Happy Mother's Day!

 I hope everyone is having a marvelous day.  I know I had a fantastic night on Friday.  Our students have so many hidden talents, and I greatly appreciate how Jeff has tapped into them.   Everything was beautiful, and the audience was in awe of what they saw and heard.  Thank you to Heather for sharing her voice and helping with logistics, and to Yesenia for helping with everything technical.  Well done, everyone!

You know we are close to the end when you look at the calendar and see things like math final exam (8th grade only this week).  This week, we also have i-Ready testing, Student Council Inauguration, NJHS Induction, and the final week of collecting cereal.  Connor and David will send information about when the Inauguration/Induction will occur on Thursday and who will attend.  Lisa will let you know when we will domino the cereal boxes.  Heather and Mari, let Lisa know when you will be at school on Friday since you are both on a field trip.  

Finally, all teachers should attend Tuesday's faculty meeting. Thank you, and have a great week!

You Are Appreciated!

 Happy Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week! I want to extend my gratitude for everything you do each day to nurture, guide, and inspire our students. Your dedication, compassion, and faith-filled example make our school special. You are the heart of our mission, and this week, we celebrate YOU!

In case you missed PTCO's email, they have planned a week full of treats and surprises just for you:

🍽 Monday – Enjoy a Chicken and Steak Taco Bar from Chipotle!
🍿 Tuesday – Customize your own snack gift bag from our Wild Things Snack Bar!
🍕 Wednesday – Grab some Papa John’s pizza and a hearty salad bar to keep you going.
🥓 Thursday – Start the day right with a hot/cold breakfast buffet (featuring Chick-fil-A chicken minis), served starting at 7:00 AM.
🍪 Friday – Pick and pack your favorites from our family-donated cookie bar to create your own bakery box to take home.

🎁 And don’t forget to stop by the teacher lounge each day for a special gift prepared just for you!

For lunches, they will be available at the start of the first lunch period.  If your lunch time is prior to 11:10, see what you can work out or let Mary or I know and we will help you find a time to have lunch.  

This is a busy week.  Here's the play list:

Mon-Tues  IXL Math diagnostic

Wednesday   May Crowning and 2nd grade Communion celebration hosted by 3rd grade.  Also, please come support family night at the Talking Pint from 6-9 pm.  20% of the proceeds to go the school.  

Thursday  I will be out but working from home in the afternoon.  

Friday is Marvelous Mustang, Concert practice, and finally the Spring Concert.  Whew!

Thank you again for your tireless efforts, your joyful spirits, and the many ways you reflect Christ’s love to our students and one another.  Have a wonderful week!

Five more weeks, but who's counting?

 Yes, it is almost May, with all its many activities and events, as we ensure students are ready for the next grade. Please be sure you are reviewing the remaining standards to teach, and if they seem too much, then focus on the Power Standards.  They are there for a reason.  

Mary will be out again on Monday, so please contact me if you need anything.  I will be gone on Tuesday with Connor, Melissa, and the 8th grade at the Ringling Museum, but Mary will return.  I will also be out on Friday at a principal's meeting (last one of the year!).  

Once again, this week's morning show will be a little longer than usual, with election speeches and voting on Friday. Finally, the Art Show is taking place after school on Thursday. Moms will be around this week, hanging up the artwork. Please take some time that day to visit all the masterpieces our students have created. We will also have classroom pickup on that day.  

If you wish to discuss the Pope's funeral and what comes next, here is one video of the funeral https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EozhjyuLZmY.  I would not suggest watching all of it, but for older students, seeing the massive number of people in St. Peter's Square is impressive.  Once the conclave begins, we will say a special prayer each morning to select a new pope.  The date has not been announced, but it should take place 15-20 days after the death of the pope.  Here is a resource to help explain the purpose of the Conclave https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/scripture-and-tradition/church-leadership/what-is-a-papal-conclave-and-frequently-asked-questions-about-the-pope/  

Have a wonderful week!

Field Day

 noun: a day devoted to athletic contests or other sporting events.  

Teacher definition: one less day I have to make lesson plans.  Thank you, George!

Here's what's happening this week...

• Mary will be out on Monday, so please ensure everyone behaves.
• Field Day is on Thursday
• PK/K are having their annual Trike-a-thon on Friday.  
• 6th and 7th grade will attend Reconciliation this week.  
• Rice bowls are due on Friday, which is also our last hot-lunch day this year

On a sad note, Kenny is no longer employed at St. Stephen.  He needed to resign effective immediately on Friday due to personal reasons.  We will miss him.  Continue to use School Dude to submit any maintenance requests.

Have a great week!

2025-26 Already?

