St. Mary’s University of Minnesota will create a St. Paul Catholic high school focused on trade and technology, the university announced Monday.

Starting in 2028, ninth grade students will be able to prepare for employment, industry credentials and apprenticeships and have the opportunity to earn a defined number of college credits through St. Mary’s University while in high school.

The school will be named Blessed Santiago Miller School of Trade and Technology after Blessed James “Santiago” Miller, a graduate and faculty member of St. Mary’s University of Minnesota who died in 1982.

“For more than a year, the Board of Trustees and I have been considering how Saint Mary’s can respond authentically and distinctively to the changing educational, workforce, and societal needs of our time while remaining faithful to who we are as a Lasallian Catholic university,” said Rev. James P. Burns, St. Mary’s president, in a statement Monday.

The school is funded by a group of anonymous donors as part of a restricted gift that will be used to purchase the property and fund its initial operating budget, according to university officials. That budget includes salaries, maintenance, security, insurance and related expenses for the first positions at the school.

The initial trade school grounds will be at the St. Francis de Sales campus at 650 Palace Ave. in St. Paul’s West Seventh neighborhood.

The St. Francis campus includes a school building, church, rectory and parish offices. University officials are under agreement to buy the property and the nearby St. James campus at 496 View St. from St. Francis de Sales parish.

The parish will keep the St. James Church building, but the school, convent and rectory will be part of the Blessed Santiago Miller Trade School.

The Archdiocese owns the convent on the St. Francis de Sales campus and the structure is not part of the sale.

Mary Spring will serve as director of Secondary School Initiatives and she will lead planning and development of the school. She formerly served as principal of Lourdes High School in Rochester, Minn., and has spent decades in secondary education.

An advisory council will support Spring with expertise on education, skilled trades, business, workforce development, philanthropy and Catholic education.

Blessed Santiago Miller was a De La Salle Christian Brother, a graduate of St. Mary’s and a faculty member at St. Mary’s and Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. He was later devoted to Lasallian education.

“He is, in many respects, an extraordinary patron for this undertaking: a St. Mary’s alumnus, educator, Christian Brother, skilled worker, missionary, and martyr whose life brought together faith, education, practical skill, service, and concern for those on the margins,” Burns said. “His name grounds this new school unmistakably in our own history and in the Lasallian Catholic tradition we seek to carry forward.”

St. Mary’s University of Minnesota enrolls thousands of students at its undergraduate and graduate programs on campuses in Minneapolis, Rochester and Winona, as well as online.