In what used to be a remote area called Barrio Obrero (Village of Laborers), located further east of Bacolod City proper, Negros Occidental, Philippines, a gradual conglomeration of laborers from the nearby sugar mill, factories and sugar plantation, came to reside here permanently.
To carry out the mission of St. John Baptist De La Salle for the poor and the working class, the La Salle Brothers with the assistance of a charitable institution, The Young Ladies' Association of Charity (YLAC), established the Immaculate Conception Free School in 1954. The Honorable Alfredo Montelibano Sr. donated to the Bishop of Bacolod City a one-hectare lot for the school site.
The school started with two classes of first graders housed in a two-room building. Miss Gloria Cayetano, a grade school teacher of La Salle, administered the newly opened school.
The impressive performance in the inculcation of Christian values and education to the poor and the working class during the first year of its operation attracted more residents to enroll their sons in the following year. Numerous benefactors, enthusiastic in spreading Christian education among the economically deprived families, gave their financial support.
The establishment of the Immaculate Conception Free School generally motivated other low-income groups to seek permanent residence in Barrio Obrero. Because of migration influx, the school was not able to accommodate the increasing number of children in the community. This prompted the city government of Bacolod to establish the Barrio Obrero Primary School on an adjacent lot. The presence of Immaculate Conception Free School also paved way in the establishment of a church within the school campus, which eventually became the parish church in 1969.
The first batch of graduates in March 1964 was forty-five (45) boys. But the unavailability of a secondary school within the vast area beset these young boys in their pursuit of secondary education. Brother Francis Cody FSC then Director of La Salle College – Bacolod, out of his missionary spirit, sought the assistance of all benevolent benefactors of Immaculate Conception Free School in the establishment of a La Salle Secondary School within the same site, for the poor and the working class. The primary reason, which generated his move, was the need to carry on the Christian values, which had already been imbibed in the hearts and minds of these young boys. To further the involvement of the De La Salle Brothers, Brother Francis named Brother Gratian Murray FSC as the first resident Brother Director of Immaculate Conception Free School.
Named after St. Joseph, the patron saint of the workers, St. Joseph's High School was established in 1960, on an adjoining lot of 1.3 hectares donated by the Honorable Alfredo Montelibano Sr. to the La Salle Brothers. It started with the forty-five (45) graduates of Immaculate Conception Free School charging with minimum fees. Affluent families of Bacolod City braced the construction of classrooms, library, science laboratories, work education building, and other needs financially. With all these, the school gained momentum to serve both graduates of the Immaculate Conception Free School and the adjacent public school – the Barrio Obrero Elementary School the succeeding years.
Responding to the apostolate of spreading Christian education, the boys in their final year in the school spent their free time in the afternoon, teaching religion to the pupils in the adjacent public school. The need to assist adults who earned their income during the day, but still enthusiastic to advance themselves educationally, was also felt. It was decided that the Brothers established an adult secondary night high school in 1966.
Inflation and sudden fluctuation in sugar price in the later part of the 1960's brought about the decrement of financial support from benefactors who helped run the Immaculate Conception Free School. In addition, more boys had to move to the adjacent public elementary school. The adverse effect of the recession forced the La Salle Brothers to gradually phase out the Immaculate Conception Free School in 1971. However, teachers were still retained to teach in the newly established high school.
The first decade of the operation of St. Joseph's High School was so impressive that parents began to suggest the same kind of Christian education for their young girls. The La Salle Brothers deliberated on the matter and finally came out with the adoption of a co-educational system that same year 1971.
Within the first three years of co-educational operation, the school population accelerated to a great number. A good number of La Salle Brothers came to teach in St. Joseph's. If not for their vow of obedience, some could have stayed permanently to continue their noble mission to the poor and working class, to which they are called.
Although generally quite known locally, this institution has been mistakenly referred to as a branch of a bigger Manila school named St. Joseph College. Even in Negros, there are at least three schools that are similarly named (St. Joseph Academy in the town of E.B. Magalona which is just 20 kilometers from the city, St. Joseph High School in Inayawan, Municipality of Cauayan, Negros Occidental and St. Joseph's College in Canlaon City, Negros Occidental), thereby causing some unavoidable confusion even for the postal service. At times, St. Joseph's has also been misclassified as a supervised school.
Through the years, growth in resource development was also slow due to the fact that only a few international and national funding agencies, philanthropic societies and foundations are aware of the fact that St. Joseph's is one of the La Salle district schools in the country. Grants and linkages may be more obtainable if St. Joseph's carried an internationally recognizable name, a name that also deserves for being a school close to the heart of its Founder, St. John Baptist de La Salle.
In a bold move to capture the fifty years of Lasallian education that St. Joseph's has and is continuing to provide for children of low income families, the institution's stakeholders (students, parents, alumni, support staff, teachers and the La Salle Brothers of the Philippine District) proposed to adopt a new name. As a full member of the Lasallian family of Philippine district schools, St. Joseph's High School shall have its official name directly identify with the Founder of the De La Salle Brothers. In light of its present comprehensive spiritual and academic programs, long-term community service initiatives and its future development, this noble institution of learning started carrying the name “St. Joseph School - La Salle,” last school year 2005-2006.
The school hopes that this development would spur new and creative initiatives from among its present and future stakeholders to assure that the school can and will continue to serve the children of poor families in Negros in the Founder's name and with God's blessings, for another fifty, hundred or so years.
Today, as the only Catholic school in the heart of Barangay Villamonte, with its population of thirty-four thousand inhabitants of whom eighty-four (84%) percent belong to the working class, St. Joseph School - La Salle is proud to be one of the prime factors in the transition of once an underdeveloped area into a premiere barangay of Bacolod City.