Holy Ghost Catholic School

Catholic Foundation

• PreK-8th robotics materials
  
• Laptops and Desktops - 22 touchscreen laptops, 3 desktops
  

NM Potters and Clay Artists Bill Armstrong Grant

• Education in the Ceramic Arts
  
• Acoma Potter Claudia Mitchell will work with students in 2023
  

NM Library Association Grant - Eighty-five culturally diverse books

• Eighteen Pura Belpre Honor books from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.
• Twenty-one Corretta Scott King Honor Books from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.
• Eighteen Schneider Family Award and Honor books from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.
• Twenty American Indian Youth Literature Honor Award Books from 2022, 2020, and 2018.
• Eight Asian/Pacific American Honor Award Books from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019

Pending Grants

• Frost Foundation for Innovation Center Materials
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe for security upgrades
• The Witter Bynner Foundation for a guest poet

Monica Roach - Middle School Math

Holy Ghost is happy to welcome Monica Garcia-Roach as our new middle school math teacher. Mrs. Roach has 12 years of experience in creating an education program at New Mexico Children’s Hospital, working as a Special Education teacher for Albuquerque Public Schools, and teaching mathematics in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe at another school.

When Mrs. Roach interviewed, she provided a lesson to the 8th grade class that showed her ability to engage students at all levels of understanding and teach them challenging content. When offered the position, she said, "I am very excited to be part of the Holy Ghost Family! I look forward to working closely with the students and families to ensure the success of every student. Our class will be challenging, supportive, and an emotionally safe place for students to grow academically and spiritually."

Dr. Wine has resigned his position as the Principal at Holy Ghost Catholic School effective December 31, 2022 as he is being called in a new direction. So, Holy Ghost Catholic School will lean on its very talented and dedicated staff to carry us through the transition.

Please join us in praying for a new principal that will continue with the dedication and academic excellence that befits Holy Ghost. In the interim, a Leadership Team has been formed, comprised of Fr. Hyginus, Mrs. Shawnda Osborn, and Mr. David Tichnell. Both Mrs. Osborn and Mr. Tichnell have held leadership positions at Holy Ghost and are very familiar with the staff, policies and procedures. They have many years of experience as teachers and administrators. The wonderful plans and projects that are currently in place will continue. The expectations will remain the same and in some cases expand.

"It has been a pleasure to be part of the Holy Ghost Community for the past three and a half years. The faculty and staff are the finest people with whom I have ever worked, the students are a joy every day, and parents are incredibly caring and supportive." - Dr. Wine

"As we begin a new year we are strong in our faith and in our commitment to our families and the learning of our students." - Mrs. Osborn

"Holy Ghost is a robust community, years in the making. We will persevere through the current changes and be stronger than ever." - Mr. Tichnell

The tournament raised just over $7,500 to support our 14 sports teams. The money will allow us to buy some sets of uniforms and replace old equipment. The additional amount will support our STEM Lab and help us buy robotics equipment for students of all ages.

This Giving Tuesday, we raised $6,940. Although this is short of our $10,500 goal, we were still able to ensure that all of our faculty and staff have up-to-date laptops and our front office staff has three new desktops. As always, we appreciate your donations and prayers as we continue to ensure our students receive the best education possible. We will continue to collect donations until 12/23/22 in an effort to reach our “Raising Green to buy some Screens” goal.

Each year, Holy Ghost undertakes its primary fundraiser, the 10K raffle. These funds help the school continue to purchase its advanced curriculum and provide a challenging learning environment. This year, we sold a total of 565 tickets, which raised approximately $42,000. Thank you for your sacrifice in making this so successful, and thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Chacon, Mrs. Miller, and Miss Johnson for making this event run so smoothly.

This community event has turned into a schoolwide favorite event! This year's Fall Festival included: a Cornhole Competition, Photo Area, Volleyball, Basketball, Hayride, Cookie Walk, Sack Races, Jumpers, Pumpkin Decorating, Stem Activity, Live Music, Face Painting/Tattoos, Pumpkin Bowling, and more. We had several Food Trucks including: Smokin’ Freds, Wow Wow Lemonade and Pop Pops Italian Shaved Ice.