 Yes, it's time to think about 2025-26 already (even though some of us have been planning that for months now).  What we need to focus on now is the calendar.  As you saw, a copy of the calendar was attached to the email with the blog link.  Please look over it and see if there is anything you need to add to it (Field Day, Penny Wars, Art Show, Nature's Classroom, final math exams, St. Augustine, etc.) and let me know.  Gail will start putting these events in School Dude which needs to happen ASAP so that our events take priority.  If you have any questions about the calendar, please come see me.

This week 4th and 5th grade have reconciliation and 7th grade is off to Nature's Classroom (Wed-Fri).  I will be at an administrator's meeting on Friday and Mary will only be in for the morning.  

That's all for today.  Take the time to look at the calendar.

Spring has Sprung

 The grass is riz. I wonder where the warm weather is.  Yes, I changed the words a bit, AND it does look like the warm weather is finally here to stay.  I hope you all had a fabulous week and did something amazing, even if it was waking up late and reading a book in the peace and quiet of the morning.  I'm sure there will be many sleepy children tomorrow, but they won't take long to get back into their routines.  

Tuesday will be a bit chaotic with Spring Pictures, but otherwise, it's a quiet week.  I hope many of you will join us Thursday after school in the FLC for the Dads vs. Students basketball game.  It will start at approximately 3:15. This will be a classroom pick-up day, allowing parents to collect their children and head over to the game.  

Friday is Marvelous Mustang.  Please be sure you have added yours to the spreadsheet and informed the parents to join us.  

Have a wonderful week, and stay strong; Easter is only a few weeks away :) 

Almost there

 to our Lenten Pause, aka - Spring Break!  I'm unsure who ultimately decided we needed this break rather than wait until Easter, but they are brilliant.  I imagine you all agree.  Take this time to relax and recharge so you are ready to breeze through the few months of school.  

Here are the things to know for this week:

• Laura is back!  Yay!!
• The Holy Card given out this weekend was St. Patrick.  Be sure that is the card students show you.
• 8th grade has Reconciliation on Wednesday
• Friday is Green shirt and jeans/PE shorts day.  Please remind students of the dress code for jean day.
• 8th graders will receive Confirmation on Saturday. 

Have a great week!

May the ashes on your forehead...

 be a reminder of God's love and forgiveness.  Welcome (almost) to the start of Lent.  Please be sure you are talking to your students in religion class about ashes and the purpose of Lent.  Melissa and I have sent you lots of resources. Most importantly, be sure the rice bowls go home on Wednesday.  We will begin our Lent reconciliation schedule a little early to allow 8th graders to receive the sacrament right before Confirmation.  Here is the schedule: (classes will stay after Mass for confession)

• March 12 - 8th grade
• March 26 - 2nd and 3rd grades
• April 2 - 4th and 5th grades
• April 9 - 6th and 7th grades

Melissa will provide more details and reminders. 

Friday will be our first Lent lunch.  Gail will provide the lists of the students receiving lunch on Thursday.  It will be the same students for all 5 weeks.  I will be out on Friday at the Bethany Center but hope to make it back for the first Fish Fry and I hope to see many of you there.  

Have a great week!

Lent is Coming

 Two trimesters are done and now we enter our last trimester.  This is a good time to reflect on where you are in terms of the benchmarks you need to cover and have a plan for ensuring all remaining benchmarks are addressed.  Parents will have access to report cards by Friday.  Be sure you are scheduling appointments with parents of students you are concerned about retention, remediation, and general academic/behavior concerns.  

We will also soon be entering the season of Lent. Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. Start talking to your students about what they will do that is special for Lent.  It doesn't always need to be something like I'm giving up chocolate.  Tell them to think about what they can give up that takes them away from Jesus and what they can replace it with to grow closer to him.  The easiest thing for students to relate to is technology.  Ex. give up 30 min. of video games to read the bible.  Give up social media to watch movies about the life of Christ.  Give up group chats and instead spend time with a sibling playing a board game.  The list goes on.  Playing a board game may not seem like it can bring someone closer to Christ, but it can.  Spending time with family and focusing on important things in our lives brings us closer to how Jesus wants us to live.

While we do not have a retreat scheduled until Holy Thursday, religion teachers should incorporate Lent into their lessons over the next few weeks. Some of you may have received an email with a resource that includes just about everything you could need, including links to CRS, which sponsors the rice bowls. If you missed it, you will find it below and you will need to copy/paste it.  https://ncea.org/NCEA/How_We_Serve/Resources/Lenten_Resources/NCEA/How_We_Serve/Resources/Lenten_Resources/Lenten_Resources.aspx?hkey=e6cd993e-a8e0-4419-8eb3-8dc44ae49ca9  

Speaking of rice bowls,  I believe we have them, or they should be here soon. These should go home on Ash Wednesday. Religion teachers should plan a lesson from CRS to be presented on Ash Wednesday or the day before so that students understand the significance of the rice bowl. Melissa will let you know when they are due back to school.  There are also some great resources regarding kindness and how Lent is the perfect time to practice this.  Everyone should also use the Studio 3:16 lesson as they are very engaging, and this one is free.  

