Badin High School will celebrate the 50th annual Catholic Schools Week beginning Jan. 30 as an opportunity to emphasize the value of Catholic education.

“Faith plays such an important role in what we do every day,” said Mrs. Gina Helms, Badin’s director of Campus Ministry, “but this is always a special week to celebrate what it means to be in a Catholic school.”

Badin will hold its Catholic Schools Week Mass on Monday, Jan. 30, at 10 a.m., with BHS chaplain Father Ed Pratt presiding. The public is always invited to attend Mass at Badin.

Earlier that day, Badin seniors JJ Even, Marcia Reyes and Ava Wesner will participate in a high school teleconference with Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr that he holds each year.

On Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, a dozen Badin students will attend St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in downtown Cincinnati with hundreds of other area Catholic school students for the Archdiocesan Catholic Schools Week Mass. This Mass has been postponed the past couple of years because of the pandemic.

The Badin theme this week is “Kindness Starts With You” – and there will be a Kindness Commitment Signing Day at lunch on Tuesday.

Wednesday is Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Day, with religion classes emphasizing the seven Hallmarks of the Sisters that are guiding principles of the Badin community.

There will be Service at School on Monday after school and a 1:18 p.m. special all-school assembly on Friday, Feb. 3, to bookend the week. Julie Berry Luebbers ’90, a professor at Thomas More University, will be the Friday keynote speaker.

“We have a lot of meaningful events on the calendar,” Helms said, noting a College Catholic Out of Uniform Day on Thursday and Special Olympics at the varsity boys basketball game on Friday night. “Kindness, faith, leadership, excellence and service are the key words as we underline what our schools are all about.”

Badin’s school population of 645 students is nearly 80 percent Catholic, which represents a high percentage among Catholic high schools in Southwest Ohio. While the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 51st largest diocese in the country with 430,000 Catholics, the Catholic school system is the 5th largest in the country in terms of enrollment, with 40,000 students among 112 Catholic primary and secondary schools in a 19-county territory. Badin High School, on New London Road in Hamilton, opened in the fall of 1966, the merger of all-boys Hamilton Catholic High and all-girls Notre Dame High. The Class of 2023, 135 students, represents the school’s 57th graduating class.