The Page
Weekly Newsletter - November 1, 2018
Happy All Saints Day!
Our Motto: Teaching the Mind...Nourishing the Soul
Theme for the Year - TRUTH
At St. Joseph Catholic School, we are striving to become missionary disciples by revealing the Truth of Christ to others through our actions.
Mission and Vision Statements
Mission:
St. Joseph Catholic School provides students with a safe and prayerful learning environment, enveloped by an intimate community of active and faithful families.
Vision:
Catholic schools in the Diocese of Fort Worth are committed to opening the doors so that our students can reach further than the walls that would otherwise enclose them and therefore are able to recognize and cherish the eternal and transcendental goods of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
From the Principal
Happy All Saints Day! It has been a glorious day!
Our day began with the opportunity to gather together at Mass to celebrate the saints in heaven. The voices of the student choir, the skill of the student readers, and the gifts that are our student altar servers all added to the beauty of the service. When the afternoon arrived, the hallways and pods were filled with the smells of delicious food and the sounds of excited children as parents and grandparents made their way to the classrooms. We thank you for always making this a special day for our students.
The reading from the Gospel of Matthew was an extra special one today, for it brought us the Beatitudes delivered by Jesus to his disciples and to the crowd gathered around. It is fitting that this particular Gospel passage is read on All Saints Day, as these words serve as guidelines directing us to sainthood. At St. Joseph Catholic School, we speak often about living out the Beatitudes. Students witnessed exemplifying these teachings receive the Frassati Award, but they actually receive much more than this. They receive peace in their hearts knowing they have done something good for another child of God. It is my prayer that our students never lose that feeling as they grow older.
Go, Knights! Live in the Truth.
In Christ's service,
Diane Price, M.Ed.L.
Truth Bible Quote for November
Saintly Truth Quote to ponder
"This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist." - St. Pope John Paul II
Latin and Greek Roots Challenge
leg-, lect-, lig-, solv-, solu-, tropo-, trop-, -trope
How to Become a volunteer?
You must first create a profile in VIRTUS for the Safe Environment Diocesan Program.
Per the Diocese, all school volunteers if they are current on Safe Environment, will have until 7/31/19 to renew through VIRTUS if you do not expire before that date. You need to go on the VIRTUS website and make a profile. You can do this without signing up for a class. Profiles are needed in the new system so we know you have previous training, as the old database is no longer open for viewing.
A campus can move up the date that VIRTUS is needed, as Nolan has, but it cannot go past the new school year in August of 2019. We have opted to allow families as much time as allowed to complete your training with the 7/31/19 deadline.
If you have had no Safe Environment training at all, you must take the VIRTUS training now to be able to volunteer.
Steps:
Go to fwdioc.org
Click on Safe Environment
Click on Training Sessions, which looks like a calendar
Click on I need a VIRTUS Profile
Continue through the prompts.
A Safe Environment Awareness Session on Campus is coming!
Box of Joy 2018
The boxes are in!
Way to be missionary disciples, Knights! This is living in the TRUTH!
Reminders and Upcoming Events
- Tomorrow is All Souls Day. Please remember to pray for the souls in Purgatory.
- Tomorrow is Armor Pass Day! This means FREE DRESS for students whose parents purchased a pass for $5.00. Please abide by the dress code guidelines in the Parent/Student Handbook.
- Food Drive - November 12th through November 16th - The St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Joseph Parish will be accepting our donations to serve the needy and then creating Thanksgiving Baskets with the items. Here are the items they need: frozen turkeys, canned fruit of any kind, dried onions, sweet potatoes,instant mashed potatoes, broth, boxed turkey stuffing, turkey gravy, and dinner rolls. If would like to bring a frozen turkey, they need all sizes.
- Picture re-take day is Wednesday, November 7th. Please wear your Required Uniform and sweater if you are a Pre-K - 5th grade boy or an Upper School student. If you ordered a picture package and want a re-take, bring the picture package back on that day to the photographer. If you were absent on picture day or had not started school yet, please take a re-take picture. If you want to order a re-take picture, please send in the order form with payment. More order forms are in the front office. You may still order pictures online at www.myschoolpicture.com.
- GARAGE SALE ITEMS COLLECTION on Wednesday, NOVEMBER 7th from 7:30-8:30am and 2:30-3:30pm in the east St. Joseph Church parking lot. Rain or shine. 8th grade continues to collect donations of ALL items and hangers for their garage sale fundraiser. If you have furniture/large quantities contact Ashley Goralski @ 817.456.2620 or Susan Ozuna @ 817.781.4196 Email: sjcs2019garagesale@gmail.com. See attached for information. Thank you for helping us! ~Class of 2019
- Our Little Gobbler Open House event takes place on Friday, November 9th from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Please invite your friends with Preschool and Kindergarten-aged children by the 2019-2020 school year. We would to add them to our SJCS family.
- If you are an Amazon customer, please use Amazon Smile! We receive a donation from Amazon when you shop. Go to: smile.amazon.com to participate. It is a very easy way to support the school! Thank you!
- If you know a St. Joseph Catholic School alumni, please let them know we are looking to stay in contact, and would love to hear how they are doing. See the notice in our alumni section of below.
Annual Fund - Quest for Excellence!
Don't forget to participate in our Annual Fund - Quest for Excellence! You've Got the Power! With 100% participation in 100 days, we hope to raise $100,000 to help with campus security enhancements, tuition assistance, construction of another storage facility, and bonuses for our teachers. Any amount is appreciated.