The three pillars of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  This is a perfect time to incorporate the Works of Mercy into religion.  I have sent a resource to all teachers.  There is a reflection sheet that students should be completing (or something like it) when they complete a service project.  This also is a good resource to focus on Feed the Hungry and connect to the rice bowls.  Remember to send these lesson plans to me, as they make great evidence for our action plans.  

This week we will work on Terra Nova make-ups and 6th grade will finish their testing on Monday.  Please remain quiet in the halls this week as we finish testing.  Friday is Marvelous Mustang and the kick-off for the Spirit Raffle.  Please be in the gym by 2:30pm that day.  Students should pack up before you head over.  Middle school students can bring their backpacks if they go to the church parking lot for dismissal.  

I wanted to include a funny meme like this...

But then I found this...

And that spoke volumes.  Might be a great conversation to have at the end of Lent.  Should we continue our Lenten promises after Lent is over? (Melissa, that should be the final reflection of our retreat this year.) 

And for everyone who promised to give up food and go to the gym more after Christmas, there's this...

Have a great week!  

Happy Valentine's/Singles Awareness Day!

 Thank you to everyone who educated the rest of us about what is truly happening on Feb. 14.  I had no idea this existed, and now I'm questioning our choice of dress down for Friday.  Should it be red, pink, or black with chains? Maybe not. For now, just red, pink, and hearts.  Students may also be in free dress on Monday.  The Holy Card they should have for this month is St. Anne.  

What is most important this week is doing the Terra Nova practice tests and becoming familiar with the test if this is your first time proctoring the Terra Nova.  

Last week, I completed the ARCA for this year. I also attended a webinar that discussed the changes being made to the accreditation benchmarks. Most of the changes focus on making the wording more specific, breaking down one benchmark into two, and removing the referral to 21st-century skills.  I also spent a good deal of time reviewing our Action Plans.  It is important that we are doing the things we wrote about.  I will meet with Committee Chairs this week to discuss what is needed before the summer to update the Action Plans for this year and collect evidence.  The goal is to finish everything before the last day of school, so we are not doing this on that last Friday. 

Have a wonderful week!  

Smencil Sales are Here!

 When you realize that things may not be back to normal for a few weeks.  

Thank you all once again for a great Catholic Schools Week. The committee outdid themselves on Vocations Day, and those were amazing speakers.  

And now for this week's fun....

Smencil sales begin on Monday.  I'm not sure this was advertised in Tidbits but sales will continue into next week.  Student Council representatives will come to your homeroom each day to sell them.  

Also on Monday, Mary and I will join Fr. Primus and Deacon Mike to go around the school to bless throats.  Please refer to the schedule below.  It will start at approx. 10 am (give or take)

At our Faculty Meeting Monday, Mary will be talking about the Terra Nova, and on Tuesday, Lisa and Heather will be at an Instructional Coach's meeting. 

Thursday will be scoliosis screening for 6th graders.  Gail will let you know the time.  This is also the 7th grade Science Fair day, and the 6th grade will have theirs on Friday, I will be out on Friday at a principal's meeting that day.

I owe two classes their rewards:

6th grade gets extra recess with me (Connor, can we stay out on Wednesday for an extra 10-15 min?  Andrea, please take 8th grade in from recess.)  This was based on attendance at the PTCO meeting.

2nd grade gets an ice cream sundae party from the Student Council for being the Matching Monday winners.  (Connor/Andrea, please talk with Galy, pick a day, and let me know.  I will buy the ice cream, etc.)

And that is the week in a nutshell.  Have a great week!

Blessing of the Throats Schedule:

Fr. Primus with Mary:

2nd

3rd

4th (they may be in technology)

6th

7A and 7B

Deacon with Linda:

8th

PK3

PK4

K

1st (back from art at 10:20)

5th (back from PE at 10:20)

Celebrate Catholic Schools!

 Happy Catholic Schools Week! Thank you to our CSW Committee, NJRS, Student Council, and the PTCO for making this a great week of celebrating Catholic education.  Be sure to check the schedule each day and remind students what to wear the next day.  Remember, all roads lead to Friday when the real fun begins.  There's still time to sign up for Dodge Ball Madness, so don't be shy.  

After CSW, we have  Smencil Sales (Connor and Andrea will share information on how that will go), and not far behind that is the Terra Nova. We will talk more about that at our next faculty meeting. Teachers, please check your grade books to ensure you have sufficient summatives. We have only four weeks left in this trimester.  

