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Principal Points
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September 19, 2020Dear St. Theresa's Catholic School Families,The Shoulders of Giants
Since arriving just about three months ago, I have continually spoken about building a strong, positive, and intentionally Catholic school community with all whom I meet at St. Theresa’s Catholic School. I have reflected a great deal upon where we are now, and what our vision must be as we move forward together. However, it is not unusual that my thoughts gradually drifted to our past. Our beloved St. Theresa’s Catholic School started out as just a wonderful idea under the leadership of Msgr. Richard McCabe, nearly 50 years ago!
In the early 1980’s, there were visionaries here at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church and they dreamed of creating a Catholic school to serve this beautiful community. With hope in their hearts and faith in our Lord, and each other, these parishioners, often parents themselves, began the arduous and charitable work of building our Catholic school. Much strain and countless hours were undoubtedly a part of the process, but there is no doubt that both, they and we, have been blessed by the loving sacrifices that they made.
I also began to contemplate one of the great models of Christian life, our patron saint and Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse de Lisieux. Historically, we know Thérèse Martin as a French Carmelite nun, who lived a short but powerfully intimate life with God in the later part of the 19th century. Inspired by her unshakeable confidence in God’s love, and despite a quiet and mostly unremarkable community life at Lisieux, she led a hidden life of service of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love. Her life ended at the age of 24 after a long battle with tuberculosis, afterward Sr. Therese became known to the world through her autobiography, “Story of a Soul.” The beautifully titled book shared St. Theresa’s “little way” with the world and has inspired millions to live simply with great love for God. St. Theresa’s, Jesus’ Little Flower, is truly a remarkable model to aspire to for any Catholic student.
Then it occurred to me, we stand upon the shoulders of giants! St. Theresa and all the Saints of our Church, including the saints-in-making – our brothers and sisters in Christ from nearly 50 years ago; we stand upon their good works. We benefit from their example and from their labor in the vineyard of the Lord. We could not be where we are today without their saintly efforts. This is what all the years of a school’s history really means: to give thanks to those whose shoulders we stand upon today. Yet, it does not end there. We are called to build, create, and sacrifice again, so that others may stand upon our shoulders 50 years from now!
So, let us pause to recognize where we are and how we got here, let us firmly look to the future and prepare for another 50 years of greatness by having hope in our hearts and faith in our Lord and each other! Let us continue the indispensable work of building our great Catholic school. Let us remain undaunted by any trials we may face together. Let us remember the words of St. Theresa’s, “When one loves, one does not calculate.” Thus, let us fix our collective gaze upon the horizon and toward the many triumphs yet to come! We are STCS!
Later Arrival or Early Release?
In my efforts to reduce the stress on our faculty and staff, we have come up with two alternatives to incorporate our weekly staff meeting into our 8-hour work day.- Option One (Later Arrival): Morning drop-off would begin at 8:35 AM on Wednesdays.
- Option Two (Early Release): Afternoon pickup would begin at 2:30 PM on Wednesdays.
The staff overwhelmingly prefers Option One. However, we are flexible, and if the needs of our STCS families' are best met with Option Two we will accommodate. Please take this one-question survey to help us decide.
Once we have your input we will look to implement in October, but with sufficient notice for our families to plan accordingly.
If You Haven't Done So AlreadyIn an audit of the three new forms we have asked our families to read and sign this year, we have found we are still missing a completed form (or two) from a few of you. Please assist us by double checking your records, so that we have the required forms we need from your family. Thank you.
New COVID-19 Protocols (All STCS Students)
Remote Learner's Agreement (Current Remote Learners Only)
Telecommunication & Distance Learning (All STCS Students)
Some Things to Know
School Mass CHANGE – After two weeks of observing our school Mass, we believe our lower grades would benefit from participating in the Mass with older students. After consultation with our Pastor, Fr. Larry, we are reducing our school Masses to two days per week with one class from each grade attending each Mass. We are keeping Tuesday and Thursday as our school Mass days in this new schedule. This change goes into effect this week.
Attendance at each school Mass would be about 100 students. We can easily accommodate this number while maintaining appropriate social distancing (especially with the change to 75% occupancy that goes into effect on Monday). Lectors and altar servers would be more easily facilitated in this model as well.
This does not affect our livestream of the Tuesday school Mass, which we have learned must be viewed on a non-school issued device to be viewed live. We are working on a way to resolve this. For remote learners who attend Thursday school Mass, this link is posted in Google Classroom.
PE CHANGE – Our PE coaches have found that teaching Physical Education synchronously to our remote learners is not as efficient and effective as we would like. Therefore, this class will be ASYNCHRONOUS going forward. Please see the attached letter from Coaches Sprinkle and Franco.
SPECIALS – Please see the attached letter from Dr. Neal that answers the question of how Specials classes (Art, Music, Library Tech) will rotate this year.
Current School Day – Monday - Friday- Morning Carline begins at 7:35 AM
- The warning bell rings at 8:00 AM
- Class instruction begins at 8:05 AM
- Students arriving at 8:05, or later are tardy and need to report to the office for a tardy slip to enter class
- Class instruction ends at 3:20 PM
- Afternoon Carline begins at 3:30 PM
As a reminder, please assist us in keeping your children safe by observing these Carline procedures:- Please obey local speed limits and obey all traffic signs.
- Please follow the instructions of the faculty and staff at all times.
- There are no walk-ups this year.
- Please refrain from cellular phone use while driving.
- The speed limit on campus is 10/MPH.
- Stay in your vehicle while in carline.
- Follow the traffic pattern and respect the queue.
- Be courteous.
- Please use Westslope Dr (not Mt Bonnell Rd) to access Small Dr for afternoon pickup at Elmer Hall.
Principal Coffees – The first five Principal Coffees have been so much fun! Our time together has been highly productive, engaging, and a wonderful opportunity to continue to build strong our commUNITY! These will definitely continue throughout the year.
Can't make the coffee? No worries, Mrs. Bizzanelli is taking notes and providing a summary to grade level families who are unable to attend.
Here are the days and dates, please note the time change:- Grade 2: Monday, 9:00 AM, September 21, 2020
- Grade 5: Thursday, 9:00 AM, September 24, 2020
- Grade 1: Friday, 9:00 AM, September 25, 2020
- Kindergarten: Monday, 9:00 AM, September 28, 2020
- Pre-Kindergarten: Thursday, 9:00 AM, October 1, 2020
A Zoom link will be made available to parents in the grade the day before the event. More Principal Coffees (mornings) and Principal Teas (afternoons) will be scheduled during the school year.
Questions? – Please contact your child's teacher for any classroom related questions. Also, if the need arises to contact the administration, please continue to send us your questions, or concerns to administration@st-theresa.org.
Have you heard? Our enrollment continues to increase. We are now at 340 students!
Thank you all so much for for reading my principal points each week and responding so positively. Have a blessed and beautiful weekend.
St. Theresa, pray for us.
In Christ,
Brian R. Wheeler
Principal
bwheeler@st-theresa.org