St. Louis Catholic School Alumni Newsletter |
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Greetings from Your Elementary School Alma Mater! |
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Dear St. Louis Alumni,
I am so grateful to be able to connect with the alumni community through our St. Louis Alumni Newsletter. Each of you has fond memories of your time spent here, teachers and students that you connected with and each of those memories has helped create a wonderful school community, rich in traditions and academic excellence. St. Louis Catholic School is now in its 64th year of ongoing Christ-centered education here on Popkins Lane!
2020 has been an interesting year for our school community due mostly in part to the current global pandemic. Now more than ever, we find ourselves drawn to connections and holding on to the traditions that define our school. We ended one school year and began another so vastly different than we expected, but our school community has rallied, and we believe it is stronger, better because of it. Teachers, students, and parents came together in support of our academic mission focused on the whole child, it just looked different in a virtual world!
Our spring forced us to adapt our teaching and learning quickly to an online community, and we were successful thanks to the fact that we already had many digital tools in place, and teachers were committed to fostering an atmosphere where students can learn, love, and be leaders in faith. With the active partnership of our families, we transitioned to another school year under a hybrid model. Many, many families have given a tremendous amount of time and dedicated service to helping us make St. Louis School a success amidst the pandemic. I am proud to share with you that the gift of Catholic service continues to be a central part of the school’s charism. No matter what part of the last 64 years, you were a part of St. Louis, it has a special place in many people’s memory: friendships were made; Catholic values and faith were taught and lived; family life was strong; education was excellent.
The same can be said in our current setting too. We are blessed with a strong, collaborative faculty and active PTO; our Catholic faith is taught, celebrated and lived; and the classroom curriculum is comprehensive and challenging. Our building has experienced some updates throughout the years, and the most current technology is now available in our classrooms, with interactive white boards, computers, iPads, chrome books and the newest software. We are officially a 1:1 school which allows students to be successful learners at home and in person. Our preschool (three's and four's) has added a robust enrollment to our K-8 program, and our extended day program continues to grow and thrive. With more than 505 students, we are blessed with the challenge of being at full capacity. We continue to look for opportunities and funding to make needed capital improvements, and we continually work with the parish to find space for all.
Thank you for your support, near and far, of St. Louis School. Please pray for our students, our teachers and staff as we all work together to continue the tradition of maintaining a vibrant, thriving, faith-filled place to learn, grow and celebrate all God’s blessings.
Peace,
Anne M. Dyke
Principal
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UPCOMING EVENTS
DECEMBER 13
STL Christmas Lights Tour
5-8pm
See below for information about this event and how you can join in the fun!
DECEMBER 15
Lessons & Carols
St. Louis School will continue the annual tradition of our Lessons & Carols Program, with a few COVID-19 adjustments! Instead of a live performance this year, we plan to pre-record our 5th
graders to create a virtual Lessons (minus the carols) video to distribute to our school and alumni families to celebrate the season.
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St. Louis loves our Eagle Scouts! We are so fortunate to be the beneficiary of some excellent service thanks to the support of some of our alumni Scouts. New landscaping along the front of the main building, fixed stone walkways and repainted storage sheds are some of the recent projects that St. Louis has benefitted from. This year as we began to raise money to renovate the playground, one recent graduate from St. Louis, Simon Maly (Class of 2020), decided to turn his Eagle Project into something that he had a love for. His goal was to provide a game that would support increased movement and develop good sportsmanship skills for other Hawks--it couldn’t have come at a better time as the pandemic forced us to find creative ways to offer students more outside mask breaks! Simon built St. Louis its first Ga-ga Ball pit. Ga-ga ball is a fast paced, high energy sport played in an octagonal pit with a rubber ball. The game involves striking, dodging, running, and jumping while trying to tag opponents with the ball below the knees. It has quickly become a much loved recess activity for students across all grades. We are so grateful for Simon’s hard work and his desire to share what he loves with others. #Spread Love, Know Jesus.
Constance Weber (Class of 2015) has discerned a call to the religious life. Contance recently joined the community of "Children of Mary" in Ohio. The Children of Mary are a community dedicated to both the active and contemplative life. To learn more about this religious community visit www.childrenofmary.net.
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A "New" School Year
The 2020-2021 school year expected to find the school community immersed in a Self-Study, a required component of the state re-accreditation process. However, due to the pandemic, the Office of Catholic Schools has granted a pause year in order to allow teachers to focus all of their efforts on instruction—our hybrid model is quite ambitious as we are teaching students concurrently in grades K-8 in order to comply with the required CDC and state phased guidelines. Some students are here 5 days, some 3 days, and some 2 days each week and when not in the brick and mortar building for learning, students are at home learning remotely.