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has already participated! We have created a display in the school foyer to celebrate our participants. If you do not wish for your name to be shared in any display or in any publication, please email me (dprice@stjosephtx.org) and your name will be kept anonymous.
Home and School Association (HSA)
- Next HSA Spirit Night - November 6th at Panera (4000 S. Cooper St) from 4-8pm.
- Our next HSA Meeting will not be until January 16th at 7:00 pm in the school cafeteria. There is a free dress day on Friday, January 18th, for the children of HSA members in attendance that night. We do not meet during the busy months of November and December.
- Please bring in your box tops. We are collecting these for the school and there is now a class competition! Check out the bulletin board display in the cafeteria. You can see that Ms. Doskocil’s class is in the lead! Thank you in advance for doing this!
- Looking for uniform pieces? Need to sell some pieces your child has outgrown? There is a Facebook page for that: SJCS Online Uniform Resale.
car line observations
- Please do not move or disregard the cones that are placed around the parking lots. These are provided to help keep our students safe.
- Do not make a left turn at the long line of cones upon entering the parking lot (the TCP area on the map). Please move up the drive, go around the small island, and come back down to the front of the school building. This keeps traffic off of Green Oaks.
- It is very important that cars are not left unattended in the car line. Please park your car in the large lot beside the field if you need to leave your vehicle.
- Please remember that if you are walking your child into the school building, you are to park in the large lot in front of the field. Foot traffic should not be occurring in the parking lots to the left, unless you have a physical need for a shorter walk. It is dangerous to be walking between the car line.
- For the safety of all, please be aware of your speed as you move through the parking lots, and be watchful and courteous.
- Please be patient with friends and extended family members who drop off and pick up students. Many times they have not been informed of the proper way to navigate the car line. We do reach out to families after arrival and dismissal who seem to not understand the car line pattern.
- If you have a friend or extended family member picking up your child, please take a minute to explain the procedures to them. Please reference the diagram. Thank you!
- We would ask that a cell phone not be in your hand while driving in the car line. We all know it only takes one sudden distraction to alter lives forever.
Parents' Advice to their children - Keep trying!
Have you ever seen a kid just crumble at the first hint of difficulty? More teachers are noticing this and are pointing out the tremendous need for their students to develop resiliency and determination.
I recently watched a mom at a park, hovering near her toddler who was attempting to climb a short flight of steps to a slide. As soon as the little guy paused and struggled to get his foot up to the bottom step (which was designed for toddlers), Mom swooped over and lifted him to the top of the steps. Then she waited at the bottom, reassuring him all the while. Fortunately, Mom was soon distracted by one of her other kids “needing help” and before she realized it, the boy was ascending the steps and sliding down like a pro. Good news for that little boy’s resilience development.
We know kids are going to go through some struggle in life and that is a good thing. We also know there won’t always be someone there to solve all their problems or verbally coddle them.
The abilities to 1) manage unfavorable events and to 2) continue with challenging tasks are top predictors of success in many areas (including academics and relationships). We must not rob kids of the gift of struggle – a crucial ingredient in the resiliency formula.
One of the easiest ways to begin developing resiliency with children is simply asking them how they are going to handle problems. Resisting our urge to quickly solve the problem for them or tell them what to do, we can make a soft, empathetic sound and ask, “Hmm, what do you think you’re going to do?”
Just the act of thinking about solutions begins the powerful process of owning and solving problems. We want kids to believe solutions don’t have to come from an outside source, but can come from inside. Whether they come up with great solutions or not, just the act of wrestling with the problem will begin to strengthen their “resiliency muscles.”
We encourage you to run this simple experiment any time you see your child encounter a minor problem or struggle. See if you notice a difference in their willingness to solve problems and attack challenges.
Thanks for reading! Our goal is to help as many families as possible. If this is a benefit, forward it to a friend.
Jedd Hafer
September 26 thru November 4, 2018
40 Days for Life is a focused pro-life campaign with a vision to access God’s power through prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil to end abortion in America. The mission of the campaign is to bring together the body of Christ in a spirit of unity during a focused 40 day campaign of prayer, fasting, and peaceful activism, with the purpose of repentance, to seek God’s favor to turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life, thus bringing an end to abortion in America. To sign up click below.
Knights in Action!
8th grade student of the month!
Frassati Award Recipients
El Dia de los Muertos
6th Grade
AK2R 2018
Lower School
Math Fun!
Focus
Book Study
Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, Math
Roboknights in Action!
Thank you!
SJCS ALUMNI News
Do you have any information you would like to share with the entire Knight Community? We would love that as well! Please send your news to mhurtado@stjosephtx.org.
Once a Knight - Forever a Knight!
Are you in need of prayers?
Meet our parish priests!
Rev. Daniel Kelley
Fr. Tom Kennedy
Fr. Peter Opoku Ware
St. Joseph Roman Catholic Parish
- Be sure to look into FORMED.org. The parish has paid for your subscription to this vast library of inspiring videos and essential reads to help grow your faith. Just go straight to the "Enter Code" button and enter 4BDX9H to begin the process. You may also access this through the parish website link below. Enjoy!
- Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is occurring after daily Mass in the Chapel until 5:45pm. Come spend some time with our Lord.
- Please enjoy this link to a lovely article in the North Texas Catholic about the pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Fr. Kelley: https://t.co/3ItrotxIyf
Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth link:
Contact us at (817) 419-6800
ST. JOSEPH, PROTECTOR OF FAMILIES, PRAY FOR US.