Parent Bulletin
February 4, 2021
MR. FITZ'S BLOG
We are excited that today begins the re-enrollment process for you current school parents and the new application process for those families banging on our doors to be able to come to St. Louise in the fall.

Today, all school families with grade PK-7 children will receive in the red Family Envelope a hard copy of the instructions for re-enrolling for 2021-22. These instructions lay out the steps, which include the following:

First, you're getting an email this morning from DocuSign, whom we use for our electronic-signature tuition contract. We ask you to please sign and submit the new school year contract by no later than February 23. (Check your junk-folder in case your DocuSign email ends up there.)

To go along with your contract, there is an annual re-enrollment/application fee. Please pay your non-refundable application fee online at a reduced price (only for the next few weeks) of $95 at osvonlinegiving.com/1369.

Also today, all grade PK-7 families are receiving a second email today - this one from office@stlouiseschool.org - explaining how to electronically re-enroll on Skyward by February 23.

It will be important for two reasons to remember the February 23rd deadline for you to please complete these above steps for re-enrolling. The first reason you won't want to procrastinate is current families who re-enroll by the 23rd save $125 in the fee. The second reason to make sure you re-enroll by the 23rd is that we have so many prospective new families wanting to transfer out of the public school system and apply with us, that we will definitely have waiting lists in most grade levels for the fall. You get priority to guarantee roster spots for your kids - but only if you don't procrastinate.

If any current school family wishes to newly enroll a child for next school year who is not currently attending St. Louise (such as a new PreK or Kdg. student), please contact Mindy and Tracy in the school office now. Besides additional steps in enrollment, we'd ask all kindergarten applicants to sign up now for a March-date readiness assessment.

I understand that in today’s unpredictable economy, it would be understandable for a family to think twice about committing to the financial obligations that come with enrolling their children in a Catholic school. That is why I have come up with some reasons why re-enrolling your children at St. Louise and committing to paying school tuition are the right decisions to make for 2021, 2022, and beyond. Let me present to you…
         
Mr. Fitz’s Top Five Reasons to Re-Enroll in St. Louise School
 
#5 – More than just the 3 “R’s” your children learn at any school (Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic), at St. Louise they learn a total of 6 “R’s”, as we are able to add Religion, Respect, Responsibility.
 
#4 – St. Louise graduates are accepted to the finest, college-prep high schools and are well prepared for the rigors of secondary education. Our 8th graders matriculate to Seattle Prep, Holy Names, and other highly selective high schools, and after high school, St. Louise alums attend such universities as Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Notre Dame, and West Point.
 
#3 – Paying for your child to be educated at St. Louise is not only a sound investment in your child’s future, but costs as little as $7 an hour. That is less expensive than paying your babysitter, paying for swimming lessons, or the cost of hiring a high schooler to tutor your child at the library after school.
 
#2 – The St. Louise teachers and staff are second-to-none in the skills they bring to their jobs and the concern they have for your kids.
 
And the #1 reason you should re-enroll your children in St. Louise is…
 
#1 - Christ is the reason for our school. He is the unseen but ever-present teacher in every classroom. He is the model for our faculty and the inspiration for our students.
         
Besides receiving your re-enrollment instructions today, I would like to provide information on applying for a tuition assistance grant. Please go HERE for tuition assistance information. We certainly wouldn’t want a family to choose to not return to St. Louise School simply due to the assumption that it might be impossible on the family budget to pay tuition. We purposely work at building up our tuition assistance account exactly for this reason of making sure a family who desires a Catholic school education can get financial help if they are facing a difficult financial situation. Thanks to generous contributions from school supporters such as many school parents, our Father Phil Wallace Tuition Assistance Endowment Fund is around $2,300,000, and thus is generating enough interest income each year for us to be able to provide financial aid to over 10% of our student population.

Besides scholarships helping to make a Catholic school accessible, it also helps that our 2021-22 tuition rates that we are announcing today are very modest. In fact, this is the lowest increase in our tuition in at least the past five years. We continue to have the most affordable Catholic or private school tuition on the Eastside! With this welcome news, I hope you won’t delay in finishing your re-enrollment paperwork and paying your $95 re-application fee by the early-decision deadline of Feb. 23. Again, please realize that after the 23rd, we’ll start filling open roster spaces to newly enrolling families, and the fee increases to $220.

