Rooted here
Since 1959, St. Therese Catholic School has continuously provided an outstanding education rooted in the Catholic faith. The story of our school is the story of a parish family that has built, sacrificed and persevered for its children, generation after generation.
Beginnings (1946 – 1956)
After serving as an army chaplain during World War II, Father Mark Otto formed a new parish in the east part of Minnetonka. He named the church in honor of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus. Initially there were fewer than 50 families, and Masses were celebrated in the auditorium of the area Groveland school. A basement church and rectory were built in 1947 on the current convent site. In 1951, Father Francis Shea had a new rectory built to serve as the priest’s home, with socials and meetings held in the basement. That building serves as our convent, the Sisters’ home, today.
Early years (1957 – 1968)
By 1957, 23 acres of grassy land had been purchased and the parish had grown to 80 families, many of them concerned about the education of their children. After much discussion and a successful capital campaign, Father Shea and community leaders launched the school and gymnasium construction.
Just two weeks before the readied building was to open in September 1958, Father Shea learned that the sisters he had counted on to staff the school were no longer available. The parishioners had created a beautiful new dwelling but were without teachers. Enterprisingly, the church transferred its pews and created a worship space in the new school basement. The Servite Sisters from Ladysmith, Wisconsin were persuaded to come to Deephaven and accepted teaching positions. St. Therese School officially opened in the fall of 1959 with three grades, 1st through 3rd, and 40 children in each. With each new year another grade was added, up to 8th grade.
Growth era (1969 – 1996)
By 1968, celebrating Mass in the school basement had become overcrowded as the parish flourished to 500 families, and plans for a new church building were underway. When the Servite Sisters could no longer staff the school, Father Jerome Janski hired the first lay principal, Mr. Louis Doering, in 1969, and the Franciscan Sisters from Kerala, India came to serve the community, as they do most lovingly to this day.
The Church of St. Therese celebrated its first Mass in a beautiful new structure at midnight on Christmas Eve in 1970. As the parish family grew, so did the school: kindergarten classes opened in 1975, and a preschool followed shortly thereafter.
At its peak (1997 – 2002)
In 1997, Father John Bauer envisioned a place to gather for fellowship and parish functions. With campaign funding, a community room was added to the main building in 2001 and the church rectory was converted into parish offices and meeting rooms. St. Therese stood at the height of its growth, with 400 children in grades PreK through 8th and 700 Faith Formation students. Father Marty Shallbetter became pastor in 2001, and the capital campaign of the early 2000s funded an ambitious expansion: a prayer room, locker rooms, a multipurpose room and cafeteria, and a separate middle school wing with a science lab, classrooms and a commons area, all completed in 2002. The gymnasium was refloored as an athletics program began, and the service kitchen was upgraded to support a hot lunch program.
Unforeseen times (2002 – 2017)
Parishioners had raised over a third of the funds for those expansions, but for the first time in its history the parish needed loans, and St. Therese took on substantial debt. Like many parochial schools, St. Therese faced declining enrollment, budget pressures and staffing constraints. Rather than closing its doors, the school found innovative ways to persevere: renting basement classrooms to Deephaven Academy, welcoming St. Joseph’s of Hopkins to relocate its daycare here in 2007, and joining with St. John the Baptist of Excelsior in 2012 to travel to Washington, D.C. together and combine athletics programs. In 2014, Deephaven Woods, a senior living facility, was built on land contributed by the parish, and intergenerational friendships have grown between our youngest students and its residents ever since.
Through sacrifices made by administrators, teachers and parents, students continued to receive an exceptional education grounded in faith, meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations in math and reading and arriving in high school prepared for AP, IB and honors courses. The spirit of St. Therese, our patron saint, upheld the community through those challenging years.
Our 65th anniversary and today
In 2016, Father Leonard Andrie became pastor and led the Confidence in Jesus Capital Campaign to retire the 15-year debt. With pledge commitments exceeding the campaign goal and substantial payments applied, St. Therese is poised for a debt-free future. Full and half day preschool is once again available, the Outdoor Learning Center completed in 2017 enhances learning for every student, and enrollment has grown remarkably.
As we celebrate more than 65 years, we praise the foresight of our founding parishioners and pastors. Their time, talent and treasure produced a cherished place. God is good, and He continues to graciously bless this community.
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