Dear Parents,
Welcome back to Blessed Sacrament School for the 2009-2010 school year! We are excited to be back with your children and are looking forward to another great year!
We extend a special welcome to our new students. They include Pat Kolis in first grade; Matthew Klenke, Jim Kolis, and Blair Perkins in second grade; Andrew Barno, Lizzy Benoit, John Kolis, and Rick Rotherham in third grade; Matthew Brittin-McCue, Tristan Cano, Addison Keeley, and Joey Kolis in fourth grade; Sara Rotherham in fifth grade; Anna Benoit and Abbey Townsend in sixth grade; and Regan Israel and Tyler Vogel in seventh grade. We’re happy to have them as part of our student body! (Dae Jun Lee, an eighth grade foreign exchange student from Korea, will be joining our school in a couple of weeks.)
We also welcome our new faculty and staff members for this school year. Mrs. Cindy Klenke has returned to our school after a few years at home with her children. She is our new preschool teacher for the M-F class. Her teacher’s aide is Miss Emily Adams, a graduate of Blessed Sacrament. The new first grade aide is Mrs. Debbie Mauntel, a parent of BSS students and another teacher returning to the education field after being at home with her children. We are excited about the talent and enthusiasm that they bring to our faculty!
Although we haven’t had a lot of changes in staffing, we have moved a few classrooms around. The all-day, M-F preschool is in the room previously used as Mrs. Harth’s kindergarten. That kindergarten room is now in the previous school library with a door connecting the two kindergarten rooms. The library can now be found in the previous music room, and the music room is now in a newly-enclosed room on the stage. We appreciate the patience, flexibility, and hard work of our faculty and staff in making these changes possible.
We began our year on Tuesday with a prayer service led by Father Hoefler. He reminded our students that they are the light of Christ in the world today. That goes along with our theme for the year, Together We Make Our School Shine, in addition to our school motto of Learning to Make a Difference. Look for more news about this year’s theme in upcoming newsletters and around our school building.
Today we officially welcomed our new kindergarten students and our M-F preschool students after they visited the classrooms with their parents yesterday. They will have an 11:00 a.m. dismissal each day this week and next week, and all the other grades will begin regular dismissal times next week with 2:45 p.m. dismissal for car riders (parking lot pick-up only) and 2:50 p.m. for the walkers.
Students in grades 2-5 will begin attending Mass each Tuesday at 8:20 a.m. beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 1, and students in grades 6-8 will attend 8:20 Mass each Thursday beginning on Sept. 3. Additional all-school Masses will be listed in the student handbook/calendar.
I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend. It has been great to see so many of you this week. Thanks to all of you who were able to join us at the picnic on Sunday for the kick-off of our Building on Tradition campaign. It’s going to be an exciting year! Thanks for all your support as we begin the 2009-2010 school year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Kathy Wear
Lunch order forms for the Tuesday/Thursday hot lunches were sent home with the Fee Night packets. Today you will be receiving order forms for the Subway lunches on
Mondays and the pizza lunches on Wednesdays. These lunch days are sponsored by the eighth grade class as fundraisers for their eighth grade activities. Please remember that those order forms are all due back next Friday, August 28. The lunches start the week of August 31, so no late orders can be accepted!
New phones have just been installed in all the classrooms. These will ensure that our teachers have access to help in emergency situations and will also allow them to retrieve voice mail messages on their own phones. Please give the teachers a few days to set up their voice mail boxes, but by next week you should be able to leave messages for any of the teachers through a school directory of extensions. Please understand that a teacher may not have a chance to return a call immediately, due to teaching and supervision assignments, but you should receive a reply in a reasonable amount of time. If you need an immediate response, you may check with the school office regarding a teacher’s availability.
As you may have heard, the City of Springfield is no longer providing funding for crossing guards. Due to the late notice, we do not have funding for hiring crossing guards in our budget at this point. (Even though District 186 may fund some crossing guards, it is unlikely that they will be covering the corners most used by our students and closest to our school.)
We have assigned staff members to cover the corner of Walnut and Laurel and the corner of Glenwood and Laurel in the mornings (7:45 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. only) and the same corners in the afternoon (2:50 –approximately 3:00/3:05 p.m.). We have had a parent volunteer covering the corner of Glenwood and Ash this week, but we will be unable to have a crossing guard at that corner on a regular basis. We ask that parents who have children crossing at that corner make arrangements to ensure the safety of their children.
Protecting God’s Children Training
All parents who will be involved with volunteering in our school, including chaperoning field trips, being room parents, coaching athletic teams, or helping with children in the school in any capacity, need to attend a Protecting God’s Children program. You may not be allowed to help with some activities until you have completed this training. However, once you are trained, you will not have to repeat the training.
