Dear Parents/Guardians:
As the school year has come to a close, our minds and hearts are filled to the brim with pride. I would like to express how grateful I am to be leading such a remarkable community of students, parents & staff. It has been an amazing year! I am so proud of all of the achievements and accomplishments of our students here at Holy Family School. It’s been a year filled with many memories, successes, and transitions. Together we’ve learned so much and shared experiences that will long remain with us in the years to come. All of this would not be possible without your continued support and dedication.
One thing I know is that the strength of our community and wholehearted passion make our school a wonderful place of learning for our children. Thanks to the support of our parents, volunteers, and community members, Holy Family School truly is a special place. I want to also take this opportunity to thank the Parent Advisory Committee and Marketing Committee for all of their support to our students and staff this past year. You are an amazing group of people and everything you do is greatly appreciated!
Reflecting on the past school year, we have had so many great memories and exciting events to look back on. We continued many successful traditions such as our book fairs, all-school rosary, Caring About People (CAP), Godchild Bowling, Heroes for Hunger, Workathon and many more heartfelt memories. We also added many new experiences, which we will continue and make new traditions of such as our Little World Changer character education program, all-school assemblies, faith-filled Fridays, book buddies, and the all-school Divine Mercy Chaplet. Our students really enjoyed all of these activities.
Looking ahead, we have many exciting new initiatives that we are bringing to HFS for the upcoming year. You can click on any of the hyper-links to learn more about the program. We will be incorporating IXL into our math curriculum, as well as Believe and Read a new reading curriculum based on the Science of Reading. This program will be integrated into the K-2 classrooms next fall with 3rd grade being added the following year. We will also have a new Student Information System called JMC, which you have already started to use. More information and training will be coming out to families in the future. All grade levels will have an opportunity to participate in STEM (science/technology/engineering/mathematics) activities 2x a month next year. In addition, we are also fortunate to have a shared part-time Phy-ed teacher, Michael Knoblauch from the public school, who will be at HFS next year. This will be a great opportunity for our students.
Starting in the 2023-24 school year the Free School Meals Program is being implemented. The Free School Meals Program is a state-funded program that provides reimbursement for meals served to students who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals. This means ALL students will receive breakfast and lunch at no cost. This legislation provides a maximum of one free breakfast and one free lunch per day to students at participating schools. A second breakfast and/or a second lunch is considered an a la carte item and must be priced at the adult meal rate. A breakfast menu will be coming out in the fall prior to the start of school along with breakfast serving time.
The school calendar for next year is attached in this newsletter. As you know there was a survey sent out to parents seeking input continuing 2-hour late starts or removing them in the upcoming school year. The survey results were overwhelmingly positive to remove the 2-hour late starts. With that being said, HFS will not have any scheduled 2-hour late starts which means our schedule will look different from the public school calendar. On 2-hour late start days, parents will need to transport their child(ren) to HFS - students will be able to ride the bus home on those days as they normally do. Please see the calendar for more information and specific color coding on various days. In addition there will be 2 required parent-teacher conferences next year. These are also indicated on the calendar. The school calendar will also be available on our website and on JMC.
Many thanks to the teachers and staff who have done an amazing job in supporting our students both academically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. Their hard work and dedication does not go unnoticed! We are also in the process of hiring an additional support staff to assist in the Kindergarten classrooms and with the breakfast program that will be starting in the fall. Jerry Hiltner, our Head Cook, will be retiring this year. We wish Jerry the very best in his retirement and hope he is able to relax and do all the things that he deserves. We will definitely miss him in the kitchen, but are hopeful he will still be seen at HFS helping out when needed. A special thanks to you, the parents who have contributed in ways small, large and unimaginable! Thank you for the partnership between home and school, which is so important. We appreciate all that you do each and every day for our school and our children!
As always we encourage parents/guardians to be involved in their child(ren)’s education. Our goal in the upcoming year is to encourage parent involvement with parent representation across all grade levels. With that being said, there are 3 opportunities for parents to participate on the Parent Advisory Committee (PAC). We are looking for parent representation from the following grade levels: Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. The committee meets 5 times a year and plays a vital role in supporting strategies that provide a positive outcome for students. Please consider getting involved or call the school if you have any questions.
Finally, students will be coming home on the last day with their report cards indicating their promotion to the next grade. In early August, students will receive a “Welcome Back” letter from their respective teacher for the new school year. Different from the past, full class rosters will not be sent home with every student on the last day of school. Instead, students will receive individual teacher assignments in the welcome letter in August. Teachers have spent a significant amount of time ensuring that students are placed appropriately for the upcoming school year based on many factors, such as academic needs, social needs, maturity levels, and learning styles to name a few. With that being said, Holy Family School will not accept parent requests as the process used is based on individual student needs and also keeping classes balanced. Teachers know the students well and are able to accurately make decisions in the best interest of the student. Holy Family reserves the right to make changes as needed prior to the start of the school year based on other incoming students that may require an adjustment to the current placement in order to meet all student needs. This is one of the main reasons that teacher assignments will not be shared out until August. I realize this is a change, but students will have a “Welcome Back” letter to look forward to prior to the start of school.
We look forward to celebrating another year when we are all back together in the fall. May God bless you and keep you safe and healthy over the summer.
Ms. Otte & the teachers and staff at Holy Family School
