Dear All Saints Families, 

Thank you to all the families who attended our annual drama production, Aladdin Jr., this past week.  Our students continue to amaze me with their musical, acting, and comic abilities.  I thank Mrs. Laura Winters, our drama coordinator, for rallying our fourth to eighth grades students for such a wonderful production.  I also wish to thank, Mrs. Darlene Capparelli, Mrs. Vanessa DeOlazabal, and Mrs. Amy Gentile who began working with the drama group from day one and helped in countless ways throughout every practice. Sincere gratitude is acknowledged to our parents of our drama members who also supported this endeavor in so many ways. We are truly blessed.

Beginning this week, we have several liturgies in the month of May which celebrate our faith and children.  We invite all our families to join us.  This Thursday, May 4th is the eighth grade celebration of May Crowning.  On Thursday, May 18th is the Baccalaureate Mass, and on Thursday, May 25th is the First Communion Mass.  All liturgies will be at St. Peter Church at 9:00 AM.  Seating for families is on the west side of the church and in the last few pews.  We encourage our families to get to church early to find a seat.  Further, once the liturgy begins, we now lock the side doors of the church for safety of our school children.  If you are running late, we ask families to enter through the main doors of the church.

As we move towards the end of the school year, our teachers are working hard to keep our children engaged and learning.  We are well aware all are looking forward to the end of the year and the beginning of the summer vacation.  However, there is so much teachers are still working towards for student mastery in the curriculum.  Please speak to your children regarding completing all work to the best of their ability.  Every student needs to finish the year strongly to begin new material next year.  Summer work requirements will be coming out shortly to keep skills fresh over the summer. Please remember that administration will be sharing our Iowa standardized scores with our families on May 17th at 6:00 PM in the gym.  Beyond Iowa discussion, we will be reviewing other ways our school plans to evaluate student learning to drive instructional design and best use of our Resource Department for the next year. We hope to see our families at this important meeting.

On April 21st I sent an email to our middle school parents regarding a Netflix series called, 13 Reasons Why. This series depicts the suicide of a high school student.  Many of her high school classmates receive a video that explains how they contributed to her suicide.   It is very graphic and there are several warnings in the series along the way. Since my email blast, I have received many emails thanking the school for bringing this to their attention.  Parents, as I had asked, begin a conversation about thoughts of depression, friendships, asking for help, and how do live a better life for yourself and others.  I also received some communication about how shocked they were about parents' lack of knowledge about their children even having access to Netflix.  Students have viewed this at other students' homes or "borrowed" other's Netflix accounts.  This allowed the parents to have a further conversations about access to Apps or resources they should not have without parental permission.  I know that social media and the Palm Beach County School Board have brought discussion of this series and how it has affected our youth to the forefront of awareness. I have received emails from parents below middle school and so I will repeat what I said in my email to middle school - I do feel the content of this series is not appropriate for middle school or younger. I am aware that each child is different.  However, I would say if you allow your child to watch this series, you join him/her in a discussion that pertains to it.  Thoughts of suicide and suicide itself are heartbreaking.   We always want our children to be open about their concerns.  However, too often I think Hollywood glamorizes important issues.  However, as parents we can use this to build relationships with our children.  As a community we must protect our children and not be blind to what they are doing and assume our children would never be involved in such ideas.  Please enter into a real and honest conversation with your children about this series and the pressures of life.

Please be aware that our Diocesan school calendar for the 2017-2018 school year is now posted on our website.  Our Diocese did decide to match the public school system in being out of school the week of Thanksgiving.  We are able to do this because our school is well above in required hours of instruction.