A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. Psalm 51:12
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Another month is gone and our shortest calendar month will indeed seem to go even faster. Every month I look at the calendar and wonder how we can squeeze so much in such a short time. But we do, and most of the time we do it successfully. Of course this nine weeks we have had even more challenges due to the heating unit and the weather.
The beginning of this month is very special for us because of Catholic Schools Week. I am not going to repeat all of our plans/schedule for the week in this communication because it has been sent out to you so many times in several formats. Please note the dates that parents are invited. We would love to have you. However, note that parents are NOT invited to the Friday mass at Sts. Peter and Paul. It is not because we don’t want you, but we just will not have the room. We will be seating 980 students, faculties from all three schools, and the priests from the deanery. This is a special time for the students and we want to make it as meaningful and comfortable as possible. Thank you for your understanding of this.
On February 2, the fifth and eighth grade students will be taking the TCAP Writing Assessment. Information was sent home to all the parents explaining the process and the scoring. If you are one of these parents and have not received the information, check your student’s book bag. If you still cannot find it, I can get you another copy of it. Just let me know.
On February 10th our basketball teams will be playing St. Jude School. Seventh/eighth grades games will be played at Notre Dame and the fifth/sixth grades will be played here. We will be having a pep rally that afternoon to inspire school spirit. Join us at both the pep rally and at a venue for the games.
Traditionally, January is Family Empowerment Month. But because our January was so hectic, we are designating February as our Family Empowerment Month. I have sent emails out to various grade level parent groups about workshops geared especially for them. If you are one of those parents, I encourage your attendance. Please let us know if you can attend so we can prepare for the correct numbers. Other activities for this month will be going home shortly.
I sent an email to all of you explaining Parent Conferences. I cannot emphasize enough how important these are. Your child/children do not have to be in academic trouble to attend these conferences. Also, bringing your child/children to these conferences is very beneficial. We’d much rather talk to/with the child than about him/her. He/she in return can understand that we’re working together as parents and educators to help him/her be successful. He/she can participate in the conversation and shed some light on out misunderstandings. So, please make an appointment to attend the Parent Conferences. Knowing that Friday was not a good day for most parents, we are holding them on Tuesday, Feb. 9, after school until 7:30. School will still dismiss at 11:30 on Friday, Feb. 12, as scheduled to compensate the time taken on Tuesday evening. During that morning of Feb. 12, the Spanish teachers have planned a special Cultural Day Program for the children. More information will be going home on that. Reminder: Ash Wednesday is February 17th.
Mark the date: On March 3 we will be having a "Family Biofuels Night". This will be a science/math evening of fun and learning on the topic of Biolfuels. This program is possible through the outreach program of the Creative Discovery Museum. Have a great February and pray that the Groundhog does not see his shadow so Spring will be here soon.
God Bless,
Jeri McInturff
1/28/10
1/11/10
January, 2010
Principal’s Corner
January 2010
This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm118:24
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Happy New Year!
We started this new year and school semester with some drama due to our heating situation that resulted in a delay of school opening. Thank goodness for our new Parent Alert System; it made things a lot easier. I am very sorry about any inconvenience; as a working parent, I know how difficult it is to get child care at the last moment. We do have a game plan for January 11th regardless of the heating situation in St. Patrick’s Hall. We will be giving out report cards Wednesday the 13th and have our awards ceremony (5th through 8th grades) on Friday the 15th. Please check our FanFare for all the weekly updates on upcoming pictures, basketball game schedules, lunch menus, and other pertinent information. We update the FanFare weekly and any other information that needs to be updated will be on our website as it happens, including school closing.
Reminder: There is a scheduled holiday this month; Martin Luther King, Jr. King Day is January 18th.
Before I go any further, I want to thank all of you from all of the staff for your generous Christmas thoughts, prayers, and gifts. But more than that, thank you for all of your wonderful support.
We have a Home and School Meeting scheduled January 20. We wish all of you would join us. To make it more convenient for our busy parents, the officers of Home and School have changed our monthly meetings to every other month. Parent involvement is a very important part of our school; we need you.
Our OLPH Science Fair is Jan. 21-22. If you want to see some outstanding work done by our middle schools students, you need to visit our PLC on these days and look at these displays. Every year I am blown away by the incredible products of our students.
