Dress for the Weather!
We are entering colder weather. Please have your children wear warmer coats with hats and gloves/mittens as temperatures dip lower. We will be enjoying outside as much as possible these colder days and want to ensure all students are dressed appropriately. With our COVID health mitigations in place, the office and the clinic are not places students are able to wait this year while classes have outdoor recess.
eLearn This Week as Appropriate
Students who traveled over the break or whose families hosted others for the holiday not in your usual bubble are to eLearn this week. If your family discovers you have been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID or been exposed to someone with COVID, please contact our school nurse for next steps. We appreciate everyone working together on this. We continue to monitor the updated health metrics provided by public health agencies and increase our own health mitigations to lessen the impact if the virus within our community.
Monday Dismissal Time Change to 1:00pm for Remainder of School Year
Change in our plan.....Thank you to those families who provided feedback in our first trimester survey. Your input is helpful as we evaluate our progress and look to make needed adjustments for going forward. We understand the burdens of this school year on everyone in our school community and we are looking to find a better balance between home and school work. The pandemic brings challenges to the teaching and learning capabilities on parents, teachers, and students—based on the feedback—we are making small changes without compromising the safety and wellness of all members or the academic rigor necessary for continued growth and progress.
Beginning with this trimester, Mondays will be a slightly shorter day for students and teachers. Dismissal will be at 1:00pm vice 2:15pm (unless otherwise noted on the school calendar) to allow important collaborative time for faculty and staff, in-service professional development/training as needed and time for grading and planning. Extended Day is available for registered families on first come basis for those who need the care. Instruction will be asynchronous for all students - it will be a day for catching up on assignments as needed, small group check-in's with teachers, and project completion.
The counselor and Resource team will be available to work with students as necessary and needed. We are seeing the impact of this year on students’ anxiety and depression as well as inability to organize themselves within the day. While we have added in calendars, weekly schedules, and streamlined teacher’s pages as ways to assist students, we are always looking for more ways to assist students through these pandemic challenges. Our hope is this small tweak to the week will help students and teachers.
St. Andrew's Christmas Novena
Join us this Advent Season in praying The Christmas Novena. It’s a wonderful way to enter into the full spirit of the Advent season which is marked by a time of anticipation, penance, and prayer. This novena prayer is actually prayed much longer than the usual nine days—it is prayed throughout all four weeks of Advent. It is piously believed that whoever recites the St. Andrew Christmas Novena Prayer FIFTEEN times each day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until Christmas Eve will obtain the favor requested. The school will be adding this prayer into our morning and afternoon prayers over the next three weeks. You find the prayer here:
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouch safe, I beseech Thee, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.
