Summer is always a busy time in school buildings. With students and teachers enjoying the break, the focus turns to routine maintenance, cleaning, and setup for another new school year. This year the maintenance crews are amping up for heightened activity as materials, supplies, textbooks, library resources, and classroom items are all relocated between Stella Maris campuses as part of the adjusted grade configurations for 2017-2018. In addition to standard cleaning, scheduled painting, and routine repairs, each campus will have improvements made to serve students and families. 

Across all campuses, technology improvements will upgrade infrastructure including enhanced security and WiFi. Whiteboards will be installed in classrooms that presently do not have one available, all to better support an interactive curriculum and teachers/student users. An option of an interconnected phone system is being explored and front entry security updated. Lockers will be installed for middle school students at St. John's. At  Holy Rosary, the kitchen will be remodeled to prepare and serve a daily hot lunch program and the staff room will be relocated to open space for the preschool program.

Our buildings will look beautiful with these added improvements, ready to welcome back over 500 Stella Maris students and families this fall.

The parent partnership is a foundation element of the Catholic school experience. Involvement of parents and the greater community is essential to deliver the strong student experience, support teachers, and build community. It can also bring satisfaction in sharing common goals and of course, bringing the fun to school!

Great progress has been made forming the core leadership groups for each campus of Stella Maris Academy. The core leadership group includes five positions: Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Parent Ambassador Coordinator(s), and Parent Volunteer Coordinator. In addition, the Stella Maris  "executive" leadership group in place, as the chair and vice-chair from each campus will serve this function. The complete list of leaders will be published in the Back To School packet along with a description of each role. Other elements being defined include constitutional and operational documents, a defined scope of work, logistics of meetings and publishing information. 

It is wonderful to have leaders identified to begin the work of the new parent organization. Thank you to parents who have stepped up already to share their wisdom and experience.