Lent
Ash Wednesday is next week, and, as usual, we will have a special mass in the morning where our students, and any parents who wish, receive ashes. And thus we begin our Lenten journey as a community. This year, we will be incorporating our outreach as a school into our Lenten journey. Each classroom will have mission collections. The class will decide what the money is for. On Holy Thursday, we will have a Morning Prayer service as the day starts. Students will be bringing an item for whatever cause their class has selected as an outreach and every child will be invited to bring in food for the parish food bank. All of these will be brought over to the church during the prayer service and when the prayer service is over, the eighth graders will help deliver the goods and count the money. This helps us incorporate actual hands on outreach activity into our prayer and Lent itself.
Hopefully next year, we will be able to incorporate all of our outreach into Advent, Catholic School Week and Lent. That way, we are not randomly doing things on a constant basis throughout the year. Each class will have the freedom to decide what it concentrates on and it can be incorporated into their curriculum.
Language Arts
Our staff continues to receive in-service from various companies on the Language Arts programs that are available to schools. A few of our staff are also on the Archdiocesan committee that is looking into this subject area. It looks like we will be able to make a decision before the end of the year. The cost has been incorporated into next year’s budget. This will keep us on track in terms of a yearly update of a curriculum area. This year, as you recall, it was math.
Staff Review Meetings
I have been meeting with each member of the staff reviewing the year and the surveys and discussing ITBS test results. Thus far there are two teachers who will not be returning. And because of budgetary constraints our wonderful aides in kindergarten and first grade will not be returning next year. We wish them all the best in their future pursuits and thank them for their fantastic service to our community and our children.
Grandparents Lunch
The votes are in from our parent population. There was not a huge response. We have 333 families in the school and there is the possibility of two responses per family. That means the possible total responses could be 666. We received a total of 63 responses in the Survey Monkey Survey that was sent out. The results were as follows:
| Survey Results | |
|---|---|
| 48 | sell tickets and let Grandparents sit with their grandchildren realizing that when we are sold out it is closed |
| 1 | let the parents organize and do it on a day when there is no school |
| 12 | do it the same way we did it this year |
| 2 | do it the same way we did it this year and let the parents organize a separate one on a day when we have no school |
– George