 80% of the school budget, Denoux said. The remainder comes from private contributions, grants and fundraising, and support from the Sisters.
About 60% of Providence students receive some sort of financial assistance for tuition, including Hope for the Future scholarships through the archdiocese. About 40% of the student body has so far qualified for Texas Education Freedom Accounts, Denoux said.
In 2005, under the leadership of the school’s first lay principal, Anne Bristol, Providence added sixth, seventh and eighth grades and changed its name to Providence Catholic School.
In 2006, a former priest’s residence on the campus was remodeled and converted into the Avery Art Studio with a gift from Estela Avery ‘70 and her husband James Avery, the jeweler.
A senior year mission
Among the Providence students returning to school this week was Madeleine DiGiovanni, her long navy tie lined with more than a dozen award pins and a pleated, navy plaid skirt coming to inches above the knee.
DiGiovanni is the executive student council president, second-highest ranking officer in the JROTC, an anchor and producer in the school’s broadcasting program, Provet TV, and a student ambassador.
She hopes to be accepted to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs or the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“I know it’s so cliché to say of the sisterhood, but it is so real here. I just felt connected to everyone,” DiGiovanni said.
Her favorite class is math. She also likes the low teacher-to-student ratio and the leadership opportunities — and the cafeteria food, catered by Luby’s.
The senior is one of 18 students in the Class of ’27, small compared to the junior class of over 50.
“It’s kind of been our mission, my personal mission, and our class’s mission to just really try to get more girls to come here,” she said.
In the last five years or so, a greater percentage of students are coming to Providence from public and charter schools in San Antonio versus Catholic grade schools as most had in the past, Denoux said. And enrollment has begun to creep up by about 10% year over year.
“I think we’re growing because more and more families are realizing the opportunity that their daughters can have,” Denoux said. “I think an all-girls environment helps establish a young girl’s voice, their inner compass of who they are. They’re getting the challenging questions in science class, in math class, in religion class.”
For the Sisters, “it’s always been about access for girls and women … from the very beginning in France,” Kruppa said, recounting how the group’s 18th century founder discovered that many underprivileged young women in those days were not being taught to read.
While several members of the Sisters of Divine Providence living in San Antonio still serve the school in various ways, only one works full time at Providence, religion teacher and Campus Minister Melissa Cessac, CDP.
When the Sisters first entered the U.S. as missionaries, they numbered 760, Kruppa said. Today, there are 68 sisters and the median age is 82.5; they range in age from 35 to 105.
Full-circle moment
Marti West, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese, said she often attends Providence commencements and is inspired by the school’s tradition of inviting the graduates from the class marking its 50th anniversary to the ceremony.
“I think Providence is an amazing school, and it is a beautiful thing to witness the growth of the young women that enter Providence and the legacy that they have had over the years is tremendous,” West said.
While the overall number of Catholic schools in the archdiocese has decreased in the last decade, two new schools have been added to the slate.
Last year, the archdiocese celebrated the opening of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic School in Boerne, which says it offers a classical, liberal arts education.
This week, Moye Catholic Middle and High School opens in a kind of full-circle moment for the Sisters.
Though independent of both the Sisters and the parish grade school, Moye is located at the Moye Retreat Center, a former convent and school campus in Castroville built by the Sisters in 1873.
At Providence Catholic School, now entering its 75th year, the charism of the Sisters is stronger than ever, Kruppa said — trusting in God’s providence, confident in the midst of uncertainty.
The Providence school community plans to mark the milestone anniversary on Sept. 12, at 2 p.m., with a mass celebrated by Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller in the school’s gymnasium. A reception will follow.
Disclosure: The reporter’s two daughters and three sisters-in-law are Providence alumnae.
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