**WEEKLY UPDATE**
HOLY SPIRIT SCHOOL
Edition #25 February 27, 2008
“It’s For the Children”
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Thursday, February 28 |
Treat Day |
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Friday, February 29 |
End of 2nd Trimester Kindergarten Testing for Siblings Stations 2:15 pm in Church 8th Grade Returns from Yosemite |
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Saturday, March 1 |
Kindergarten Testing |
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Sunday, March 2 |
Lenten Reflection Series: Labor & Fair Trade |
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Monday, March 3 |
Regular School Day |
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Tuesday, March 4 |
Grade 6 Field Trip |
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Wednesday, March 5 |
Minimum Day 12:00 pm Dismissal Re-registration Forms Go Home Today |
CASH CALENDAR: Our $100.00 Cash Calendar winner for this week is Malyn Cuevas, sold by Andrew Mendoza in Grade K. Congratulations! Remember, every ticket purchased is eligible for each drawing, even if it has won before. So purchase your Cash Calendar tickets ($10.00 per ticket) and help Holy Spirit School. More tickets are available in the school office. GOOD LUCK!
CASH FOR CLASS: Holy Spirit School is currently in 1st place!! Parents, please fill up your brown sacks with Fremont Hub receipts! At the end of the month, send the receipts to the school office and keep the bag to fill again. There is no need to fill out any envelopes; I will do that for you. Shop at the Hub and send in your receipts within 45 days, anything older that that will not count. Thanks, Lenora Garcia
PARENT VOLUNTEERS: We would like to remind parent volunteers with preschool age children that our school policy prohibits parents from bringing their preschool age children to school when parents are doing volunteer work. Thank you.
FACE & BASIC APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE: If you have a new student starting Catholic school for the first time, and you meet the requirements according to the flyer that went home last week, please come to the school office for a BASIC fund application. Renewing families will receive a packet the first week of April. Renewing families adding a new child in the fall must fill out an application for the new child. We also have applications for FACE in the school office as well. FACE applications need to be returned to the school office no later than March 28, 2008. Please call the school office if you have any questions.
SCRIP NEWS: We now carry Mervyn’s SCRIP in $25.00 denominations. This is one store we have been waiting to get for a long time. Please be advised, Mervyn’s Gift Cards cannot be used for payments on Mervyn’s charge account balances.
MERRY MART SALE: Merry Mart Uniform Store is having an on-line sale during the month of February. They are offering families 10% off when you shop on their website, www.merrymartuniforms.com Remember, they will also donate 3% of your purchases to our school. If you are needing to buy new uniform items, February looks like a great opportunity to save money and help out Holy Spirit School at the same time.
YEARBOOKS: There is still time to order your Holy Spirit School Yearbook. The price is now $20.00. Share in all the fun and memories of this school year.
FUN WALK/RUN NEEDS SPONSORS: We're looking for sponsors for the 2008 Catch the Spirit Family Fun Walk/Run! This year promises to surpass last year's participant number of over 300 and we're looking for event sponsors to make this a super experience for all walkers and runners, young and old. This growing community event is a great opportunity to promote your business and support the HSS and Tri-city community. We have four sponsorship levels: $150 Spirit Sponsor, $300 Bronze Medal Sponsor, $500 Silver medal Sponsor and $1,000 Gold Medal Sponsor. All sponsorship levels allow for printing of your business, employer or family name on race shirts and literature, and will be publicized by the MC on race day. For more information, contact Lucia Pena @ 791-2655 and Rosey Loaisiga @ 790-8354.
A special thanks to our early sponsors! Fairway Park Optometry Center-Dr. Ximena Daza- Cannizzaro, Law Offices of Gustavo Pena, Landscape By Design, Coulthard Identity Group, M.L. Nielsen Construction, Dale's Hardware, Happy Fish Swim School, Apple's Bagel, Starbuck's-City Center, The Grocery Outlet and Butchart Medical Offices.
SCHOOL BOARD NEWS: Father Mathew has appointed Patrick Colglazier to the Holy Spirit School Board. Welcome!
WHAT’S NEW WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD TECH COMMITTEE: In the last few months, the Technology Committee has completed an effort began last spring to get laptops into the hands of our teachers. In conjunction with the new server system, the laptops allow our teachers to work in a much more flexible and adaptive manner that suits their schedules and needs.
Teachers are not the only ones with laptops. We are now well underway towards the goal of having a "mobile computer lab." The mobile lab would consist of a bank of laptops (eventually 36) stored on a portable cart that could be moved from classroom to classroom. In the fall we added 7 laptops to the existing Computer Lab at school for the eventual mobile lab. The recent grant funding awarded to the school has allowed us to accelerate our plans. We already placed an order for 10 more laptops from those monies.
We started 2008 with a newly designed school website. Crafted from the ground up, the new website is hosted on the new servers and what you are reading is, hopefully, but a sample as we continue to take advantage of the rich features.
The staff is required to do an in-depth plan in technology for the Oakland Diocese. The good news is that, relative to the expectations of technology in our curriculum, our technology planning over the last year has created a ready-to-use archive of materials related to current and future planning, deploying, staffing, and utilizing technology.
What’s coming for the Tech Committee? Right now we’re working on assessing options and making recommendations for interactive whiteboards for classrooms.
If you have any questions or wish to contribute in some way to our Tech Committee please contact the committee chair, Tim Riener at triener@pacbell.net or leave a message at the school office.
SUMMER SCHOOL: It’s not too early to start planning activities for the summer. St. Edward School has been running a 5-week summer school program that offers three separate sessions to allow for vacation time, or to just give parents a break for 1, 2 or up to 5 weeks during the summer. Classes available include both enrichment and remedial, including cooking, music, art, science, math, reading, grammar, vacation bible study, double dutch jump rope, engineering, and much more. Classes are open to incoming 1st through 8th graders. The dates of summer school run from June 23 through July 25, 2008. The summer school brochures will be available in the school office before Easter break. If you have any further questions, please contact St. Edward School at 793-7242.
MORE MOREAU HONOR ROLL: We neglected to mention two more of our Holy Spirit School graduates on the Honor Roll at Moreau Catholic High School. Denay Galos and Mary Christine Ingalla both earned a GPA of 3.5 or above. Congratulations and we apologize for the oversight.
SOCK DRIVE: For the next three weeks, student council is going to be holding a ‘sock’ drive. We will be collecting new socks on Friday mornings to help the homeless in our area. After exploring the needs in our community, it was found that this is how we can really help. So when you are at the mall, please consider picking up an extra pair of socks to help those in need. The socks will be donated to the Tri City Homeless Shelter on behalf of the children at Holy Spirit School. Thank you!
PARENT CLUB DONATION: The Parent Club took a vote at the last meeting to decide how to spend a $12,000 fundraising surplus. The number one choice was to buy the school 10 more laptops for the Mobile Computer Lab. Mrs. Buchanan approved the expenditure and the 10 laptops have been ordered. From the budget, fundraising, and grants we now have 37 laptops enroute towards our Mobile Computer Lab goal of 38. God has really been blessing our community—THANK YOU TEAM!
CRAB FEED UPDATE: Crab Feed will be here in less than 2 weeks! We still have about 10 tickets left, so be sure to get yours NOW, so that you don't miss out! The auction program is being printed, and we have fantastic items for you to bid on again this year.
We still need some volunteers, and for the cashier and finance stations, you can get your volunteer hours done and still enjoy dinner! Please, please, please give Yolanda Valadez a holler at 795-6410 or jvldz@sbcglobal.net if you can help. We need to get these slots filled, so that we have enough volunteers to ensure our biggest fund-raiser will run smoothly.
4-10pm Pasta Server (need 3 volunteers)
7:30-10pm Finance Station (need 2 volunteers)
7:30-10pm Cashier Station (need 4 volunteers)
Mark your calendars now! Friday, April 4th, will be the night of the auction basketball games featuring the winning bid team (girls start at 6:30pm, boys after) playing Mr. Strong and his "guys." We'll have the CYO snack bar open
featuring lumpia and Caesar salad, so let's make it a fun night out for the community to come out and cheer for the teams. Where can you buy this game so that your child's team will be featured? At the Crab Feed and Auction on March 8th.
TREAT DAY REMINDER!! Don't forget those quarters! Treats will be available Thursday, February 28th during recess, lunch and after school! All proceeds will benefit the 3rd grade this month. Thank you for your support! Kathy Miranda kathy.miranda@comcast.net
NOTES FROM THE PRINCIPAL:
Dear Parents and Students,
In “Leaves of Gold” a daily reflection that I read from often. It had a reflection for February 29 – since we do not have that day but every four years, I thought I would pass it on to you. It said, “Be content with your surroundings but not with yourself till you have made the most of them. And from Philippians 4:11 “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”
I hope you have been able to attend the Parish Mission that has been held this week led by Father Dan Danielson. A quote from Mark 6:31 reads, “COME AWAY BY YOURSELVES TO A QUIET PLACE AND REST AWHILE…”
Just think you have an extra 24 hours … 1440 minutes this year. Is some of that time, time you plan to spend listening to God? My hope and prayer is that during this Lenten season you have been able to take time to reflect and to spend a few minutes each day with God talking to Him and listening to Him.
God’s Blessing today and always,
Susan C. Buchanan