NEW ORLEANS – As Good Shepherd School marks its 25th anniversary, the Catholic school is celebrating a milestone year while preparing to expand into a second campus near Desire Parkway in the city’s Upper Ninth Ward for the 2026-2027 school year.
Founded in 2001 in the Jesuit tradition to provide faith-based education to children regardless of their family’s financial circumstances, Good Shepherd School (GSS) today serves 348 students. School leaders say all 280 graduates have completed high school on time, with 85% enrolling in colleges and universities across the country.
The anniversary celebration also honors the legacy of the school’s founder, Fr. Harry Tompson, whose mission of serving children in need continues through the school’s expanding footprint in New Orleans.
“This is a triumphant celebration of more than a quarter century of the Good Shepherd School serving the city’s poorest by providing a quality Catholic education to hundreds of school children in our community,” said GSS President and CEO Thomas Moran. “It’s the perfect event to celebrate our supporters and the hard work our team at GSS provides helping families break the cycle of generational poverty through quality, faith-based education – all funded by the generosity of others.”
Since opening its doors in 2001, the Gentilly-based Good Shepherd Pre-K and Elementary School has carried out Fr. Tompson’s mission of educating children in need regardless of their families’ ability to pay. The school opened four months after Tompson’s death and has since expanded its network of alumni attending Catholic, private, public and charter schools across the region.
One GSS graduate, Myan Sandifer Wright, M.Ed., now director of college placement at Ursuline Academy, credited Fr. Tompson’s vision with helping generations of students pursue higher education and professional success.
“Because of you, we are now college graduates,” Wright said in remarks reflecting on Tompson’s legacy. “We are putting that positive energy back into the community because of you.”
Currently, 130 GSS graduates are enrolled in local high schools, including St. Augustine, Jesuit, Brother Martin, Holy Cross, Archbishop Rummel, St. Katharine Drexel, Cabrini, St. Mary’s Academy, Mount Carmel Academy and De La Salle.
School leaders said 21 alumni have already earned college degrees and are featured on the school’s GSS College Graduate Honor Wall, while more than 120 additional alumni are expected to graduate from college in the coming years. GSS alumni have enrolled at 25 colleges and universities nationwide, including nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
2nd Good Shepherd School Campus Expansion
GSS has also begun construction on a second campus at 3601 Desire Parkway in partnership with The Giving Hope Foundation. The campus is expected to open in August 2026, initially serving kindergarten students before adding one grade level each year thereafter.
“Fr. Tompson said that, in order to change education for the better, you need to be involved with the community, with the parents, and make sure that everybody was taken care of,” said Tannya Aguilera, principal and school leader at Good Shepherd School.
“Fr. Harry Tompson believed in God so much that he knew this was his mission, this was his calling to create Good Shepherd,” said Sean J. Goodwin, dean of students at Good Shepherd School.
