Hello, SMS Families,
We have had another great week at SMS. This week at morning prayer, we read from the Letters of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and talked a lot about accountability. We talked about how even though we don't like to have it pointed out to us when we make mistakes, that it is good to have people in our lives who love us, like our parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, etc, who help to keep us accountable. We also talked about how God gives us all gifts, and it is our job to use those gifts to the best of our abilities, and share them with others.
Special thanks to Zach Seip, who came in Friday to talk to our 5th-8th grades about the Insurance business, as well as his own career path. Thanks also to Bryan Poole and Joey Hedges, of the Ripley Fire Department who brought their truck and equipment and talked to all of our students about fire safety.
This week I applied for the Ohio Safety Grant (OSG) to help with the cost of our School Resource Officer. I don't normally tell you about grants until we are awarded, but this one would be huge. It is a competitive grant, so please keep the school in your prayers, as this grant would be a major blessing.
This entire month we are collecting change in baby bottles to benefit the Pregnancy Resource Center. Each homeroom has baby bottles to be filled with change. The homeroom that fills the most bottles will win an ice cream party at the end of the month.
I know in the handbook that shorts are not allowed after the fair, but with temps staying high, we will continue to allow shorts until the weather changes. I will make an announcement when it looks like Fall is here for good. Please make sure students are wearing uniform approved sweatshirts and sweaters as we move into colder weather.
Cake Auction- We are going to change up the Harvest Dinner and Cake Auction this year. Hopefully it will result in a little more money being raised. This is the plan. We will move the Cake Auction to the Sunday before Thanksgiving, that way people will be able to bid on desserts that they could take with them to their own family Thanksgivings. Next week, we will send home a signup sheet for parents, grandparents, or anyone else who would like to donate a baked good to be bid on. We will post them on an auction site and try to raise as much as we can. To give people an opportunity to bid in person, we will save some of the baked items to be bid on at the Harvest Dinner which will also be moved to November 23. If you have experience with online auctions and would like to help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated. We will also need some help at the Harvest Dinner on the 23rd as well as donated baked goods. These proceeds will help us with the costs we will incur from paying for a School Resource Officer.
We are also working on some fundraisers for our 7th and 8th grade trip to Washington DC in the spring. We will be posting some projects we are working on for this. Thank you to Carissa Kirk and Maria Daniels for reaching out with some great ideas so far.
The Rosary Rally, praying for our country this Saturday has been moved to St. George Church at noon.
Looking ahead at this week:
On Tuesday, grades P-2 will be going on a field trip to R-Farms. If you have not filled out your permission slip on OptionC, or sent in your $5 per student, please do so asap.
Picture retakes are on Wednesday. All students should be in uniform. Only students who were absent on the original date, or anyone paying for pictures who want retakes will be photographed. If you want retakes, you must bring in your original pictures.
We will have "preview" of the Ignatius book fair on Thursday the 16th and Friday the 17th between 8:30-2:30 in the school library. Parents or family members are welcome to come and look, and students will have times to look as well. Students will be able purchase from the book fair Monday-Wednesday, October 20-22, during the school day. To check out the books that will be available, you can go to this site.
There will be no Ripley bus service on Friday, October 17, nor Monday, October 20.
Looking a little further ahead:
October 21- 1st Reconciliation Meeting (Catholic 2nd Graders)
October 24- Halloween Party
October 29- Students may wear Halloween Costumes to School
October 31- In observance of All Saints Day, students may dress up like their favorite Saint!
November 23- Harvest Dinner
For the past four years at SMS we have been developing our MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) system, aimed at providing extra, targeted intervention for all of our students. To accomplish this, we have hired extra teachers, paraprofessionals and utilized volunteers to make this an impactful period in the day for our students. You have probably heard your child talk about "JUMP" class. This is a class that occurs every day to provide extra help for our students without having to miss their regular classes, by working in small groups, on a specific skill. We use data taken from our MAP and Aimsweb tests that we take three times per year to determine what skills need to be targeted, and which students need to work on those skills. It gives each of our students an even more personalized academic experience. The program continues to evolve, but as it has, we have seen very positive progress. As I mentioned last week, I often do not do a good enough job giving you a snapshot of the amazing things happening here every day, but this is certainly one of them. This is additional help that EVERY student receives is not common in educational settings, and we appreciate everyone who helps to make it happen. If you have time on a regular basis and would like to volunteer to help in our JUMP periods, please give me a call and we will discuss what it would look like and where you could help the most.
I hope you all have a great weekend.