Thanks for sticking with us for another school year in '21-22! Speaking of "sticking," please stick your St. Louise decal on the back window of your car, and soon we'll be rewarding families who do so with Free Dress coupons for their kids. (See the article below.)

Congratulations in your wise investment in your children’s future through your re-enrolling them for a St. Louise School Catholic education!

Blessings on your day!

MR. FITZ

p.s.
Thank you for your flexibility and support as we have had to adjust so much this year - from the school calendar , to whom can come to school when, to which programs have to be canceled.

Coming up, we have an added NO-SCHOOL DAY tomorrow, allowing a day of rest for our teachers and staff who are working a 12+hour day today (with tonight's Open House).

Then we continue with our already-scheduled NO-SCHOOL DAYS on February 15 & 16 for the George Washington Birthday Holiday.

In March, we added a NOON DISMISSAL DAY on March 8, allowing our teachers the afternoon to test incoming new applicants for the next school year. We have so many new applicants who want to transfer to St. Louise this year! We also have NO-SCHOOL DAYS on March 11 & 12 to give the teachers time to work on creating 2nd trimester report cards. (Kids' Club will be in session on March 8 , 11, 12. KC parents are asked to please confirm with Maria Zambrano their child's need for childcare on any of these days.)

Thanks for getting these dates on your calendar. Don't forget, you can subscribe to the school calendar HERE so you'll always have the most updated event information.
CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS

Today
  • Open House tonight - thanks to our current school parents for sharing the good news about St. Louise to prospective new school parents ...we sold out of all available appointment spots for tonight!
  • Charger Cards will be selling out of their central-wing-hallway sales window this morning from 8:15-9:00 (no sales on Friday)

Tomorrow - NO-SCHOOL DAY
  • No online classes; R&R day for school faculty
  • Kids' Club and the school office are closed

Tuesday and Wednesday, February 9 & 10
  • School Photo Days
  • All students must wear their complete uniforms to school - including the red sweater or fleece
  • See article below for pre-ordering information

Thursday, February 11
  • Parents' Club meeting on Zoom at 7PM; email Karen Reed for the Zoom link to join in

Monday and Tuesday, February 15 & 16 - NO-SCHOOL DAYS
  • All classes canceled and no Kids' Club
  • Celebrate George Washington's Birthday on Monday ...and the rest of the Presidents on Tuesday :-)

Wednesday, February 17 - Lent Begins
  • Ash Wednesday Liturgies throughout the day for classes to attend; adults must please RSVP to attend a Mass; specific Mass times and an RSVP link will be forthcoming
  • Students and staff all participating in Fasting & Almsgiving; please pack a simple lunch and bring your cash donation to the New Bethlehem Project; see the article below for more information

Thursday, February 18
  • Virtual Open House; please have your friends and neighbors with upcoming 4-to-14-year-olds sign up HERE to receive the link for this evening's virtual, live presentation

Monday, February 22
  • Addy and Dylan Ellis will be "Principals for the Day" - a privilege their parents purchased for them at last year's Auction; expect some fun surprises today with St. Louise's new bosses!

Monday, March 8 - NOON DISMISSAL *new addition to the calendar

Thursday and Friday, March 11 & 12 - NO-SCHOOL DAYS *revision to the calendar


CHECK OUT OUR COMPLETE SCHOOL CALENDAR HERE
Re-Enrollment Starts Today
Re-Enrollment Checklist:
 
__ 2021-22 Parent Contract
This form from DocuSign is being emailed to each family individually. Look for it in your inbox (or check your junk folder). Please contact the school office if you do not receive this emailed contract today. There are two options for tuition payment: Pay in one lump sum by August, or make direct, monthly tuition payments from your checking or savings account – via electronic funds transfer (EFT). The EFT information needed for this process is completed within the contract. Please complete, sign, and submit the Parent Contract.
 