This Friday, December 16, at 3:30 pm, we will hold our second annual Las Posadas celebration. Students will reenact and celebrate Mary and Joseph’s search for a place for Jesus to be born. We will end our quest in the Church with the Prek and Kindergarten nativity and Christmas carols.

Pictured below are our students practicing for Las Posadas.

Students packed Merry Bags as a part of our school wide winter service project. Merry Bags were decorated and filled with a gift card, lip balm, a student made Christmas card, and a piece of warm weather clothing. The Merry Bags were delivered to HopeWorks to help over 300 people experiencing homelessness or near homelessness.

Thank you to our community for coming out and helping us to have a successful Make a Difference Day! We had over 70 people representing more than 25 families!

Projects Completed:

• Repainted traffic lines facility-wide
• Repainted game lines facility-wide
• Added mulch to front of school and memorial garden
• Trimmed hedge front of convent
• Redid drip lines in Mary's garden and memorial garden
• Assembled tables for library
• Redid rocks along fence line on San Pedro
• Cleaned up area around sign at corner of Anderson and San Pedro
• Painted areas on sign pole and portico
• Repainted urns at entrance to church
• Repainted yellow line on middle school sidewalk
• Sanded and restained wooden eve over entrance to church
• Cleaned statue at entrance to church
• Picked up trash and weeds around school grounds
• Replaced ceiling light bulbs in gym

Holy Ghost offers both morning care and aftercare, know at Holy Ghost as "Woody Young." Our Woody Young programs averages 20 children in the morning and 40 children in the afternoon, which is approximately 1/4 of our student population.

Items Requested for Woody Young:

Playground balls(2)

Soccer balls(2)

Junior sized footballs(2)

Popsicle sticks or craft sticks

Pom poms all sizes

Tempera paints

Construction paper(white and colored)

Scotch tape

Stickers(animated popular series)

Pipe cleaners( multi colors)

Playing cards

Gently used board games

National Dance Institute of NM (NDI) at Holy Ghost

NDI will be working with various grade levels for 5 weeks starting mid January. Students in pre-k, kindergarten will participate in Dance for Joy and 6th - 8th grade students will participate in Breaking Hip Hop.

Math Kangaroo Competition for grades 1st - 8th

There is an international math competition called Math Kangaroo that a student at our school partakes in. For information, details, and the place to register, go to: https://mathkangaroo.org/mks/

Holy Ghost is a site for the contest, on March 16. The test will be given in paper test booklets. If you register by December 15, the price is $21. After December 15, the price increases to $35. The test code number is NMALBUQ0004001@2023MK. All who enter receive a t-shirt, and others win various prizes when the contest ends.

The test will be the morning of March 16 at Holy Ghost, and it is a 90 minute test.

DIVE-In Curriculum

We have received a supplemental science curriculum that extends learning for students. It provides a solution for students and helps them imitate it, vary it, and then make their own solution, like a real scientist. The “E” in DIVE encourages students to explore, the key to our next step in STEM education.

New Robotics for the STEM Lab

Having secured a grant from the Catholic Foundation, Holy Ghost will be purchasing some robotics equipment for the STEM lab at the end of the year. It will allow students of all grades to create in our new STEM space and will work with our DIVE-In program to develop skills to create labs and solutions.

Level-Up Village

In January, our first and fifth grade classes will be involved in a virtual international exchange with classes in Kyiv, Ukraine! They will study world music and the novel “Esperanza Rising” respectively while partaking in a cultural exchange that includes learning about life in Ukraine in this difficult time.

Bill Armstrong Grant

We are excited to announce that our art teacher, Sarah Madigan, has secured Claudia Mitchell, a potter from Acoma, to spend time with our students next spring. Read the article below by Claudia Mitchell that was featured in the New Mexico Magazine. We are looking forward to this wonderful opportunity for our students.

https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/blog/post/claudia-mitchell-maria-cimarron-jar-grounded-in-clay/

Email: dwine@hgcsabq.com
Website: www.hgcsabq.com
Location: 6201 Ross Avenue Southeast, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Phone: 505-256-1563
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holyghosteagles