Dear St. Matthew families,

We are excited for the start of this year. The teachers got a chance to recharge, and are so ready for a great year. It is obvious that our students are eager to learn and ready to be back with their friends.

As we start this year, we will remember our theme, "With God, all things are possible."

Your prayers and support are so appreciated.

Angie Palmer

Principal

"Spreading the Gospel and Forming Disciples through our Community, Outreach, and Educational Excellence"

Thank you St. Matthew 8th grade class of 2021 for the new banner proudly displayed in the commons!

This year another round of CARES money was distributed and separated out for public and non-public schools. St. Matthew received $86,000 in EANS funds (Emergency Assistance for Non-Public Schools). Funds were distributed based off the number of families that qualified for free and reduced lunches.

To use these funds, we needed to show how COVID has impacted St. Matthew. Each of our items we requested were accepted because we were able to connect the need for the items back to a COVID impact.

The items we received were: Cleaning supplies, PPE, technology subscriptions, adding more Smartboard technology (currently on back order due to microchip shortage worldwide- should be installed in all our K-8 classrooms as soon as they are in), teacher laptops, carts for laptops/ipads, computer management software, new internet switches, Apple TV's and Air pair, English Language Arts curriculum.

The last purchase was ELA curriculum and support. We have adopted Fountas and Pinnell reading mini-lesson curriculum, Interactive read aloud curriculum, and Phonics and Word Study curriculum. Additionally we were able to purchase Leveled readers for our Guided Reading program (this was over $14,000 alone). While none of this sounds fancy or glamorous, these funds allowed us to be able to align our Reading curriculum from K-6 so we are forming a consistent foundation of learning from beginning until they are ready for junior high. This is something that we did not have in place prior to receiving these funds. Having the consistency across all grade levels is so important to the learning process. There is a lot to learn still, but our teachers are thankful to have aligned curriculum which will definitely benefit our students over time.

Without these funds, we would have not been able to have access to all these great materials. We are very thankful for the support of the EANS funds.