Liceo de Paete is a private secretarian high school presently owned by the diocesan of San Pablo under the management of the Deocesan School Board Catholic School Systems Officers. Although the school has a small population, it can survive all the pressures and ordeals that private school encounter.

The school was founded in 1959 by a group of Maryknoll Fathers who were assigned then in the parished of St. James the Apostle in Paete, Laguna. The Maryknoll Fathers were headed by a group of religious leaders in town. They unanimously named the founded school as San Santiago High School, taken after the name of the patron saint San Santiago Apostol. The school ground is the church patio and the building is the old and antiquated rectory.

The operation started with just a handful of first year students. One class was added yearly until it had its first batch of graduates in April 1963.

When the Maryknoll Missionary Fathers left the province, the school was entrusted to the succeeding parished priest, thus making this a parochial school and the said priest automatically became the Director.

Then in 1970, the ownership of the school was acquired by the Diocese of San Pablo, including the other seventeen parochial and/or Catholic Schools scattered all over the province of Laguna. It had its director, the bishop of the Diocese of San Pablo, Msgr. Pedro N. Bantigue, D.D Missionary of Religious Sisters helped the bishop in running the schools by being the school Principals. Various religious congregations such as Dominican (O.P.), Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) and Augustinian Recollect (A.R.) successively held the positions.

In 1982, all the diocesan schools were given new names for uniforminity, bearing the named of town where the said school is located. Hence, SAN SANTIAGO HIGH SCHOOL was changed to LICEO DE PAETE.

                Liceo de Paete was under a lay principal, Mrs. Catalina C. Delgado, who assumed the position in June 1986. There were eleven hardworking classroom teachers and four non-teaching personnel who diligently and lovingly cater to the needs of the 400 young sisters. Despite all the odds and threatening decrease of enrollment due to the two nearby national high school, our school still holds high its banner of optimism and bright hopes.

In 1996, when His Excellency, Msgr. Pedro N. Bantigue, D.D retired his post as Bishop of Diocese of San Pablo by His Excellency Msgr. Francisco C. San Diego, D.D succeeded his position.