‘Ready for the Catholic to Come Back’
Educators at St. Matthew's Catholic School say demand for Catholic education in the Flathead Valley has grown precipitously in the post-pandemic years. Now, the Flathead Valley’s only Catholic school is also its fastest growing.
By Denali Sagner
Susy Peterson says running St. Matthew’s Catholic School in Kalispell was truly her “dream job.”
A longtime educator and graduate of Catholic schools, Peterson has spent her career inside and outside of the classroom, working with students, teachers and families to strengthen Catholic education. She began her teaching career in Florida before moving to the Flathead Valley in 2004, where she spent three years teaching at St. Matthew’s, the Flathead Valley’s only Catholic school. Soon after, she returned to Florida to earn her doctorate and work as a teacher and administrator. When the St. Matthew’s principal job opened up in 2021, she saw it as a golden opportunity to come back.
Now, as principal, Peterson sits at the helm of the Flathead Valley’s fastest growing school, a place where, she says, “the theme has always been Catholic education and keeping it within our faith.”
St. Matthew’s traces its roots back to the early 1900s, when five nuns, the Religious Sisters of Mercy, traveled from Iowa to Kalispell to help establish a new hospital in what is now the Eastside Brick Building. A decade later, the sisters opened a Catholic school connected to St. Matthew’s Parish. The first students trickled into St. Matthew’s classrooms in 1917.
More than a century later, St. Matthew’s is a hub of Catholic education in the valley and a place where, according to Peterson, families can find an education grounded in “faith, integrity and knowledge.” It has also experienced marked growth in the post-pandemic era, bucking national trends around Catholic school attendance and religious affiliation.
Across the U.S., Catholic school enrollment for the past decade has trended downward, a phenomenon experts attributed to a number of factors, including the rise of charter schools and declining religious affiliation.
Catholic school enrollment in the U.S. dropped 14.2% between the 2013-14 and 2023-24 school years, per a report by the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). Yet those numbers have started to stabilize, which the NCEA attributes to Catholic schools emerging “as beacons of stability” amid “societal upheaval and educational instability.”

Amid widespread school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, many Catholic schools remained open, drawing in families who hoped to avoid remote learning.
“I think after Covid, I believe everybody was ready for the Catholic to come back,” Peterson said.
St. Matthew’s has seen steady enrollment growth since 2020. The school gained 51 students between 2020 and 2023. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, it gained 68 students –– a 38% increase, making it the fastest growing elementary and middle school in Flathead County.
When she returned to St. Matthew’s as principal in 2021, Peterson set out on a targeted outreach campaign across the Flathead Valley, which she said contributed to the school’s recent growth. She visited every Catholic church in the valley at least two to three times during her first year as principal, speaking at mass and connecting with local families. She also pushed to further integrate St. Matthew’s early learning center into the K-8 school, establishing a pipeline for parents to send their young children from pre-school right into kindergarten at St. Matthew’s.
“I’ve thought over the years, ‘Why the growth?’ And I really think that it’s the effort put into getting our name out there,” she said.
The school’s curriculum combines traditional subjects — math, science, technology, art, physical education — with the “Theology of the Body,” a religious curriculum that helps students understand “how we were created in the image of God, our identity in Christ, along with our gifts and givenness, so that we may see our selves and other the way God intended.”
Students in kindergarten through eighth grade pray several times each day and attend weekly mass. Students also attend daily religion classes.
“We look at our curriculum very closely to make sure that it matches with our Catholic identity,” Peterson said.
Not every student at St. Matthew’s is Catholic, and the school has seen an uptick in non-Catholic families in recent years. Peterson estimates that about 30% of enrolled students are non-Catholic.
Jody Eichner, the school librarian and a St. Matthew’s parent, said she believes even non-Catholic families are drawn to the school’s values, which tend to lean more conservative.

Another draw for St. Matthew’s families, Peterson said, is the school’s commitment to maintaining small class sizes and the individualized attention students are able to receive. Each grade level hovers around 25 students, with kindergarten being the largest class at 32.
Sister Judy Lund, who has been a teacher for 70 years, nearly 35 of which she has spent at St. Matthew’s, said, “We have a good family support. Families are very, very excited about sending their children here.”
St. Matthew’s is not immune to challenges straining the Flathead Valley’s public schools. Peterson said it’s difficult to keep pace with Kalispell Public Schools salaries. Before the Kalispell Public Schools ratified its most recent teachers union contract, St. Matthew’s teacher salaries hovered around 85% of the Kalispell school district’s. Teacher recruitment and retention is difficult, and students across public and private schools continue to navigate post-pandemic learning challenges.
Yet for Peterson, the future is bright, and further growth is ahead for St. Matthew’s.
“It’s just knowing the families and knowing everybody’s names,” she said. “Just keeping the eye on the prize, and that’s doing what’s right for kids all the time.”