Ms. Monaghan's Message - Feb. 11

Challenge, Inspire, Empower, & Serve

Important Upcoming Dates

Feb. 12: No School - Diocesan PD

Feb. 15: No School - Presidents Day

Feb. 16: Valentine's Day Parties @ 2:00pm (Valentine's Spirit Day!)

Feb. 16: 2021-2022 School Registration Opens for Current Families

Feb. 17: Ash Wednesday School Mass @ 2:00pm

Feb. 19: Stations of the Cross at 2:00pm

Feb. 26: Spirit Day; Stations of the Cross @ 9:00am

Dear St. Patrick Families,

I want to thank you for your patience and understanding as we battled not only the weather, but our HVAC system too, this week. Though it caused a lot of stress and frustration for all of us, I am grateful to you for your understanding. Fortunately, we will have things in place to be back where we want to be on Tuesday, February 16! Because Bishop Johnston gave us Monday off in mourning of the Super Bowl (or in hopes we'd be celebrating!), we have luckily only used 3.5 out of 5 of our built in snow days. So, let's all say a prayer we don't have any more snow days!


As we head into another cold and snowy weekend, I wanted to send out a couple of reminders about the upcoming week.


Tuesday, February 16: Valentine's Spirit Day - Students are invited to wear Valentine's Day (or red, pink, purple, white) t-shirts and jeans or uniform bottoms on this day. We will be holding our Valentine's Day parties at 2:00pm, so don't forget to send in those Valentine's Day cards (one for each student in the class) and any treats you may have! Also, 2021-2022 Registration Packets will be coming home on this day.


Wednesday, February 17: Ash Wednesday - We will not have our normal 8:00am school mass. Instead, we will hold our Ash Wednesday mass at 2:00pm. You and your family are invited to attend with us.


Friday, February 19: Stations of the Cross - our students will be leading Stations of the Cross at 2:00pm. You are invited to join us for this.


Again, thank you for your patience and understanding this week. I hope you have a WARM and relaxing weekend. We can't wait to see you on Tuesday!


Kaci Monaghan

Principal

St. Patrick School

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Supplies Needed - THANK YOU!

Thank you to those of you who have already started donating items for our needs list!! We are so grateful to you!


If you are still looking for something to donate, we can always use some of the following supplies.


Paper Towels

Disinfecting Wipes

Child size face masks

Ash Wednesday Mass Time

We will not have our normal school mass on February 17. Instead, we will hold our Ash Wednesday service at 2:00pm. Parents and families are allowed to join us for mass on this day!

2021-2022 Registration is Coming Next Week!

I am excited to announce that our 2021-2022 school registration will begin soon! A paperwork packet will come home with your child on Thursday, February 11.


This year, registration will run from Feb. 16 - Feb. 26 for our current St. Patrick families and will open up to new families on March 1. It is our goal that we will have 100% of our current families submit full registration or the minimum $200 registration deposit by February 26, which will give us a good idea of how many openings we have in each classroom as we open registration to new families on March 1.


Why do we ask for registration in the spring? Registering now allows proper planning of our staffing and budgetary needs for the following school year. We want to continue our mission to be inclusive and welcome ALL students who wish to attend our school, but we also have to maintain the small class sizes and focus on academic integrity and individualized instruction we promise to our families. Early registration allows us to take a look at our numbers and make any additions to our staff that might be needed to continue to meet our students' needs.


Registration Options:

Option #1: Submit registration payment in full (along with your paperwork) by February 26 to receive a $200 discount on your total registration fees.


Option #2: Submit the $200 registration deposit by February 26 (along with your paperwork) and pay the remaining balance of registration fees by August 9.


Right now, we haven't decided if we will be capping our class sizes at 15 again next year. We are moving forward with this for now just to be safe and will wait until later this summer to decide if we feel it's safe to open up any further space in classrooms.


As of today, our class sizes are:


Kindergarten: 14

First Grade: 12

Second Grade: 15

Third Grade: 16

Fourth Grade: 11

Fifth Grade: 14

Sixth Grade; 15

Seventh Grade: 18

Eighth Grade: 15


In looking towards next year, if all of our current students re-enroll (which we hope you do!), we have limited spacing for the upcoming year. This is very exciting, yet makes it even more important that we have our registration in place as quickly as we possibly can for the 2021-2022 school year.


If all students re-enroll, and we continue to cap our class sizes at 15, we would be looking at:


Kindergarten: (unsure at this time)

First Grade: 1 opening

Second Grade: 3 openings

Third Grade: 0 openings

Fourth Grade: 0 openings

Fifth Grade: 4 openings

Sixth Grade: 1 opening

Seventh Grade: 0 openings

Eighth Grade: 0 openings


We are hoping to bump our 2nd-8th grade classes to 20 students next year, but we still aren't sure if we will be able to do that yet. Our Kindergarten and 1st grade classes will remain at 15 regardless. Either way, it is our hope that we start the year with full classes in every grade level!

Stations of the Cross

The school children will be leading Stations of the Cross on the following dates/times. We would love for you to join us!



