GLVN News
Information for Parents ~ September 2016
A Blessed First Month!
Dear Parents,
We’ve had a wonderful first few weeks of GLVN! We are especially excited to welcome all of our new students and our youngest class (VL1) to our GLVN program. Our goal in GLVN is to make Christ known and loved, and we hope that your child felt Christ’s presence with us in our first month together.
The program has over 400 students this year, and as you can imagine, facilitating everything for a good start for that many youth is no small task! Thank you for your patience with us these past few weeks, especially regarding registration and class placement.
As we look toward the rest of the year, we look forward to partnering with you to help all our parish youth know, love and serve God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that a child’s faith formation is the responsibility of parents with the support of the parish community. We want your children to know how much God loves them, and we are committed to doing that through our lessons, our activities and through the encounters and relationships that each child has with all of our catechists and program volunteers and leaders this year.
To do so more effectively, our GLVN program needs your ongoing input and feedback to ensure that we are supporting your child’s faith formation to the best of our ability. We invite and encourage parents to communicate with us regularly about your questions, concerns or what you may need to best help your child as they go through our GLVN program.
In our GLVN office and at each classroom door, we have an envelope where you can submit any questions, concerns or constructive feedback and input you have for our teachers and for our program. Please be as detailed and specific as you can regarding your question, concerns and input. We will do our best to address these as best we can.
Thank you for entrusting your child to our GLVN program. We look forward to a great year together!
In Christ,
Chi Pham
Principal
For His Glory
Our GLVN Family
Our Prayer Life
Meet & Greet
Meeting with parents in lop 1A
Loving God is FUN!!
Students in their Beginning of School Year rally
A Prayer for Catechetical Sunday
Blessing and commissioning of our catechists
Introducing Our GLVN Team
We are pleased to introduce our administrative team for the GLVN program. The Administrative team coordinates all aspects of the GLVN program, and we look forward to a great year together with you and your children.
Click here to meet the Administrative Team & read more about their roles.
Main GLVN Phone (general questions and student attendance): 612-470-2627
Common questions or concerns listed below can be directed to the specific Administrative Team Member. Please call the GLVN office main number to reach these individuals or visit us in the GLVN office on Sundays from 10:00 to 1:00 p.m.
- Overall GLVN program (Principal)
- Absence reporting/early dismissal (GLVN office room 103 or via phone 612-470-2627)
- Spiritual needs of students/teachers, Mass or Confession (Chaplain)
- Student progress, homework and other class topics (Teachers)
- Giáo Lý curriculum or teachers (Religious Education Coordinator)
- Việt Ngữ curriculum or teachers (Vietnamese Language Coordinator)
- Student database (Secretary)
- Purchase uniforms (Treasurer)
- Student Code of Conduct issues (External Relations Coordinator)
- General security on school and church grounds during GLVN (Safety & Security Lead)
- Liturgical and Mass (Liturgical Lead)
- Children’s Choir (Choir Lead)
Attendance Policy & Procedures
Parents are reminded that the student’s regular and consistent attendance at Sunday School is important to their learning and faith formation. We appreciate your support in ensuring that your student follows the attendance policy.
Be on time – Class hours are 10 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Mass is considered part of the school program hours.
Absences
If the student is absent for any reason, the parent must call in the GLVN office telephone 612-470-2627 and give the student’s name, the class and the reason of the absence.
An absence of more than 1 hour of class time, any time during school hours, including Mass time, will be considered as 1 full absence.
Each student is allowed up to 8 absences per school year before they will no longer be able to participate in the program for the remainder of the school year and will have to repeat the grade next year.
- Students are allowed 5 reported absences during the school year. “Reported” means that a parent or guardian has called the school office or teacher about the absence. Any absences beyond the 5 will be counted towards “unreported” absences.
- After 3 unreported absences, the student will no longer be able to participate in the school program for the remainder of the year and must repeat the grade next year. “Unreported” means that the student’s absence was not reported to the school office or teachers.
Early Dismissal – If you need to request an early dismissal for your child, please come to the GLVN office to request this. You will be given an early dismissal form to give to the teacher. For the safety of your child, the office has informed teachers not to allow students to leave early unless they have an early dismissal form.
Food Allergies – No Peanuts in School
We have some students in our program who are allergic to peanuts. We ask that parents be mindful of this and pack a no-peanut lunch for your children.
