Jesuit High School Tampa · Executive Summary · July 2026
The Thesis
As AI commoditizes routine cognitive work, pre-college education must shift from knowledge transfer to judgment, agency, and the ability to build real things with real stakes — and Jesuit's formation model is well-suited to lead on this before any other Florida Catholic or independent prep school does.
"We are standing at a convergence — AI, robotics, ubiquitous computation, and open access to the tools of creation are collapsing into a single moment. It is a brave new world in the truest sense: for the first time, a young man's capacity to create, to build, and to do good at scale is gated not by institution or capital, but by imagination and formation. Our obligation is not to prepare students to survive that world. It is to prepare them to author it."
— Jonathan Holloway, Founder, JMH Studio
Magisterial alignment — the moment
In January 2025 the Vatican issued Antiqua et Nova, the doctrinal note on AI and human intelligence. Pope Leo XIV then made AI the defining theme of his pontificate — creating an Interdicasterial Commission on AI (May 2026) and publishing his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (May 25, 2026), on safeguarding the human person in the age of AI. He writes that AI "must be disarmed" — yet insists that "technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity," but must be guided by responsible and ethical use. Not rejection; stewardship. His central concern is labor: rapid automation displacing workers into "forced inactivity." That is this program's thesis stated in papal language. The encyclical does not merely permit a Catholic school to build this program.
It's the assignment.
Where Jesuit Stands Today
0.5 cr
Only AI course on offer (AVLI, online)
4.0
GPA gate on AP CS A — internal policy, fixable
$0
Real estate curriculum currently on the books
1st
Mover position still open among FL Catholic/independent prep schools
The Architecture
Not a bolted-on tech track — an infusion model: AI and emerging technologies embedded across existing courses (English, theology, history, math, science, athletics), with a thin spine of dedicated coursework and co-curriculars on top. No new credit slots required; solves the schedule problem structurally.