There are several sessions scheduled for the next few weeks in the Springfield area. (You may train at any location and still volunteer at our school.) Sessions are scheduled at St. Joseph in Chatham (Wed., Aug. 26, at 6:00 p.m., Sat., Aug. 29, at 9:00 a.m., and Wed., Sept. 2, at 6:00 p.m.), at St. Aloysius (Thurs., Aug. 27, at 6:00 p.m.), at Cathedral (Thurs., Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m.), and at St. Agnes (Tues., Sept. 15, at 6:30 p.m.).
If you are available on any of these dates, please take advantage of this opportunity as training at Blessed Sacrament will be later in September due to the large number of trainings already scheduled in the next few weeks. (Upcoming sessions are listed on the Diocesan website, www.dio.org., along with directions for registration.)
Student Handbooks/Calendars
The student handbooks/calendars should be sent home the first week of September or possibly as early as next week. Final additions to the handbook are in the process of being approved, but if you have any questions about school rules and guidelines, you may refer to last year’s handbook available at our school website, www.bssbruins.org. Today you will receive the calendar pages for August and September to help you with planning. Feel free to call the office if you have questions about any other future dates.
Please check on skirt lengths and hair grooming. Our guidelines require skirts to be no higher than two inches above the knee, and bangs must be above the eyebrows with boys’ hair no longer than the top of the shirt collar. Our junior high students will attend an assembly next Monday to make sure they understand the guidelines regarding uniforms. Please help your students to be in compliance. Thanks for your cooperation!
B.A.S.E. News
The change in classroom locations has resulted in a new location to pick up students from B.A.S.E., our after-school care program. Parents should sign out their students in the art room this year.
Used Uniform Sale
Any remaining uniforms from the used uniform sale should be picked up tomorrow. If you would prefer to donate any remaining uniforms to St. Patrick School, please send a note with your child tomorrow. Any items that St. Patrick School cannot use will be donated to a charitable organization.
H1N1/Swine Flu Updates
A letter is being sent home today from the Illinois State Board of Education, in collaboration with the Center for Disease Control, recommending that all students receive flu vaccines this year. In addition, they encourage staff and students to exercise good personal hygiene habits: “Remember the three C’s: Clean – Wash your hands frequently to prevent the spread of germs; Cover – your cough or sneeze with a tissue or sleeve, not your hands; and Contain your germs – stay home if you are sick.” We appreciate your cooperation in helping us keep our students safe and healthy. We will share additional reminders in upcoming newsletters.
Looking Ahead
Monday, Aug. 24 – Friday, Aug. 28 –
2:45 p.m. (2:50 p.m.) dismissal for grades 1-8
11:00 a.m. dismissal for kindergarten students and M-F preschool students only
Tuesday, Aug. 25 –
7:00-8:00 p.m. - Open gym for 7th & 8th grade girls interested in basketball
Wednesday, Aug. 26 –
Preschool meeting for parents only at 6:30 p.m. in the rectory basement
Mandatory meeting for 8th grade parents in the gym at 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 27 –
PreK open house for Tu/Th class – 8:30-10:00 a.m.
7:00-8:00 p.m. - Open gym for 7th & 8th grade girls interested in basketball
Friday, Aug. 28 –
PreK open house for M/W/F class – 8:30-10:00 a.m.
Monday, Aug. 31 –
First day of preschool for M/W/F class
Tuesday, Sept. 1 –
8:20 a.m. Mass for grades 2-5
First day of preschool for Tu/Th class
11:30 a.m. dismissal for all grades – faculty regional workshop; no B.A.S.E.
Thursday, Sept. 3 –
8:20 a.m. Mass for grades 6 - 8
Parent Back-to-School Night for parents and students at 7:00 p.m. in the gym
Before School Patrols for the Week of Aug. 24 - 28:
Monica Bell Sean Patrick Chapin
Graham Cross Alex DeLeon
After School Patrols for the Week of Aug. 24 - 28:
Natalie Bayer Ethan Bluhm
Jack Broeker Charlie Delano
Mass Servers for Aug. 23 & 23:
(only BSS students listed)
4:30 p.m. Saturday Sean Wesp
7:00 a.m. Sunday Tessie McDermott
8:30 a.m. Sunday Ben Eck & Kate Healy
10:30 a.m. Sunday Alex DeLeon
Joel Henderson
Daily Servers for Aug. 24 – 28:
8:00 a.m. M - W Jeremy French & Eric Ketchum
8:20 a.m. Th, & Fri. (no BSS students)