For parents who have children with peanut allergies, we are working on identifying a room for students who need a peanut-free area to eat lunch. We hope to have this spot chosen and identified by October. If your child needs to eat in this space, please email chipham.sasjhparish@gmail.com, and we will notify you once that space is ready for students to eat in.
Reserved Tables in Cafeteria (VL1, VL2, Lớp 1A/1B)
For the youngest grades (VL1, VL2, Lớp 1A/1B), we have reserved a few tables in the cafeteria for these students. This will ensure our youngest students have a spot to eat and get familiar with the cafeteria. Our teachers will bring them to the cafeteria during the break time.
We are seeking parent volunteers to help these classes during the lunch break Parent volunteers would watch over the students at these tables if they need help and also bring all the students back up to the classroom at the end of the lunch time. If you are able to volunteer, please contact chipham.sasjhparish@gmail.com or visit us in the GLVN office to sign up.
Your support is greatly appreciated so that our teachers can also get a break to eat their own lunch and attend teacher meetings during the break time.
Mass Dismissal
To help us keep reverence in the church, we will be dismissing the students by class to go to the basement. Parents should pick up their child in the church basement.
VL1, VL2, Lớp 1A/1B teachers will be holding a sign to indicate their class and will go to the same location in the church basement each week for parents to pick up their child. We hope this will help you locate one another more easily once in the basement.
Thank you for your cooperation so that we can maintain a more reverent environment in the church.
Parent Suggestions
Thank you for attending the Open House on 9/18. It was wonderful to meet so many parents. We hope this is a great start to our partnership with you to bring Christ to our youth.
During the Open House, you gave us many, many wonderful ideas to improve our program. Thank you for your openness to share your ideas with us. We are going through all the suggestions and will implement what we can, and continue to research ways to make other ideas work in the future.
Please continue to provide us your feedback and suggestions. You can email the principal at chipham.sasjhparish@gmail.com or visit us in the GLVN office on Sundays.
GLVN Communications
News and information about the GLVN program for parents and students will be posted in a few different places.
- Parish website at www.gxannagiusehien.net
- Parish bulletin
- Bulletin boards in the school at the main entries of the church and school and in the GLVN office (room 103)
- This newsletter (GLVN News) will be published monthly online to keep you updated on what’s happening in the program. It will be sent via email (if we have your email address) and on the parish website.
Adopt-A-Room Campaign
As we prepare the classrooms and spaces for use during the Faith Formation (GLVN) school year, we recently shared a few of our plans for this year. In order to accomplish these special projects, we are inviting parishioners to please consider a donation to help us fill the rooms with inspiration for the students. Any amount small or large will be greatly appreciated! Please contact Chi Pham or the GLVN office.
- To help our youth always see the Saints as role models for their lives, we plan to name each room after a saint. Please consider adopting a room to help us purchase an image of a Saint to display in the room, as well as other decorations to make the classroom our own. With these visual reminders of the Saints and other religious decorations, we hope the youth will be inspired to live more holy lives like the Saints.
- Every week there will be Confession for the classes. These 3 rooms will be used for Confession, as well as be open for students to stop in to pray whenever they need a little bit of quiet reflection time during Sunday school. Your donation will help us make it a comfortable, serene, peaceful place where our youth can be still and be with God. We hope to furnish the room with a kneeler, chair, religious statue/images, etc.
Blessings & Gratitude
New Phone System: We had been researching a system throughout the school to facilitate communications between the office and the classrooms. Thank you to AC Vũ & Trang Phạm for their generous donation of a telecom system that included 20 phones, and for their support to setup the phone lines for every classroom!
Catechetical Sunday Lunch for Teachers: Thank you to the following individuals for your help with the special meal for our catechists on their special day – Chị Thu Phạm for the homemade cookies for dessert, and Cô Châu Lâm, Cô Lang Nguyễn and Cô Kim Dung Phạm for preparation and food donations for the meal. It was delicious!
Clean Up: Thank you to the Parent Committee and all parent volunteers who have been helping us keep the school clean this month! We appreciate your support in this area so that our teachers and administrative team can focus on the students on Sundays!
Thank you to all parents for your continual support and prayers!
About GLVN
1) To support parishioners in the faith formation of their youth, helping them to know and love God, and preparing them to receive First Reconciliation & Communion and the Sacrament of Confirmation.
2) The Vietnamese language program is integrated into the parish to help our youth maintain their Vietnamese language and culture.
Email: chipham.sasjhparish@gmail.com
Website: www.gxannagiusehien.net
Location: 2627 Queen Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Phone: 612-470-2627