St. Mary's Ryken High School

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St. Mary's Ryken High School is a Xaverian Brothers sponsored Catholic high school located on Breton Bay in Leonardtown, Maryland. It is accredited by the Archdiocese of Washington, the Maryland State Board of Education, and the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The school is private and coeducational. St. Mary's Ryken provides education from grades 9-12. The school is the only high school from the Archdiocese of Washington in Southern Maryland, receiving students from Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's and southern Prince George's Counties. The campus is composed of Alumni, Lambert, Paschal, Romuald, Rupert, and Xavier Halls. School sports include lacrosse, football, baseball, softball, soccer, field hockey, wrestling, volleyball, sailing, tennis, track, and cross country. St. Mary's Ryken has a 109-acre open-air campus.

1 History
2 Student Life
3 General Information
4 Education
5 External link

[edit] History

St. Mary's Academy, an all-girls' school, was founded in 1885 and Ryken High School (for boys) in 1956. These two schools merged in 1981 forming St. Mary's Ryken High School.

[edit] Student Life

St. Mary's Ryken recently acquired a football team, but the most dominant sport remains lacrosse. Ryken lacrosse is a respected and extremely competetive program, well known throughout the state. In the 2005-2006 academic year, St. Mary's Ryken accepted 14 exchange students from Italy, the Balkans and Korea. Many of these students were on basketball scholarships, and they significantly raised the caliber of St. Mary's Ryken basketball and the status of the boy's varsity team, in particular. Although St. Mary's Ryken is a Catholic school, about 15% of the students are non-Catholic. The school holds liturgies and Mass periodically in the gym, and all students are required to take four years of theology classes. Most of these theology classes are purely Catholic and part of a prescribed four-year formula- however, students do have the option to take Global Bridges(2006-2007 global website project - www.globaleducation-2020.org), a global awareness class, their junior year, and Honors Philosophy senior year. Students also go on spiritual retreats annually by class.

St. Mary's Ryken has a somewhat strict uniform code, which has evolved considerably over the past two decades. Boys and girls wear oxford cloth shirts emblazoned with the school logo, or special polo shirts in the summer. School pants are either blue or dark khaki dress pants, and there are also khaki school shorts available. Girls also wear knee-length pleated kilts in navy blue or khaki, and senior and some junior girls are allowed to wear gray or a green plaid kilt. Boys wear special SMR ties. All students wear dress shoes. In general, the school uniform is polished, but not severe.

The school colors are blue, green, and white, and their official mascot are the St. Mary's Ryken Knights.