Parochial education has been a Plain area tradition since 1876 when Rev. Emanuel Moppey built a frame school building for the influx of Catholic immigrants in the area. The number of students and the size of the school buildings grew. The Franciscan Sisters from St. Joseph’s convent in Milwaukee were the first order to educate the Catholic children in the Plain area. In later years the Dominican Order from Racine staffed the subsequent schools.
The building we are currently occupying was built in 1919. It served as a school and a chapel/church after a cyclone destroyed the third church in 1918. The school graduated its first senior class in 1923. With the completion of the fifth and current church, the building no longer doubled as a worship space for the parish. The chapel area was remodeled to create a wonderful space that would serve St. Luke’s high school students.
Due to a decline in available sisters to teach in the high school, and the consolidation of the River Valley School District, the last graduating class from St. Luke’s High School was the class of 1966.
The grade school continued to operate as a 1-8 school until the fall of 1993 when the district built a new public elementary school on the property that had been St. Luke’s playground. There had not been a public school in Plain, other than kindergarten which rented space from St. Luke’s, in many years. The loss of kindergarten in the St. Luke building, combined with the new option provided by the public school, necessitated starting a kindergarten at St. Luke’s. The fall of 1993 welcomed the first kindergarten class with a total of 10 students. The late 90’s saw the addition of preschool, which served three and four year olds, in many configurations, until the addition of a four-year-old kindergarten, combined with the five-year-old kindergarten, in the fall of 2008.
Currently St. Luke’s is a three year old preschool through eighth grade school with an enrollment of 93 students. We are linked with the neighboring parish of St. John’s in Spring Green, which also has a school offering preschool through fifth grade. In recent years we have enrolled several sixth grade students from St. John’s who choose to continue Catholic education after fifth grade. We continue to collaborate on other projects and activities hoping to foster that enrollment trend.
We are more than grateful to our dedicated parents, parishioners and alumni for their tremendous support.
Our building is solid and in good condition. We provide our students with quality teachers, materials and technology to ensure an excellent Catholic education. There is little turnover of teaching staff. St. Luke’s parish and school families are proud of their school and sacrifice to support it. We are truly blessed.