__ Application Fee
Please pay your non-refundable application fee at a special reduced price of $95. After February 23, the fee increases to $220.
 
__ 2021-22 Skyward Student Re-Enrollment
Complete the Student Re-enrollment form through the Skyward student management system. You must confirm that the student and family information we have in Skyward remains accurate heading into the new school year – such as your family’s address, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. To do this, please:
1) Go to Skyward and log-in as usual.
2) Once you log in, click on “Re-Enrollment for 2021-22,” and follow the steps to completion.
3) If you forgot your log-in ID and/or password, there is a link you can click to have it sent to you (or you may contact Mindy Morgan or Tracy Brown in the school office).
4) If you will be newly enrolling a child who has never attended St. Louise School, please click on the “New Student Online Enrollment” link on the left-side after you log into Skyward.
In last week's red Family Envelope, families received an invitation to re-enroll for admissions, and this invitation was attached to a new St. Louise car-window decal.

Families who re-enroll by February 23rd, and have a STL decal on the back of their car (either this new one, or a prior year's version), will be honored with a Free Dress Day! The free dress date is TBA.

On February 25th and 26th, we will have volunteers in the parking lot collecting names of families with car-window decals, and we'll send a list out to confirm before the free dress day is awarded.

Thanks for sharing your Charger Spirit when you drive around the greater Eastside!
School Photos Taken Next Week
Our school photographer, Yuen Lui Studios, will be here for two days - February 9 & 10 - to take individual school photos of every St. Louise student. These photos are for our school yearbook, and will also be available for families to purchase. You may place your pre-order now by clicking HERE.

Usually we take group photos of each homeroom for the yearbook and for purchase. This year to be more cautious and to avoid classes grouping together on risers for a group photo shoot, Yuen Lui will create a class composite as their class photo. Every student who orders a photo package from Yuen Lui will receive a class composite print.

However, unlike this example, for St. Louise, of course, all students must be in full school uniform on February 9 and 10, including the school sweater or fleece (no hoody). The 8th grade students will have their photos taken in caps and gowns over their uniform.

FOR 100% REMOTE LEARNING FAMILIES: Any students who are 100% online-learning in February will be encouraged to come to school for this brief time for their individual photo shoot. Homeroom teachers will let their online-learning families know the exact day and time of their classroom's photo shoot. And, if you have multiple students at home, just bring them in during one of your classes photo session times (if you have an 8th grader, please bring all of your kiddos in at the 8th grade time).

If you have questions, please contact Julianne Read. And, we still need 3-4 volunteers for 2/9 and 2/10. Let Julianne know if you can come in and volunteer morning or afternoon on those days! Thank you!

REMEMBER:
To purchase your yearbook, go to
The St. Louise School passcode is 101439484318388.
For questions email TreeRing at support@treering.com
or the yearbook volunteer team at yearbook@stlouiseschool.org.
Mr. Fitz and Mr. Fuerte Agree To Be Silly-Stringed If You Support the Annual Fund by March 15th!
St. Louise School’s tuition rate is possible in large part because of our four major fund raisers: the Walk-a-Thon, the Auction, Charger Cards, and the Annual Fund (formerly called the Annual School Gift Campaign). These fund raisers, along with parish support connected to your Sunday stewardship and the many generous parents who help "Fill the Gap" with extra tuition payments each month, make up the difference of approximately $2,500 per child between tuition and the actual cost of educating your child.
 
The fund raiser in the spotlight at this time of year is our Annual Fund. Last week in the red family envelope, you received the Annual Fund appeal information inside the Annual Report that all school families, past donors, and St. Louise parishioners also received.
 
We ask you at this time to thoughtfully consider how much you can give to the 2021 Annual Fund, which all school families commit to support each year, and respond by March 15th - which will be designated as "Annual Fund Giving Day."

And, here's the fun part.....

Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Fuerte have generously (crazily?) offered to be silly-stringed by any grade levels that reach 100% in pledges committed, or donations made, by March 15, Annual Fund Giving Day! For example, if KA&B and 3A&B have in 100% of their families pledges or donations by 3/15, each student in those grade levels will receive a can of silly string to spray on Mr. Fitz and Mr. Fuerte on a school assembly on the following day.

