All parents dream of seeing their children graduate and earn a good education. But how can they when they could not after sending their children to high school? Schooling in Manila way back in the 1940's was not easy as it is now. The founding fathers of Norzagaray Academy (N.A.) believed as all parents did, that knowledge and education are the twin gifts or riches that parents can give their children, that will never be and can never be taken away. For it is only in educating man that you open up for him a wide vista of opportunities - limitless and boundless.
It was in 1948 when the doors of Norzagaray Academy opened to the people of Norzagaray, then an extension of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Memorial High School of the neighboring town of Angat. The first graduates in 1949 numbered less than 15, mostly those who have stopped schooling for a year or so. The school of this pioneering students was the residence of the late spouses Gregorio G. Santos and Maria L. Santos, located at Abella Street, (now S. Pascual Street) Poblacion, Norzagaray, Bulacan. Through the ernest effort of the founding trustees, namely Gregorio G. Santos, Maria L. Santos, Martin B. Dela Merced, Enriqueta V. Dela Merced and Celso I. Leuterio, Norzagaray Academy became the bedrock of higher standard of learning. Time was, as it is now, when students are mostly those who cannot afford the luxury of going to Manila to study and those trying to save a little in preparation for a more expensive college education.
Successful alumni included doctors, lawyers, town mayors, accountants, engineers, businessman, nurses and others. Several of them have migrated and are now in the United States, some are in the Middle East, Japan, Australia, Canada, Europe and other countries.
Despite the challenges that Norzagaray Academy has gone through, one thing has remained constant. Norzagaray Academy has maintained the high standard of education it has committed to uphold. In fact, in the desire of the present school administration to raise the quality of education of the younger generation, Norzagaray Academy has opened the pre-school and elementary department, Norzagaray Academy Child Learning Center, to ensure that the children of Norzagaray will be exposed, even at the early stages of their lives, to a better and more meaningful system of education that will hopefully serve them in good stead in the future.
For this we only have to thank our dear "TATA and INA" (Gregorio G. Santos and Maria L. Santos). Maraming Salamat sa inyo!