Fall Newsletter

Dear Families –

It’s so hard to believe that the middle of October is already here! Staff and students at Holy Name have been very busy with a variety of amazing events happening at our school. We would like to congratulate Lori Beckstead on receiving a permanent Vice-Principal position at Holy Name of Mary. Mrs. Beckstead's role as 5-6 English teacher does not change with this announcement.

In the month of October, we recognized our dedicated teaching staff on World Teacher’s Day (October 5th) and our superb Early Childhood Educators on ECE Appreciation Day (October 17th). These gifted educators, along with our exceptional Educational Assistants, work tirelessly to provide our students with engaging learning opportunities each and every day. A huge thank you to all of our staff!

School athletics are in full swing. Students in our Junior and Intermediate grades have participated in a soccer tournament and many more students look forward to upcoming Cross Country and Flag Football events later this month.

Our September Open House was a huge success. We welcomed many of our families on the morning of September 29th and are grateful to all those who were able to join us.

In the coming weeks, teachers will be busy preparing student Progress Reports. Parents can look forward to reports going home on Monday, November 20th by email. In the near future, families will also be receiving more information about Parent/Teacher Interviews and how to book a time to meet with your child/children’s teacher.

Your partner in Catholic Education,

Colleen Donovan

Acting Principal

Holy Name of Mary students recently held a successful food drive for our local Food Bank. This year we collected over 1227 items, weighing 1148 pounds; an impressive increase over last year! We are very proud of this achievement and the contribution our Holy Name of Mary families made to our community during Thanksgiving.

During the food drive, homeroom classes were challenged to see which class could donate the most items per student. Mme Austin's class had 172 items and will soon enjoy a movie afternoon as recognition of their efforts. Second place was Mrs. Proteau's class, closely followed by Mrs. Beckstead's class.

A huge thank you to the Grade 7/8 students who collected, counted and packed up the food for delivery to the Food Bank.

To help our endangered Monarch Butterflies, the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) entrusted a group of students with Monarch caterpillars. Once the caterpillars grew and hatched last month, the students released the butterflies into the wild! The students had a lot of fun learning about the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly.

Last week, Holy Name of Mary School celebrated CDSBEO week as a community. Continuing with our Spiritual Theme, “I Belong Here, Together We Are God’s Good News”, the sub-theme was: “Be Here. Be You. Belong!” Each day a letter from CDSBEO was assigned, and each letter represented an element of our theme which students incorporated in their daily discussions in the classrooms.

C - Community: Monday, Oct. 16th - Celebrating the things we have in common.

D - Diversity: Tuesday, Oct. 17th - Celebrating the things that make each of us unique.

S - Student Voice: Wednesday, Oct. 18th - Celebrating ways to make our ideas heard.

B - Belonging: Thursday, Oct. 19th - Celebrating how we feel safe in our space.

EO - Every One: Friday, Oct. 20th - Celebrating each other.

For Community, Ms. Moore's and Mrs. Soares' Kinder class drew their own maps of meaningful spaces around town. Gemmill Park was quite popular! See picture below.

Holy Name of Mary students and staff welcomed Father Cyprian from Holy Name of Mary Parish to our school last Wednesday to celebrate the first Mass of this school year. Mr. Darou's 4-5 Immersion class led the readings and the choir, under the direction of Mrs. Luknowsky, Mr. Sauve and Mr. Wilson, sang various hymns.

We will have a Liturgy at the school in November (date to be announced). December's Mass will be held at Holy Name of Mary Parish. Families are always welcome to join us at our school Masses.

Holy Name of Mary recently had our 3-foot Blessed Mary statute refurbished and painted with the generous financial donation of our Catholic School Council. Unfortunately, the statue was in very poor condition with broken and damaged fingers, along with minor chips and scratches. With the talent of a local craftsman, the statue was restored, and we are amazed at the finished result. This beautiful statue is now located in our front office area and is a welcoming focal point for visitors to Holy Name of Mary school.

Holy Name of Mary students held a very successful Terry Fox Fundraiser in September. As mentioned in a previous email to our families, we raised $2,164 for this important cause and the students walked an impressive 3,635 km around the track at Gemmill Park.

