[citation needed] Originally a high school for boys, St. John Berchmans College opened on November 3, 1902, by the Rev.

O'Connor was invited by Bishop Anthony Durier of the Diocese of Natchitoches to establish a new church and a high school for boys in Shreveport.

Consequently, the New Orleans Province couldn’t expect to continue fully staffing all its Jesuit schools with priests in the future.

The driving forces for keeping the school alive during this period were largely provided by a small group of local Catholic lay men and women, as well as clergy.

Finally, it was during the Ernst years that the Society of Jesus ultimately relinquished all control of the school in 1982 to the Board of Trustees.

[citation needed] Girls were admitted to Loyola for the first time in 1987, in an attempt to circumvent the dwindling student enrollment that had been occurring since 1980 from a downturn in the local economy.

St. Vincent's Academy, a local Catholic high school for girls founded in 1868 by the Order of the Daughters of the Cross, was approached by Loyola in 1986 about the possibly of a merger, but they declined the offer to further conduct serious discussions.

[6] Although each school was wholly autonomous in an administrative, fiduciary, and academic sense, by the later years of their coexistence, Loyola and St Vincent's had come to be informally regarded by many members of the community as more-or-less partner schools because they often participated in joint extracurricular activities in a manner that seemed to emulate a coeducational institution.

In 2005, Loyola temporarily admitted nearly 200 displaced students from several Catholic high schools damaged by Hurricane Katrina in south Louisiana.

The current faculty member with the longest continuous service is Mike Mawhinney, who as of 2022 has taught and coached at the school since 1976, or 46 years.

The previous record of 45 years was held by physical science teacher Frank J. Cicero (1926 - 2018), who joined the school in 1950 and retired in 1995.

The current Flyer baseball field is named Frank Cicero Field in his honor and Warrington Place, the street adjacent to the school campus on the east side, was renamed Cicero Street in 1996, the year after his retirement.

Loyola announced in 2008 that eight juniors were named as National Merit Scholars, the highest number in the school's history.

This honor roll recognizes those schools that best maintain high academic standards, uphold their Catholic identities, and prepare students to actively engage the world.

[13] Loyola graduation requirements include the completion of 100 hours of community service with an approved non-profit organization or project dedicated to helping individuals with special needs.

Athletic teams are known as the Flyers and the mascot is Snoopy from the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz.