Parent Letter - Jan 11

Dear Parents,

I wish to thank all those who were able to attend Father Castaldi’s farewell dinnerand those who were able to bring their children to sing for him. I know Father was very pleased. We will certainly miss Father Castaldi as our pastor and friend, and we wish him health and happiness in his well-deserved retirement. That being said, we are very fortunate to welcome Father Mark O’Donnell to our parish and school as our new pastor. I am confident that Father Mark will carry on the same tradition of support for Saint Joseph School and Catholic Education.

Our school family offers its congratulations to Michaela Abate and Tabitha Ford who received 1st and 2nd place in the district in the VFW’s Patriot’s Pen essay program.

We continue to work on our self-study for accreditation and our fall visit. This Friday will be a 12:30 p.m. dismissal day to allow our teachers and staff to continue this work. You will be receiving your parent survey in the near future. Our faculty and staff review our mission statement yearly. As a part of our preparation for the accreditation visit, we have taken the opportunity to revise the wording while maintaining the meaning.

Mission Statement
In an atmosphere of welcome and acceptance of the diverse gifts and talents each of us has been given by God, the Saint Joseph School Family answers its call to model Jesus. We nurture our gifts in the pursuit of our full potential as God’s children, growing spiritually, cognitively, creatively, and socially, working to bring forth the kingdom of God by sharing these gifts. As an evangelizing community, we prepare each person to be a faith-filled, knowledgeable, articulate and confident member of the world in which we live. St. Joseph School is a holy place where we discover each other in God’s love.

In order to facilitate the learning of the statement for our children we have created an acronym using the concepts of the statement.

AMEN
Accept each person as a unique creation in God’s image.
Model Jesus as we make everyone feel welcome in this holy place.
Educate each person for life.
Nurture the diverse gifts and talents of the whole school family.

Please take a few moments to help your child to memorize this and perhaps to do so yourself.

Report cards for the second marking period will be distributed on January 20th. Conferences for this marking period will be scheduled upon request of the parents or the
teachers.

We are presently making plans for Catholic Schools Week, which will be celebrated from January 29th through February 3rd. A separate calendar for this
celebration will be sent home next week. Please make plans to attend our annual breakfast on the 29th.

Plans are underway through our Home-School Association for a Wine Tasting event on February 11. Please mark your calendars for this event.

Once again I wish to make you aware of a change in the February calendar. In addition to February 20th and 21st, there will be no school on February 17th while the
teachers and staff engage in a professional development day. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

Please continue to keep all those in our school family who are in need in any way in your prayers. You are in ours daily.

Sincerely,

Marianne Cote
Principal