Montana Catholic Schools Weekly
February 8, 2016
Our Newest Catholic School
Our state’s newest Catholic school opened in January in Lodge Grass, Montana. The St. Labre Indian School network opened up a preschool in Lodge Grass, a small town on the Crow Reservation. The school serves 12 preschool students (tuition-free) and is teaching a dual language immersion model (Crow & English languages). Here is a short video of one of the teachers, Alfetta Jefferson, teaching in Crow.
Lodge Grass was once a mixed nationality small town with well-kept houses, restaurants, a hardware store, and other small businesses. For a variety of reasons, Lodge Grass slipped into a majority poverty small town. These reasons include the construction of Interstate 90 outside of town (which made driving to Hardin or Billings much easier for retail and entertainment options) and racial tensions which caused most of the white residents to flee (dropping the value of houses, which then led to further poverty). Lodge Grass is not a very appealing place to live by any measure (aesthetic, socio-economic, etc.).
Into this depressed environment stepped St. Labre. Many of the young people make the 25 mile trip to St. Xavier every day to attend Pretty Eagle Catholic Academy, a K-8 Catholic school run by the St. Labre network. And then many of these same students enroll at St. Labre HS after Pretty Eagle and live in the dorms during the week. St. Labre has decided that early learning is a new frontier. The Lodge Grass preschool was opened in the Our Lady of Loretto parish building which boasts four classrooms, a gym, and a kitchen.
I believe it's appropriate that the Lodge Grass preschool is our newest school. Pope Francis has challenged Catholics to minister on the margins of society. This school fits that category. He has called for a poor church to serve the poor.
The St. Labre Indian School network now operates six Indian Catholic schools in their tuition-free model. St. Labre is able to raise enough money to serve their mission of providing a Catholic education on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations. St. Labre is able to meld Catholic and native traditions, as seen in a video taken by yours truly last week at their All-School Mass.
Dr. Tim Uhl, Superintendent
St. Charles Mission School
Tipi Tabernacle
Board of Sisters
St. Labre drum circle
Tri-cultural
Best Seats in the House!
Lodge Grass gym
Teaching in Two Languages
Abandoned House, Lodge Grass
Mt. Calvary on the Reservation
Ribbon Cutting
Parish Support
The Week Ahead
Tuesday: Office (Helena)
Wednesday: chancery meetings (Great Falls)
Thursday: office (Helena)
Friday: UGF Board of Trustees (Great Falls)
This week: 465 miles
Last week: 1,061 miles
2015-16: 15,629 driving miles; 7,844 air miles
Montana Catholic Schools
Email: superintendent@montanacc.org
Website: www.montanacatholicschools.org
Location: PO Box 1708 Helena MT 59601
Phone: (406) 442-5761
Twitter: @mtcathschools
For Principals
- There is a new SSO (Student Scholarship Organization) which will begin providing scholarships to students in private schools. It is called Big Sky Scholarships and has our complete support. Here is the link to the donations page.
- For the March regional meetings--March 15th at Miles City; March 17th at Hays; March 22nd at Butte. All meetings will start at 10 am and lunch will be provided by the hosts.
- Here is the link to the Monthly Principal tasks. Intent forms for faculty/staff should be distributed soon.
American Catholic News
Dr. Craig Pearson wins Billings Central Educator of the Year
- The Billings Gazette links are often hard to open. Here is the link to the story
- Here's another way to get to the article
American Catholic Schools Opening & Closing
Lent & Ash Wednesday Resources
- Matthew Kelly of "Dynamic Catholic" has a program called "The Best Lent Ever." This link has the description and a short video. I'm signed up!
- Busted Halo's two minute video on Lent & Ash Wednesday.
- Sadlier's Lenten resources page. For those of you with the "We Believe" series, this should match up pretty well.
- Funny video about Lent. If you like religious parody, this is it.
- "A Catechist's Journey" blog about Lent.
- Fr. Mike from Ascension Press gives a reflection on Lent.
- Dr. Carolyn Woo's Lenten reflection from last year.
- Lenten resources from Loyola Press.