Immaculate Heart Central (IHC),Watertown, N.Y.,is a Pre-K to 12 Catholic school system and a ministry of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who founded the school in 1881. IHC is the largest and most prominent non-public educational alternative in the Greater Watertown, NY area. We are proud to be different. We provide a college-preparatory, Gospel-based education based on faith, challenge, opportunity, a culture of achievement, personal responsibility, and service. Our students develop spiritually, morally and ethically as well as intellectually.
IHC schools include over 700 students in grades Pre-K to 12. IHC Junior/Senior High School is fully accredited by the prestigious Commission on Secondary Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. The High School enrolls over thirty international exchange students from eight to ten countries per year, bringing cultural diversity that is an essential part of the Catholic Church. IHC Elementary School is thriving, nine years after a necessary consolidation of Watertown’s four traditional parish elementary schools. IHC’s highly respected St. John Bosco Pre-School program, celebrating its thirtieth year, educates three, four, and young five year old students in a variety of two, three, and five-day per week programs. IHC’s student body is predominately from the Watertown Central School District, but includes students from about fourteen local school districts, depending on the year. Nearly thirty percent of IHC’s students are from families of active-duty soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Drum.