The School Sisters of Notre Dame developed from the Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of Our Lady, founded by Peter Fourier and Alix Le Clerc in the Duchy of Lorraine in 1597 for the free education of poor girls.

[2] Karolina Gerhardinger commenced her training as a lay teacher at the local monastery of the Canonesses Regular of Notre Dame in Ratisbon.

Its founder Karolina Gerhardinger, known by the religious name of Mary Theresa of Jesus, formed a community with two other women in Neunburg vorm Wald to teach the poor.

[citation needed] The original rule of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, approved by Pope Pius IX in 1865, allowed Blessed Theresa and her successors, instead of local bishops, to govern the congregation.

[4] Much of their work has been in schools,[5] but the curriculum vitae of a group of jubilarians in 2014, from a province based in St. Louis, showed a wide variety of assignments: spiritual direction, retreats, adult basic education, RCIA programs, pastoral care among Hispanics, in hospitals, and among the disadvantaged,[6] language interpreting, outreach to native Americans and to migrants (also founding an Immigrant and Refugee Women's Program), and on mission to Honduras, Hungary, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Japan.

[8][9] Their involvement in migrant services is evidenced in their hosting at the US-Mexican border a conference for Shalom, an international network for justice, peace, and integrity of creation.