What's the Buzz?!?
January 20, 2018
News and Updates
Catholic Schools Week is one of my absolute favorite times in the year! What a blessing it is to be able to celebrate the gift of Catholic Schools with our friends, family, community members and students!! We have got some fun things planned for each of the days of CSW. A big thanks to Jamie Dean and Julie Goshe who took on the planning and organizing of this week. Judy will also be working with your classes to prepare the Priest Appreciation gift as well as the writing of the St. Francis de Sales Parish School Book of Saints.
Please check out the Teacher's Notes I included in this newsletter. It is not 100% complete yet, but will give you a good idea of what is happening and when. I am still working on special schedules and items for the service project. It would be good for you to check the document frequently leading up to Catholic School's Week.
I did my final addition of school notes for Mandated Services so please be sure to hit "add notes" when completing your Mandated Services.
Because of the magnitude of items going on during CSW I will not be sending a Buzz next Sunday. I want you to be able to focus on all of the wonderful things we have planned for you!
Important Dates:
- Report cards go home January 24. Grades needs to be closed and finalized for report card printing on Tuesday, January 22 by 8:00am. K-2 teachers should have their report cards to me by Tuesday, January 22 at 3:30pm.
- Epiphany PD for TA3 is on Wednesday, January 23 in the Upper Room from 8:30am-11:30am. This will only be a half day PD.
- Students in grades 6-8 will hear from a missionary speaker on January 25 from 8:45am-9:30am in the Upper Room.
- Don't forget all doors and bulletin boards need to be decorated for CSW Open House by Friday, January 25.
- Open House is Sunday, January 27 from 10:00am-1:00pm. All full time and part time teachers need to be present from 9:30am-1:30pm. Please make plans to fulfill your Sunday Mass obligation on Saturday evening.
- Lifetouch will be here on January 29 to photograph the Preschool class as well as take some candids for the yearbook.
- We will send MAP data home on January 31. I made a mistake in my last newsletter by asking folks to send home the BAR GRAPH, rather, we should be sending home the LINE GRAPH.
- Rosary will be moved from February 4 to February 11 at 2:05pm in the Church. We will host our all school spelling bee on Monday, February 4 in the gym at 1:45pm.
Changes to the Digital Academy
There were some changes made to the Digital Academy dashboard. The main change is the left column menu. In the left column menu on the top menu there is now a home icon. The home menu allows for easy access to classes, enrolling in PD, groups and curriculum access (if applicable.) When you login to the system your dashboard menu will take you to where you left off. You can manipulate through your PD, groups, etc.. by clicking the appropriate menu from the left column top menu bar. To enroll in professional development courses, meetings or events either click on the home icon or PD button. Once you get to the course catalog registration process hasn't changed.
Please refer to the attached document below for more details.
If you have any questions or issues, please contact Dolores Bruno.
March 8 Professional Development: The Heart of the Mission
Details:
- Location: Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland
- Time: 8:30am-12:30pm
- Who: All full time and part time classroom teachers.
Father has graciously allowed me to charter a school bus so that we may travel as a group. We will meet at St. Francis de Sales parking lot at 7:15am and head up after everyone is accounted for. We will also be joining the St. Hilary staff at Sokolowski's for lunch after the conference.
Laptops, note pads, and school stuff is not needed for this day. Just an open heart and mind :)
Religion Certification Update
- If you are enrolled in the online Initiate courses on the Digital Academy, continue taking the courses.
- If you are enrolled in a cohort, these are NOT going to begin next month. This part of the process is currently on hold until we receive further word from the Bishop.
- If you have applied for a Religion Certificate, they will not be processed until further notice as they are currently backlogged.
- If you are up for renewal of your licensure, DO NOT sign up for anything. The renewal process is currently on hold as well.
If you have any questions about how this affects you personally please see me.
Saturday, March 2.
We hope you will join us for our largest annual fundraiser benefitting our students and school! This year we also have a new location: Guy's Party Centre on Waterloo Rd. We will gather on March 2 for food, fellowship and fun! Dress is a fancy and will incorporate a masquerade theme.
Also, please start thinking of items you would like included on the teacher wish list tree. Folks are VERY generous when it comes to their kids' classrooms, so please come up with some great items that will impact your classrooms!
Staff Shout Outs!
- Huge shout out to our 5/6 team who took the time to map out their hallway decorations for CSW! The love and care they put into making our school a welcoming place is awesome!
- Jamie and Maria should be SUPER proud of themselves for all of their work in Preschool and Pre-K this year! Jamie recently received an accolade from a parent that said: "because of all of your hard work, care and love, I know this is the right place for my child!" That is AWESOME!!
- If you haven't yet, stop down and check out Christina Gilbert's door- what an awesome, and creative, way to celebrate the 70 years of our school! Also, she had a sweet idea to treat her students with an encouraging note and 'smarties' candy to get them in the right frame of mind for their MAP testing!!
- I wanted to take a moment, too, to shoutout to Erin Bennett for all of her help in EVERY area of our school. Erin is truly someone who is willing to lend a helping hand to anyone in need, especially our students! Thanks, Erin, for all you do!
- Shout out to Mary Alice for coming up with a fun and creative way to test her 8th graders knowledge of Religion! She used "Are You Smarter Than a Catholic 8th Grader" quiz questions in her class this past week! There are others out there for the different grade levels- feel free to search it and give it a whirl in your class!
- I loved visiting Kathy Hancock's classroom this week! She thinks of such great activities for students to incorporate every aspect of learning! Most recently she made Kachina dolls and totem poles. She even invited parents in to help create them! Stop up to her room and check them out :)
School Employee Fund Scholarship
REMIND SERVICE UPDATE
If your classroom will be affected by this change please let me know ASAP. Or, if you have another app that is similar to REMIND please let me know. I will be sure to communicate this to parents as well.
I will work with our before and after care staff to come up with a new solution for your services as well.