Our connectivity and bandwidth received an upgrade, and all students and teachers are now outfitted with devices so that learning can be consistent and continuous in the event of another shut down. Additional digital tools have been purchased to enhance all learning and teachers have participated in training and development to assist this new educational endeavor!
Technology continues to propel and enhance both teaching and learning. St. Louis curriculum innovations include: the addition of IXL Math and Language Arts software accounts for Preschool-8th grade; the continuance of Google Apps for Education and Google accounts as a learning platform for students in grades 3-8; the implementation of Seesaw as a learning platform for students in Preschool-2nd grade; a growing resource program led by Special Education and Counseling specialists; a STEM enrichment program for all students; Discovery Education, Brain Pop, Reading A to Z, Spelling City software access for all K-8 classrooms; and online data-driven assessment to track academic progress for all K-8 classrooms.
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Our Catholic Identity
Our Catholic identity continues to be nourished in so many ways: Monday morning school prayer assembly, daily opening and closing announcement prayers, weekly Mass, schoolwide rosary opportunities, Reconciliation weekly for classes, Food Drives for our Parish Food Pantry and in support of Catholic Charities’ St. Lucy Project, and community service projects throughout the year. Recently, students brought in over 900 pounds of food for the St. Lucy Project and participated in our annual “Walk for the Homeless” where they prayed the rosary daily for an entire week.
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Honoring our Military Families |
As a Purple Star school we are honored to recognize the military families in our school community. Our traditional Veterans Day Mass looked a little different this year with the celebration of 2 masses for our military families and their children. |
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St. Louis School Veterans Day Video |
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Maintaining our school community has been an imporant part of our success during the pandemic. We have been challenged to think outside of the box when it comes to COVID-safe Hawk Family Fun! The Hawks 5K went virtual this year, and the PTO sponsored a drive-in movie night in October. In December, the school will be organizing a Christmas Lights Tour that all families and alumni can enjoy. |
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Trunk or Treat Drive Thru |
For Halloween, St. Louis School faculty and staff dressed up and decorated their cars to host a Trunk-or-Treat Drive Thru for more than 150 school families. Check out our fun video of the day! |
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Will your yard be decked out for the holidays? |
What a great way to share the holiday spirit this season with St. Louis School families! St. Louis School is organizing a COVID-safe Christmas Lights Tour for school families.
If you go all out with the holiday yard decorations, or feel inspired to do so this year, AND you reside in Alexandria, sign up by Dec. 4 to have your home included on the tour. School families will follow the tour map and a Christmas Lights scavenger hunt card the evening of December 12th (raindate Dec. 13th). The last stop of the route will be the class Christmas trees at the school where students can redeem their card for a holiday treat from Santa. For more information, please contact Kristin Matheis, development@stlouisschool.org.
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Make plans to hop in the car, tune the radio to some Christmas music and follow our STL Christmas Lights Tour! The tour map and a STL Christmas Lights scavenger hunt card will be shared with school families and alumni on December 11th. |
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Our St. Louis School is currently accepting K-8th Grade applications for the 2021-2022 school year. Due to current restrictions on visitors to our campus, complete application packets are being accepted via our online submission form. We are unable to host our traditional November open house, but are offering guided virtual tours. Application packets and the tour sign up may be found on our website: www.stlouisschool.org/admissions/.
St. Louis Preschool will be offering evening "pop in's" for prospective families in December and January. Preschool registration for the 2021-2022 school year takes place Jan. 25-28. Visit www.stlouisschool.org/preschool/ for more information about our program.
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Giving Tuesday - December 1st |
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Our efforts in Advancement yielded approximately $75K each year over the past two years. Contributions to the Annual Fund have been earmarked to support technology enhancements and needed improvements to the school building.
The goal of our 2020-2021 Annual Fund Campaign is to raise funds to help cover the costs associated with our technology expansion and incurred while keeping our building safe and healthy due to the pandemic as well as growing our financial assistance to families in support of a Catholic education. On Giving Tuesday (December 1st) we will be officially launching our 2020-2021 Campaign. We are appreciative of the many St. Louis School alumni and friends who donate to the campiagn eacah year.
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CLASS NOTES
Thank you to our alumni families who have shared family news with us. Do you have a life event or photos to share with the school and fellow alumni? We love to hear from our alumni - where you are now and your memories of your time at St. Louis.
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ALUMNI DIRECTORY
Currently our online Alumni Directory has listings for more than 1,000 Alumni from 1963-2019 for whom we have some contact information.
Don't see yourself? Please take a moment to register, and if you've moved, please be sure to update your contact information.
Looking for an old friend? Our Alumni Directory allows you to search for and be located by former classmates. If found, you may be able to connect through a web-based email form.
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ALUMNI SPIRITWEAR
Available through Lands' End, the St. Louis School Alumni embroidered logo is available on a variety of clothing and gear items. Order yours online today!
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