When the first students walked through the doors of St. Mary’s Elementary School on Feb. 1, 1926, much of Manhasset was still a quiet, developing community, with dirt roads leading to the school at the head of Plandome Road.
A century later, the school stands in the heart of a busy North Shore town, but its mission remains the same.
Founded under the vision of Msgr. Edward J. Dunnigan, who laid the cornerstone on Sept. 14, 1925, St. Mary’s was created to serve a growing Catholic immigrant population seeking both education and faith formation.
Today, as the school marks its 100th anniversary, that mission rooted in faith, community and education continues to guide generations of students.
The world is changing rapidly today, much as it was a century ago when the cornerstone was first laid at St. Mary’s, said Msgr. Thomas Coogan, pastor of St. Mary’s. What has remained constant, he said, is the role of faith and enduring moral truths in helping students navigate those changes.
“With the changing of times, modern challenges do arise,” Coogan said. “But faith and morals are eternal truths that are true today like they were 100 years ago,” he said.
While classrooms have shifted from slate boards to iPads and from religious sisters as the sole educators to a mix of clergy and lay teachers, the foundation has endured.
In its earliest years, the student body was almost entirely Irish and taught by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Today, the school reflects the diversity of the broader Manhasset community.
“Now we’re ethnically very diverse… we have students from almost every ethnic group you can imagine,” Coogan said. “Our boys and girls live together with no awareness of race or ethnicity as being an issue.”
That evolution has been matched by a strong sense of continuity within the parish itself. Unlike many Catholic schools that have struggled to remain open, St. Mary’s has endured, in part because of its enduring ties to the evolving
Source: LI Press