Thank you, everyone, for supporting our mission, and have a spectacular week.  

Happy MLK Day and Inauguration Day!

 Regardless of your political beliefs, there is much to think about and reflect on today.  We remember a great man and watch as the 47th president is sworn into office.  Someone recently told me they would not watch the news for the next four years.  There's that or we can pray that our leaders are guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and hope for a better future.  

This week is the calm before the storm that is Catholic Schools Week.  While much is going on next week, it is also a time to celebrate who we are as a community.  

This Thursday is our second General PTCO meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. in the FLC. The following teachers signed up to attend: Claudia, Heather, Darien, Susana, Maria, Kristy, Melissa, and Connor. Our guest speaker will be Yesenia, who will discuss software that keeps children safe on the internet.  

Your intent to return is in your mailbox.  Everyone must complete one for next year.  

Have a great week!

Pilgrims of Hope

 Who knew that our August retreat could aid in receiving a plenary indulgence.  It might.  Pope Francis has granted a Jubilee indulgence for making a pilgrimage to an official site and doing other things like receiving communion, reconciliation, etc.  Bishop Parkes has named six sites Official Places of Pilgrimage in our Diocese.  Among them are Sacred Heart Church and St. Leo Abby (a couple of you went there recently).  You may have a head start.  You can find all the details at https://gulfcoastcatholic.org/pilgrimage (You will need to copy/paste.)  There are also plans for a Corporal Works of Mercy challenge, but I have not seen the details yet.  We probably have a good start on that as a school already.  

Monday is Holy Card free dress.  There may be a variety of cards tomorrow, so please accept any holy card.  They were delivered to the church Friday after the office closed, and every priest may not have known their location.  Monday is also IXL Math testing.  Please see Mary's email for any questions you may have. 

Let's talk about Sunday's homily for a moment.  You may have wondered about something if you were like me and listened to Fr. Primus. Or maybe it's just my ignorance, but I learned a new word.  The word is Theophany.  Fr. Primus talked about how we went from Epiphany to Theophany.  I was grateful that Prince was with me to tell me what the word was because I'd never heard it.  He knew what it was and Googled it for me.  I learned that the Baptism of Jesus is also called Theophany in Easter Christian churches, both Catholic and Orthodox.  It is the manifestation of the fullness of God.  If you want to learn more, this is a good article about it https://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=66425  

Finally, this part is for teachers.  Coming back to our conversation about note-taking.  Maria and I continued the discussion all week and did some research/reading.  Here is what we learned:

• Kudos to Anna for highlighting!  While this is not truly a form of note-taking, it is a prerequisite for that skill.  Students need to be able to identify main ideas and essential information.  The next good step is graphic organizers, where the 3rd grade is headed.
• Kudos also goes to Heather for her discussion on helping students learn to organize information into graphic organizers.
• Kudos to those teachers who know that not all students benefit from the same type of notes and introduce multiple ways of taking notes.  While graphic organizers are great, simple Cornell notes or just two-column notes (used by Claudia and David) are also important to teach. 
• We learned that this skill is a high school benchmark.  That means we need to keep teaching the skill of taking notes all the way through 8th grade.  While they may have learned note-taking skills in 5th grade, it doesn't mean they are skilled at it in 6th grade.  They will be in 9th grade if we keep teaching.
• Finally, there is a great deal of research supporting hand-written notes over electronic note-taking.  While it may be optional for students to do either, we may want to look at having times when it's mandatory for all.  

During the next two PLC meetings, please talk about what you are doing at grade level (for early childhood it may be as simple as highlighting words or ideas). and then at subject area, how these ideas can progress from grade to grade.  If you are a core subject teacher and do not teach math or ELA, please join the ELA PLC for this discussion.

Have a wonderful week and Happy Theophany to all! 

Happy New Year!

 I hope you all have a great holiday.  Bring that holiday smile and lots of patience tomorrow to receive tired, cranky children who wish they were still in bed, especially with how cold it will be this week.  Monday is a good time to review classroom rules and behavior expectations and a reminder that our goal for this year is to spread kindness.  As we enter the new year, this is a perfect time for students to reflect on how they treat others with genuine kindness.  January is also a good time to conference with students (post i-Ready testing) about the goals they set earlier in the year and their progress.  

Most of the planned work for over break did happen.  We are, however, still waiting for the fence people to fix the gate.  They have given us a date of Saturday, Jan. 11.  Fingers crossed.  

It's a quiet week.  The faculty meeting will be important for all teachers.  We will be discussing Catholic Schools Week.  The committee, David (Penny Wars), and Connor (Spirit Week) will be presenting.  

I will be at the Bethany Center for an administrator's meeting on Friday but will be available by text or email.  

Have a wonderful week!