Feb. 19 @ 2:00pm - 6th Grade

Feb. 26 @ 9:00am - 4th and 5th Grades

March 5 @ 9:00am - 2nd and 3rd Grades

March 12 @ 2:00pm - 1st and 7th Grades

March 26 @ 9:00am - Kindergarten and 8th Grades

2021-2022 Important Calendar Dates

I know that many of you plan ahead for vacations and other dates throughout the school year, so I wanted to put some of the main dates out for you now. Our 2021-2022 calendar is not approved yet, but we are working on it now and will have it ready for you soon.


August 18: First Day of School

November 22 - 26: Thanksgiving Break

December 20 - January 3: Christmas Break (return to school on January 4)

March 14-18: Spring Break

April 15-18: Easter Break

May 18 - Tentative Last Day of School

Lunch Room Volunteers Needed

Are you looking for a way to get involved at school during this challenging "get involved" year?? We are looking for some Lunch Room Volunteers to help prepare and serve lunch each day from 11:00am - 1:00pm.


You can volunteer one day a week, every other week, or even once a month! It's a great way to meet other school parents and get to know our students! If you are interested, please contact Mrs. Becky Orr at: borr@stpatrickkc.com today!

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Box Tops For Education

Box Tops have gone digital! Did you know you can collect Box Tops from your Smart phone or tablet? Just download the Box Tops app and search for St. Patrick School. Once you've selected our school, you simply scan your grocery store receipt and the points are added instantly to our account!


Learn more by clicking the links below to read or watch a video!

How to submit digital receipts to earn Box Tops

Protecting God's Children Certification

TRAINING CHANGES CONTINUE DUE TO COVID-19

  • All live Protecting God’s Children for Adults (PGC) workshops continue to be suspended due to COVID-19.
  • Employees and volunteers required to complete PGC are instead required to complete 2 online training modules in VIRTUS®:
  • Protecting God’s Children® Online Awareness Session 3.0
  • Mandated Reporters: Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse
  • VIRTUS® has automated the assignment of these modules for all brand new VIRTUS® users.
  • Contact Sherry Huffman at huffman@diocesekcsj.org to sign up today!

Birthday/Classroom Treats

As a reminder, any treats that come into school must be store bought and individually wrapped. Due to our current health and safety protocols, we are not allowed to let students hand out unwrapped or homemade treats.


Also, please remember that we do have students who have severe peanut allergies; therefore, all treats should be peanut free.


We really appreciate you helping us with this important health and safety protocol!

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Lunch Ordering

This year, we are attempting to transition to all online ordering/paying for lunch so that by the second semester, all families will pay and order online. So far this year, many families have been sending in checks for lunch without sending in a lunch order, which makes it very challenging for Mrs. Orr to figure out when and what your child is selecting each day. As you can imagine, this makes our purchasing very challenging.


Please follow the steps below to purchase and order lunch online. If you have any further questions, please feel free to email Mrs. Orr at borr@stpatrickkc.com.



Once you receive an email from Mrs. Orr indicating ordering is open for the month:



1. Add an online payment method. Go to My Accounting, click on Summary, then Payment Methods, at which point you will be able to add an online payment method to your Sycamore account.


2. When the month's ordering cycle is open, go to My Accounting, click on Cafeteria, then Orders. Click on the drop down box next to each date to choose your lunch option, or leave blank if you prefer not to order that day.


3. When finished with the month's ordering, click the top right hand "Update" button to submit your choices and get a total for the month's lunches. (If you have multiple students, you will need to order separately for each one.)


4. If you have entered a payment method, click on the "Make Payment" button at the top right corner to pay online. If you have no payment method entered, send the total for your month's lunches to the office via check or cash, and the cafeteria will record it in your lunch account.


5. Even if you want to order a lunch every day, please record your choices online each month!

Daily Health Check

If your child is attending "in person" classes, we ask you to complete a daily checklist each morning before leaving for school.


  • My child has a temperature over 99 degrees.

  • My child has had diarrhea in the last 48 hours.

  • My child has a sore throat or flu-like s symptoms.

  • My child has vomited or shown signs of nausea in the last 48 hours.

  • My child, or someone in our family, has been exposed to Covid-19.

  • My child has traveled somewhere currently on the travel ban list in the last 10 days.

  • I have given my child fever reducers, cold medicine, or other over the counter meds to reduce symptoms of illness within the last 48 hours.

Daily Health Symptom Check

High-Risk Symptoms:

* New cough

* Difficulty breathing

* Loss of taste/smell


Moderate-Risk Symptoms:

* Fever (>99 degrees) or chills

* Congestion/runny nose

* Nausea/vomiting/diarrhea

* Sore throat

* Headache

* Muscle or body aches


Please note: If your child has 1 High Risk symptom OR 2 + moderate risk symptoms, he/she will be sent home and allowed to return after 48 hours symptom free and with a doctor's note stating he/she is safe to return to school.


These are very strict guidelines provided to us from the Clay County Health Department that we must follow in an effort to keep our students and staff safe and healthy. We appreciate you partnering with us to ensure we follow these policies and procedures each day!