Enrollment for the first-year of Pope John Paul II Academy is going well, according to the Archdiocese of Boston. The Catholic school, which will open in September with five campuses across Dorchester, will replace the current eight-school, parish-based system.

Enrollment has climbed to over 70 percent, said Archdiocese spokesperson Terrence Donilon on Tuesday.

"Which is phenomenal when you think most Catholic schools wouldn't even be approaching that number until the spring," he said. "We saw this in Brockton, but somehow I have a feeling it's happening a bit more here."

Aside from overseeing construction on the St. Margaret School on Columbia Road and planning for other construction in each of the five-campus system, the 2010 Initiative team is also hunting internally and externally for a regional director for PJPII.

"They've whittled it down to the people that are most qualified to do this," said Donilon. "Our goal is to announce in the next couple weeks."

Donilon said it is hoped that offers would be made to potential principals by the end of March, and teachers in April. In the Archdiocese's original "Dorchester/Mattapan Approved School Plan," introduced in a PowerPoint document in November 2007, a deadline of January 2008 was given for choosing a regional director. But other documents gave the same date as the beginning of the selection process.