WINTER 2020
Hello school families, faculty and staff. See below for some updates from our School Advisory Board Committees. Please keep in mind that in addition to the school board members listed, every board committee has the benefit of working with sub-committee members made up of parents, administration, faculty, staff as well as our pastor, Fr. Bill. As with most initiatives at our school, it is the continued support of SO many that leads to improvements and success.
CATHOLIC IDENTITY COMMITTEE
Katy Newcomb & Katie Kanzer
  • We have planned an informal discussion of Fr. Barron's DVD series "The Mass" to coordinate with Lent. This three-night watch and discuss event will help all of us better understand and appreciate the long, complex prayer that is the mass. We will have some answers to our kids' questions and a better mindset with which to approach the Lenten season. We will be meeting in Unity Hall, 7PM-9PM on 3/9, 3/16 and 3/30. Please see the Parent Newsletter for more details.

  • Our committee supports the weekly Parent Rosary in the SFX chapel on Thursdays at 8:15AM. Come join us as we pray for SFX students, families, faculty and staff.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
Diane Asleson, Matt Duffy & Laura Jacobs
One of the missions of the Marketing and Communications Committee is to assist the school Administration in sustaining and increasing enrollment at SFX. 

  • During the first half of the year, we focused on building stronger engagement among the Pre-K through 5th grade families, beyond the classroom.  

  • The two major initiatives were re-establishing the Jr. Falcon Club, led by Kelly Widuch and Veronica Ponce, and helping our Athletic Director, Tammy Bauer, to establish on-going promotion of the athletic programs, led by Erin Mullen and Karen Trayser. These incredible parent volunteers have been working together to make SFX sporting events into major school pride celebrations for all ages. Before and after each of these events, Mary Tassi, the school’s Advancement Director, has posted announcements and colorful recaps on the school’s social media pages.   

  • We support the efforts lead by Mary Tassi and Mary Hoffman for Open House. One goal for Open House was to increase attendance. For a second straight year, Mary Tassi successfully used personal outreach and social media boosts to increase awareness, interest and attendance among young families from the surrounding community. This year we had a record 46 new families in attendance as a direct result of her efforts. So far, these and other efforts helped increase enrollment among our early education programs by 27% and helped maintain the total number of students re-enrolling in 1st through 8th grade for next year.   
STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE
Michael Fitzpatrick & Tina Orlando
  • We are now well into our first year of Under One Roof and what a successful transition it has been!  

  • We are continuing our search for a new part-time parish position: Development Director.

  • School website updates in the past year have included reorganized and updated content in the Parent Resource, Parent Volunteer and Support Us sections. User friendly submission forms for prospective families have been added.  Enhancements to other sections are being planned for this summer. Brochures and other promotional materials continue to be updated based on the marketing message. 

  • A new social/play program for Pre-K families has been implemented for select Sunday mornings.

  • Lastly, the SPC itself has been conducting a multi-pronged look at the Strategic Plan to (1) inventory completed objectives; (2) prioritize the next objectives to be completed; and (3) formalize a process for the creation of Action Plans to guide progress for completing objectives.
FINANCE COMMITTEE
James Ward & Bill Siffermann
  • We continue to provide timely and accurate financial data to the School Advisory Board to aid in strategic decision-making surrounding fundraising and other initiatives.

  • We are having another successful year of working with Jennifer Zeisloft, Parish Business Manager, to project and forecast future year enrollment and staffing needs with the ultimate goal of creating the budget to be provided to the Archdiocese.  

  • Also keep in mind that we serve as an intermediary between the Parish Finance Council and the School Advisory Board by communicating vision and inputs of both groups.
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Patrick Zahren, Reagan Hogerty & Tim Rhatigan
  • Alumni Database Project: Thanks to the efforts of parent volunteer, Cindy Erwin, and staff volunteers including Mary Hoffman, Peggy Evans, and Mary Tassi, we are well on our way in enhancing the alumni database. We have begun the process of transferring the content of alumni archives onto the master electronic file and are in the process of securing volunteers to complete data entry.  Once the master spreadsheet is complete, we will begin to promote the project across multiple networks and platforms, encouraging graduates to update contact information for both themselves and friends/family. Several updates will also be made to the SFX School Alumni Page.

  • Building Our Future Annual Campaign: As of this month, we are at approximately $68,000 or 59% of our total annual need of $115,000 (school portion). We sincerely appreciate your ongoing support of this annual fundraiser as we continue to update all of you throughout the remainder of the school year. Let us continue to work together to reach our goal! Toward the end of this school year, we plan to rebrand the Building Our Future fundraiser to a campaign title more reflective of the purpose. “Building Our Future” might be confused with a capital campaign and/or endowment rather than an annual appeal to cover the gap in tuition. We plan to have a rebrand completed by the beginning of the new school year.

  • Auction 2020: Tickets for the SuperHero Gala will be going on sale in early March.  As a reminder, this all-parish event, will be held on school grounds on Saturday, April 25th. Have you seen the SFX Auction's GoFundMe campaign? The superhero “ask” here is that you share this campaign on Facebook; if each SFX family asks five people to donate $20, together we can raise over $30,000. Please consider helping with this campaign's success... Click HERE for the SFX SuperHero GoFundMe campaign link.
THANK YOU to all who volunteer on our various School Advisory Board committees!

To our school families…we appreciate you sending your children to St. Francis Xavier! SFX is a vibrant and special community because of your support and enthusiasm!

To faculty and staff…Thank you for ALL you do to carry on St. Francis Xavier's 100 year old tradition of ensuring our children receive an excellent academic education centered in the Catholic values of prayer, learning and service.  

Together, let’s keep our wonderful traditions going strong!

As always, please feel free to contact anyone on School Board or e-mail us at schoolboard@sfxlg.org.
Counting down the days to spring…,

SFX School Board

4th year: Dan Hayes

3rd year: Diane Asleson, Matt Duffy, Tim Rhatigan
 
2nd year: Katy Newcomb, James Ward, Pat Zahren, Michael Fitzpatrick

1st year: Laura Jacobs, Bill Siffermann, Reagan Hogerty, Tina Orlando, Katie Kanzer
We Pray. We Learn. We Serve.