Charger Check-In
Thursday, April 30, 2020
A Note from Ms. Owens
As we come to the end of April, we mark our 48th day since we left our school building. Our teachers miss their students. Our students miss our teachers. We miss the routines of drop off and pick up in the parking lot. We miss the visits to the main office to drop off a student's lunch. We miss the sounds of excitement coming from the classrooms. We miss the cacophony of Kane Hall during lunch. We miss the announcement of our students recognized for their positive Charge Card behaviors. We miss celebrating Mass together as a faith community on Fridays. I want to say thank you to all of our Charger families for everything you are doing to help keep our community united during time of being so far apart. We can do this - together.
To continue to strengthen our ties as a community of faith, starting Friday, May 1 and continuing every Friday in May, we will celebrate a virtual school Mass streamed at 10AM. Fr. Dennis, Fr. Nick and Mr. Caffee are joining their efforts to focus on our children at our Friday Masses. Although we cannot gather in person, Fr. Dennis and Fr. Nick will craft homilies directed at our students and Mr. Caffee will play some of the music that we normally sing at our Friday Masses. It will be so lovely to sing those familiar songs. Please see the link
Friday Masses - Worship aid
Zoom Formation
Flocking
At the end of March, I sent out information for families facing financial hardship during this crisis. I've linked that letter in one of the buttons below. If your family is dealing with financial hardship, please read the letter and reach out to me ASAP.
And now for some quick but, important, news...
- If your family is interested in hosting Morning Announcements and Prayers, please sign up at the button below. Thank you to our families who have hosted our mornings so far. They are a wonderful to start the morning!
- Our new SCA Family Resources website launched last week. Scroll down for more information and the link.
- The Dream Raffle is still up and running. This is a major fundraiser for both the school and the church. If you're able, consider splitting a ticket with family and friends.
Please continue to pray for one another as well as all those people on the front line during this crisis. We're looking forward to seeing you on Monday! Stay safe and stay healthy.
Peace,
Kristine Owens
New SCA Family Resources Website
To ease this transition, I encourage you to bookmark this new resources website.
PK-4th Grade
- In preparing to publish this new site, we've discovered that the current teacher web pages work well for PK-4th families and especially for those teachers. This new site does not let us change font colors and several of our PK-4th teachers utilize different colors to organize their web pages.
- In the new SCA Family Resources website, visitors to the PK-4th grade pages will be re-directed to the current class web page.
5th-8th Grade
- This change should help streamline where parents can go for an outline of work that has been assigned. Assignments will no longer be posted on the teachers' individual web pages. (Links on those current pages will take visitors to the new class web page.)
- The detailed information on those assignments will be posted on the appropriate Google Classroom. If parents would like to see the assignments on Google Classroom, they need to sign up for Guardian Summaries. You can contact your child's homeroom teacher for this.
Zoom Meetings and Safety Measures
Beginning with our return from Spring Break, all of our teachers will be delivering content/teaching lessons asynchrously; students will be able to view these recorded lessons anytime after the teacher posts. As per OCS guidelines, teachers will no longer record any sessions that have students present.
However, teachers will continue to host synchronous - or live - Zoom meetings. These interactive sessions are very important for students' social-emotional health. The purpose of these live sessions will vary. Some will be simply to check-in and do some fun activities, some will be Q&A sessions when students can get content clarified, and some will be small group discussions. Some sessions will be optional and others will be expected. The teachers will be explicit in whether a session is optional or required.
You may have heard about the Zoombombing phenomenon happening as many more adults and students are working from home. In early April, our teachers have been using the security features available with Zoom - waiting rooms, passwords, locking meetings, etc. - to ensure safety.
Below, you will find a letter outlining steps both teachers and students need to take to keep everyone safe.
SCA Athletic Association Updates
Soccer and Boys Volleyball
SCA Athletics will continue to observe and follow what's happening at the the Federal, State, and School levels around guidelines for social distancing. At this time, none of the Boys Volleyball or Soccer leagues we belong to are canceling their seasons. Therefore, we will continue to "wait and see" what happens with the Leagues and the School. If and when Leagues are canceled, we will determine the best solution to refunds or credits depending on the student / family situation.
Girls Volleyball Uniforms
Please just hold on to them for now. We'll coordinate a pick up when the situation clears up.
2020-2021 Football, Cheerleading, and Girls Basketball Sign-Ups
We are putting together a Google Form to handle all Registrations going forward. Please watch for a link to the form in future SCA emails. We are looking into other ways to collect fees as well. We will want to take on sign-ups this Spring and collect fees as soon as we can.
2019-2020 Sports Banquet
The 8th Grade Sports Banquet event on May 5th has been canceled. We are, however, going to order trophies and t-shirts, and we will hand out our annual two Charger Awards. We are looking at how to distribute these items as potentially a part of other events, when events resume.
If you have any questions about SCA Athletics, please reach out to Greg Heidorn via email greg.heidorn@gmail.com or phone/text 708-954-6727.
Area Resources for Those in Need
Ways to Support Our Local Small Businesses
If you know of an SCA family who owns a small business that we can publicize here to help support them, please reach out to me via email.
Faith Resources and Activities
- Please remember that you and your family can view St. Catherine daily Masses with Fr. Dennis or Fr. Nick by clicking on the button below.
- Consider participating in or helping to lead our weekly Rosary for Healing on Tuesdays at 6:30PM. Buttons are below.
- On Wednesdays at 10AM, the Archdiocese is hosting a Mass for All Catholic Schools. Information on how to participate in the Mass is below.
Queen of Hearts Raffle
While Queen of Hearts has been paused, the SCA community can support the owners of Bar 106, the local business that hosts our Queen of Hearts drawings, by ordering curbside pick up from The Whistle Sports Bar and Grill.
So Many On-going Ways to Support St. Catherine!
About us
Website: www.scaoaklawn.org
Location: 10621 South Kedvale Avenue, Oak Lawn, IL, USA
Phone: 708-425-5547
Facebook: facebook.com/scaoaklawn/