January is Family Empowerment Month. We are planning some great parent opportunities for every grade level. Because of the holidays and the late beginning of the new semester, I haven’t been able to finalize all the plans; therefore, some of these may take place in February. The dates I do have confirmed are Family Honor for the 8th grade parents and students on January 29 & 30. This is a wonderful program that we have hosted for a few years. This year it will be at St. Stephen’s Church because our facilities were all booked. We always get great feedback on this program. The information has been out for a while; if you are a parent/guardian of an 8th grade student, this program is worth it. For further information you can contact Mary Pat Haywood. I am speaking to a facilitator for the combined parents of 6th and 7th grade students. He has had a busy schedule and has been out of town. I will get the information out to you after we confirm the date.
We are also working on a program for the 5th grade parents. We did this program with last year’s fifth grade parents and it was very successful. Again, when the date is firmed, we will let you know. Parents of 4th Graders, mark February 10 on your calendar. I have a dynamite facilitator coming in for you; more information will come to you soon. Parents of Kindergarten through second grade, you will be invited to attend mass with your children on on February 5 (end of Catholic Schools Week) and join your children for a fun presentation from a local author (Philip Rogers) of children books. You, too, will be getting more information soon. We hope these activities for Family Empowerment Month will be the beginning of another great tradition at OLPH. It is another step forward in our Strategic Plan of parent involvement and communication.
Fifth and eighth grade students will be taking the TCAP Writing Assessment on February 2. There will be a yellow flyer coming home with the students to explain this assessment and give you more information. This is the second year we are participating in this assessment; we had great results last year.
Catholic Schools Week begins Sunday, January 31. We have exciting plans for the week. Details will come soon, but below is a synopsis of what to expect:
Sunday, Jan. 31—10:00 Mass with a Pancake Breakfast to follow. Students will be participating in the mass and the 7th graders will be helping with the breakfast. The proceeds of the breakfast will go to Doug Owens who is the seminarian that our 7th graders adopted when they were 5th graders.
Monday, February 1—Community Day: Service-Learning/Community Outreach. The following grade levels will be collecting items throughout January for the community programs. (More detailed information will be coming out.) On Monday the students will be presenting their results to representatives of organizations at 10:00 in our gym.
Kindergarten-3rd: Salvation Army
4th-6th Animal Shelter
7th & 8th Ronald McDonald House
Tuesday, February 2—Student Spirit Day and Volunteer Appreciation Day. The students will be out of uniform with some type of OLPH logo shirt. We will have a Spiritual Pep Rally at 2:20 in the gym. All parents are invited. For our Volunteers, there will be a brunch after the 8:15 mass in the cafeteria. Invitations will be sent.
Wednesday, February 3—National Day and Crazy Hair Day. Students will write letters or make cards for military personnel or VA patients. If you have someone in mind who would appreciate receiving one, please submit his/her name and address to us. Also, students may get very creative with their hair that day.
Thursday, February 4—Vocations Day and Crazy Sock Day. A prayer Chain will be made for various religious and lay persons of our community. We are working on getting guest speakers for our students on vocations. Students may get very creative with their socks that day.
Friday, February 5--Culmination Celebration of the week. Grades 3-8 will join St. Jude and Notre Dame in a community mass at St. Peter & Paul Church at 10:00. The mass will be celebrated by the Bishop and co-celebrated by many priests of our Diocese.
(Sorry, there will be no room to invite parents.) Father Ragan Schriver will be addressing the students after mass. They will return to school for a pizza lunch provided by Home and School. The kindergarteners through second graders will be having mass at OLPH with parents invited. There will be light refreshments following the mass and a presentation by Philip Rogers, author of children books on God. They will have a pizza lunch provided by Home and School.
All of the above plans are not completed yet, and more details will be sent out as they become so.
I know this has been a look letter, and I hope I haven’t forgotten anything important. I do want to stress the importance of keeping up with information from your teachers on Parents Web and on the School Website for the community.
Have a wonderful and warm month.
Sincerely,
Jeri McInturff
January 2010
This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm118:24
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Happy New Year!
We started this new year and school semester with some drama due to our heating situation that resulted in a delay of school opening. Thank goodness for our new Parent Alert System; it made things a lot easier. I am very sorry about any inconvenience; as a working parent, I know how difficult it is to get child care at the last moment. We do have a game plan for January 11th regardless of the heating situation in St. Patrick’s Hall. We will be giving out report cards Wednesday the 13th and have our awards ceremony (5th through 8th grades) on Friday the 15th. Please check our FanFare for all the weekly updates on upcoming pictures, basketball game schedules, lunch menus, and other pertinent information. We update the FanFare weekly and any other information that needs to be updated will be on our website as it happens, including school closing.
Reminder: There is a scheduled holiday this month; Martin Luther King, Jr. King Day is January 18th.
