Before the start of the school day at Epiphany School in Culpeper, Principal Peter Schultz will often find four or five teachers in a classroom, laughing.
“The teachers themselves have that joy, the kids have the joy,” he said. “You can see it in the hallways, you can see them as they’re around, and there’s this climate of joy and happiness in the building.”
While a small moment, it speaks to the school’s character. With approximately 125 students, Epiphany sits on the outskirts of the diocese. As the school associated with Precious Blood Church in Culpeper, it’s small in size but huge in heart.
That spirit has been there since the beginning. Epiphany was founded in 1981 as a preschool in the lower level of Precious Blood. In 1997, the diocese established the school to serve the families of Madison, Orange, Rappahannock and Culpeper counties.
Theresa Watson, who has taught grades K-8 music and 4-8 band at Epiphany for 21 years, remembers when there was no playground. “The parking lot was the playground,” she said. The diocese later purchased the current property in 2013, which allowed the school to add classes through eighth grade.
Visitors tend to notice the small building first, Watson said, and then they meet the people inside. “You see the small building, and you think, okay this is so small,” she said. “But then you meet the students, the parents, the volunteers, and the teachers, and you see that it’s a very special place.”
She warmly recalled former principal Jim Oliver’s description of the school as a diamond in the rough. “It’s the heart and the faith of the people here, and they’re there for each other.” Even the school’s name reflects that as the priests of Precious Blood helped choose the name “Epiphany,” according to Watson.
Eighth grader Maggie Masson, who has been at Epiphany since kindergarten, sees it from the student side. “There’s an individual feel that you’ll get with smaller schools where there’s (more) one-on-one attention between the teachers and students,” she said. With so few students, she said, “you kind of know everybody.”
“I don’t feel anxious coming in,” she added. “Everybody’s happy.”
That small community is prominent beyond the classroom. Students sing at Precious Blood at least four times a year, including Catholic Schools Week and the Feast of the Epiphany. Some parishioners come to the school’s Mass to be with the children, Watson said. The school also benefits from donors, such as one who helped buy xylophones for the music program. With a large Hispanic community, the school reaches out to those families, and many teachers are involved in their ministries, Watson said.
Those community ties have mattered in the school’s harder years. “Epiphany’s been hit hard; there’s been a lot of enrollment concerns,” Shultz said. Watson recalls when grade levels had to be combined, and one year, only three students were enrolled in middle school. In the last five years, Epiphany experienced a net loss of 80 students, according to Schultz. This fall, enrollment has gone up 13%, the school’s first increase since 2021.
“We’re on the right track, small steps, but on the right track,” Schultz said. “It comes down to really working on making sure that everything we do here is about the students and about helping them grow in mind, body and spirit.”
Schultz, now in his second year at Epiphany, gives much credit to the teachers. “We are very blessed at Epiphany to have amazing teachers,” he said. “Every single grade from preschool to eighth grade, every single teacher is who I want in there.”
The school has recently gone through many physical changes, all in effort to make the building feel more like home. With help from a $65,000 anonymous donation, Schultz had drywall put over the brick and concrete in the hallways, softer lighting was added, and new wood floors were laid. A new painting of the Epiphany scene is displayed at the main school entrance.
“I want you to come in and feel a little bit homier,” Schultz said. “We’re trying to make a family-filled-with-joy environment.”
Students are growing closer to one another as well. A house system, started last year, groups students from kindergarten through eighth grade into four houses, named for St. Joseph, St. Dominic, St. Clare, and St. Lucy. Siblings share a house, and seventh and eighth graders lead service projects and discussions with younger students. A resource program, funded by a Porto Charities grant, also began this year, with two part-time teachers supporting students with learning needs.
Epiphany marked another milestone Nov. 7 with its first alumni dinner. Many alumni started in Precious Blood’s lower level and never attended in the current building, Schultz said. “We want people to stay connected to our school,” he said. “We also want to be able to pray for them and have them pray for us as well.”
The school will celebrate its 30th anniversary next fall. Looking further ahead, the hope is for continued growth over the years: additions to the building, a science lab, and a cafeteria, since students now eat lunch at a pavilion nearby. Some hope for a high school someday, too.
“I would just like to see it grow,” Watson said. “Grow to a larger school, but keeping the heart that we have, just keeping that small community feeling.”