This event will be livestreamed on Facebook! Imagine Mr. Fitz or Mr. Fuerte sitting in that circle like the photo above, getting covered head-to-toe in silly-string! It will be a super fun event ----- if we can just get grade levels to all respond to the Annual Fund between now and our Annual Fund Giving Day on March 15!

If it helps to spread out your gift to the Annual Fund instead of making one payment, we offer the option of having a portion donated each month. For example, instead of paying $750 in one lump sum now, you could pay $75 over the next 10 months. And to make donating at a higher giving level even that much better for your family budget, you also have the option of charging your Annual Fund donation on your credit card. So not only will you receive the benefit of giving a tax-deductible donation, but you may have the added benefit of earning mileage or points. Please click here to donate.
        
Remember, your donation to the Annual Fund isn’t just a “bonus” gift. It supports 6% of the school's annual budget, providing enrichment programs and supporting teacher salaries. And unlike other charitable donations you may make where you never quite know how the money is used, you know your child will get the direct benefit of your donation.
        
Please respond to your Annual Fund appeal packet that was inserted in last week's Annual Report. If you have questions about the Fund or the Report, please contact Julianne Read in our Development Office. Thanks in advance for your investment in your children’s education, and for your financial support of St. Louise School.
Have you read the entertaining and informative Annual Report yet?! It was sent home last week. Did you find your family's name inside? Click HERE to read a virtual edition of our 2020 Annual Report.
Let's All Fast and Give Alms this Ash Wednesday
Annually on Ash Wednesdays at St. Louise School, we focus with our students on the three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This has been done in recent years with an all-school liturgy and a rice & beans lunch. The money that would have been spent on a plentiful lunch is instead donated to a charity. This year for the first day of Lent on Wednesday, February 17, we are altering these annual events slightly, due to COVID-precautions:

  1. We will still do the PRAYER component of Lent by having all grade levels attend an Ash Wednesday liturgy. But due to the limited seating in church, we’ll have different levels attending different liturgy times during the day. Next week, we’ll have details of which grade level will attend which liturgy. Parents may attend any parish liturgy on Ash Wednesday, provided they RSVP or sign up at the door.
  2. Instead of serving a communal rice & beans lunch for the FASTING component of Lent, we will be asking each teacher, staff member, and individual student (with parent's help) to provide their own simple, bare-bones meal for lunch on the 17th. Eating a smaller than normal, simple lunch on Ash Wednesday helps us develop self-discipline and makes us feel the hunger for just a few hours that the less fortunate feel every day.
  3. For ALMSGIVING, we suggest on Ash Wednesday that each student bring a cash donation to school that is equivalent to the amount of money “saved” by packing a simpler than typical lunch. This cash donation - a suggested amount of $5 - will be given to The New Bethlehem Project, the Kirkland day center that St. Louise Parish and School have a history of assisting, such as this past Thanksgiving-time when our school families helped in this big way.

As Ash Wednesday approaches, our 7th grade students will be helping promote our Fasting & Almsgiving activity by creating a video for grade K-8 students to view in their rooms.
Tax Letters Emailed this Week
School families and supporters should have received their tax letters for their 2020 donations via email this week. If you don’t have our bookkeeper, Angie Ogilvy, saved in your contacts, the emailed letter may have gone to your junk folder so please check for it there. Also, new this year, you will receive a single letter for donations to St. Louise School which will include any cash donations made at or toward the Auction. You’ll receive a second letter with your Auction purchases, which will include your paid-over-value information. Please reach out to Linda Bowers, Angie Ogilvy, or Julianne Read if you have any questions. Thanks for your 2020 donations!
Any Volunteers Out There?
Volunteers Needed – Photo Days
We still need 4 more volunteers to assist with photos days this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, 2/9 and 2/10. If you can help for the morning or afternoon on either of those days, please email Julianne Read.