Before I go any further, I want to thank all of you from all of the staff for your generous Christmas thoughts, prayers, and gifts. But more than that, thank you for all of your wonderful support.
We have a Home and School Meeting scheduled January 20. We wish all of you would join us. To make it more convenient for our busy parents, the officers of Home and School have changed our monthly meetings to every other month. Parent involvement is a very important part of our school; we need you.
Our OLPH Science Fair is Jan. 21-22. If you want to see some outstanding work done by our middle schools students, you need to visit our PLC on these days and look at these displays. Every year I am blown away by the incredible products of our students.
January is Family Empowerment Month. We are planning some great parent opportunities for every grade level. Because of the holidays and the late beginning of the new semester, I haven’t been able to finalize all the plans; therefore, some of these may take place in February. The dates I do have confirmed are Family Honor for the 8th grade parents and students on January 29 & 30. This is a wonderful program that we have hosted for a few years. This year it will be at St. Stephen’s Church because our facilities were all booked. We always get great feedback on this program. The information has been out for a while; if you are a parent/guardian of an 8th grade student, this program is worth it. For further information you can contact Mary Pat Haywood. I am speaking to a facilitator for the combined parents of 6th and 7th grade students. He has had a busy schedule and has been out of town. I will get the information out to you after we confirm the date.
We are also working on a program for the 5th grade parents. We did this program with last year’s fifth grade parents and it was very successful. Again, when the date is firmed, we will let you know. Parents of 4th Graders, mark February 10 on your calendar. I have a dynamite facilitator coming in for you; more information will come to you soon. Parents of Kindergarten through second grade, you will be invited to attend mass with your children on on February 5 (end of Catholic Schools Week) and join your children for a fun presentation from a local author (Philip Rogers) of children books. You, too, will be getting more information soon. We hope these activities for Family Empowerment Month will be the beginning of another great tradition at OLPH. It is another step forward in our Strategic Plan of parent involvement and communication.
Fifth and eighth grade students will be taking the TCAP Writing Assessment on February 2. There will be a yellow flyer coming home with the students to explain this assessment and give you more information. This is the second year we are participating in this assessment; we had great results last year.
Catholic Schools Week begins Sunday, January 31. We have exciting plans for the week. Details will come soon, but below is a synopsis of what to expect:
Sunday, Jan. 31—10:00 Mass with a Pancake Breakfast to follow. Students will be participating in the mass and the 7th graders will be helping with the breakfast. The proceeds of the breakfast will go to Doug Owens who is the seminarian that our 7th graders adopted when they were 5th graders.
Monday, February 1—Community Day: Service-Learning/Community Outreach. The following grade levels will be collecting items throughout January for the community programs. (More detailed information will be coming out.) On Monday the students will be presenting their results to representatives of organizations at 10:00 in our gym.
Kindergarten-3rd: Salvation Army
4th-6th Animal Shelter
7th & 8th Ronald McDonald House
Tuesday, February 2—Student Spirit Day and Volunteer Appreciation Day. The students will be out of uniform with some type of OLPH logo shirt. We will have a Spiritual Pep Rally at 2:20 in the gym. All parents are invited. For our Volunteers, there will be a brunch after the 8:15 mass in the cafeteria. Invitations will be sent.
Wednesday, February 3—National Day and Crazy Hair Day. Students will write letters or make cards for military personnel or VA patients. If you have someone in mind who would appreciate receiving one, please submit his/her name and address to us. Also, students may get very creative with their hair that day.
Thursday, February 4—Vocations Day and Crazy Sock Day. A prayer Chain will be made for various religious and lay persons of our community. We are working on getting guest speakers for our students on vocations. Students may get very creative with their socks that day.
Friday, February 5--Culmination Celebration of the week. Grades 3-8 will join St. Jude and Notre Dame in a community mass at St. Peter & Paul Church at 10:00. The mass will be celebrated by the Bishop and co-celebrated by many priests of our Diocese.
(Sorry, there will be no room to invite parents.) Father Ragan Schriver will be addressing the students after mass. They will return to school for a pizza lunch provided by Home and School. The kindergarteners through second graders will be having mass at OLPH with parents invited. There will be light refreshments following the mass and a presentation by Philip Rogers, author of children books on God. They will have a pizza lunch provided by Home and School.
All of the above plans are not completed yet, and more details will be sent out as they become so.
I know this has been a look letter, and I hope I haven’t forgotten anything important. I do want to stress the importance of keeping up with information from your teachers on Parents Web and on the School Website for the community.
Have a wonderful and warm month.
Sincerely,
Jeri McInturff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)