Julie Billiart School
was founded in 1954 by the Sisters of Notre Dame. Readiness for the
first classes to be held in the Music House, a large home existing
on the property of Notre Dame Academy of Cleveland, Ohio, took place
during the summer months of that year. On September 8, the first class began with
16 junior high students consisting of 11 boys and 5 girls.
At that time Julie Billiart School was the first of its kind, and gradually outgrew its original space. Consequently, on January 16, 1958 it moved to its permanent location, the Arter Mansion, located on Clubside Road in Lyndhurst, Ohio and officially opened its doors there to students on January 27. Soon afterward, the attached three-car garage was converted into a classroom and the beautiful bowling green was cleared and replaced with blacktop for creating a basketball court. Fundraisers helped to defray the cost of making needed renovations and for changing a home into a school.
With these changes came more offerings of extracurricular
activities and special events. They included school projects, field
trips, cultural activites, and assemblies of various kinds which required
a greater percentage of parent involvement.
Volunteer parents planned and supervised a
variety of fund raising events to meet the growing financial needs
of the school. These consisted of, among others, the annual auction,
Monte Carlo night, dinner dances, reverse raffles, Christmas boutique,
night-at-the-races and phon-a-thon. The new gym provided the space
needed to handle these events.