Volunteers Needed - Virtual Talent Show Co-Chairs
We want to see our students showcase their many talents and we are hoping to host a Virtual Talent Show! But, we are in need of 2 or 3 people to co-chair this new event. Grab a couple of friends and email Karen Reed, Parents’ Club President, to let her know you’d love to do this!

please note: SINCE THERE IS NO SCHOOL TOMORROW, THE CHARGER CARDS SALES WINDOW WILL BE OPEN THIS MORNING - THURSDAY - FROM 8:15-9:00.


Charger Cards Are Perfect for Valentine’s Day

This year our own "Valentine" needs that extra attention, love, and care - due to online learning, work from home, busy full house! Charger Cards has great cards in stock for Valentine's Day activities! Stop by the Charger Cards sales window this morning to pick up restaurant, spa, or shopping gift cards for that special someone!
 
Great gift card suggestions for February 14th include:

·      Amazon.com - $25 or $100
·      Maggianos $25 or 450
·      Crate and Barrel - $25 or $100
·      El Gaucho $100
·      Gene Juarez - $25, $50 or $100
·      iTunes $15 or $25
·      Jo Ann Fabrics or Michaels - $25
·      Macy’s - $25 or $100
·      Nordstrom - $25 or $100
·      Pottery Barn - $25 or $100
·      REI $25
·      See’s Candies - $25
·      Sephora - $20
·      Starbucks - $10, $20, $25 or $
·      Trophy Cupcakes $25
·      Wild Ginger $50

You can also create a Valentine Package such as:

  • From Dad and the Kids to Mom ($50): $25 Gene Juarez & $25 Amazon
  • The Day Out package ($100): $50 Gene Juarez, $25 Macy's, $25 Starbucks
  • The Spoil Valentine ($150): $100 Nordstrom, $50 Wild Ginger
  • The Couples package ($200): $100 Gene Juarez, $100 El Gaucho.
  • Dinner and a movie at home ($75): $50 Maggiano's, $25 Starbucks
  • Shopping and Dinner at Bellevue Square ($75): $25 Lincoln Cinema, $50 Maggiano’s
  • Evening of Coffee and Books ($50): $25 Starbucks, $25 Barnes and Noble
 
Or get creative and make your own package. We'd be happy to customize any package! Nothing says “I love you” more than buying a gift that also helps your kids’ school! Take that extra step to show your Valentine that you care!



Appreciation Week Ends Today

Today is the final day for Teacher Appreciation Week as part of Catholic Schools' Week! As a Catholic school, we annually take this first week in February to celebrate Catholic education and honor our faculty. Take advantage of Charger Cards if you'd like to treat your child's teachers and/or any staff members to a thank you gift. You'll find their school faculty's Wish List of their favorite Charger Cards HERE. Thanks in advance to families who generously appreciate the teachers and purchase Charger Cards to do so! 

 

Charger Cards Searching for New Co-Chairs

Parents’ Club is looking for two new Charger Cards co-chairs for a minimum commitment of two years, to start their training now and take over from current chair, Marsha Rampersad-Zope. Marsha has been chairing or co-chairing Charger Cards for the past three years, and is ready to hand over the keys to her well-organized fund raiser.

Attention to detail and strength in working with numbers are prerequisites for this position. It's a plus to know Excel and QuickBooks. Parents' Club sponsors a half-tuition scholarship for each co-chair position. The other perks of the job are it is a great way to interact with all the St. Louise parents and to make a positive impact in an important school program.

If you are interested, please contact Marsha at chargercards@stlouiseschool.org. She can explain about the hours you need to put in each school week, and can set up a "shadowing" of her position so you are well prepared to step into the role of co-chair this summer. You and a friend can volunteer together, or you can be paired up with another parent in our community.



For more information on brands/cards available for purchase 24/7 please go to shopwithscrip.com.

For more information on Charger Cards and online ordering, please visit www.stlouiseschool.org/chargercards or email us at chargercards@stlouiseschool.org 

In-person sales every school-Friday from 8:15-9:00AM in the central hallway of the original school building.


Thank you for supporting St. Louise Charger Cards!
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