Our thanks once again to our incredible school community - parents, staff, and students - for the extraordinary generosity and enthusiastic participation in this year's Terry Fox Walk!

We have noticed an increase in phone calls in the afternoons with end of day changes. We understand that last minute changes can occur but please note that these requests are disruptive to the administrative effort at a busy and demanding time of day. As well, each call that is made to your child's classroom to pass along the message is disruptive to the class learning process. Keep in mind that your child may not be in their classroom (may be on a walk in the community, in gym, outside on the playground/field). When given short notice about end of day pickups this puts pressure/stress on our office staff to locate your child quickly while dealing with incoming phone calls and other administrative duties. We strongly encourage that end of day arrangements are made prior to your child leaving home in the morning and detailed in their agenda for grades kinder - grade 6 and by note for grade 7/8. We appreciate your attention to this matter as it benefits all - families, students and staff.

If your child will be late or absent, please call the school office before the start of the school day (613-256-2532) to let us know. Our phone number is available 24/7 to leave a message. Following our Safe School Policy, our school secretaries will contact families who have not verified their child's absence. Students who arrive at school after the 9:15 am bell are required to enter through the front door of the school to check in with Mrs. Richards so that attendance can be properly recorded.

We would like to remind our families that students should not arrive on the school yard prior to 9:05 am as there is no supervision until that time. This guideline is a safety measure put in place for your children.

Students in Kindergarten to Grade 6 (with the exception of Mrs. Bowers' kinder class) were provided with an agenda during the first week of school in September. The agenda is the main form of communication between families and teachers detailing planned lates, absences, questions, comments, etc. While the majority of the cost of the agendas has been subsidized by the school, we do ask families to contribute an amount towards the overall cost. Payment can be made through school cash online until October 27th.

PhotoVisions will be returning to Holy Name of Mary on Thursday, October 26th in the morning for photo retakes and to take photos of students who were away on the original photo day. Please contact the school office by Tuesday, October 24th if you would like your child to have their photo taken on the Thursday.

NOTE: If your child is having a re-take, please send the cardboard Photovision card with the unique personal ID code on it, back to the school office in advance of October 26th. Alternatively, your child can bring it with them on October 26.

Holy Name of Mary students will celebrate Halloween on Tuesday, October 31st with Orange and Black day. As in previous years, costumes are not to be worn to school for the safety of our children.

We kindly ask that students not bring treats for classmates on October 31st due to allergies and leaving room for trick or treating that night.

Holy Name of Mary is excited to inform families that for the first time in many years, we will be holding a Scholastic Book Fair during the week of December 4th. This event will be held in the school library. To assist with the success of the book fair, we are looking for volunteers to work day shifts. If you are interested, please contact Kelly MacDonald at kellyl.macdonald@cdsbeo.on.ca (that's an L not a one). A reminder that valid vulnerable sector checks must be on file at the school office in order to volunteer.

Students are very excited that sporting events within our school board have begun again this school year. Recently our junior girls' and junior boys' teams participated in soccer tournaments at Beckwith Park. Both junior boys' teams came in third place losing in the semi-finals. Our senior girls' team played last Wednesday and lost in a nailbiter in a shootout in the finals! Congratulations to all our competitors!

Cross Country Running will take place on October 26th at Conlon Farm (gr. 3-8) in Perth and Flag Football (gr.7/8) will take place at St. John Catholic High School also in Perth, on Wednesday, October 25th. (Please note the change in date from the October calendar previously emailed to families and on our school website.)

We have had a number of families query the $7.00 athletic fee that is required when students participate on a school sports team ($10.00 for hockey team participants). We hope the information below will help to address your questions.

The athletic fee helps to cover various costs incurred in arranging and overseeing athletic events including awards, participation and placement ribbons, acquiring referees/umpires, rental of ice time/fields/community park areas, securing bus transportation among other costs. While these expenses are already in some cases reduced and Holy Name of Mary does subsidize most of the costs involved, we ask families to contribute a nominal amount towards these variable expenses.

As the school board does not contribute financially to these sporting events, the athletic fee helps to ensure that these activities continue at our school and that our students have the opportunity to participate in and represent Holy Name of Mary at the tournaments throughout the year competing against other schools in our Board.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to the school office to discuss.

NOTE: Policies regarding athletic administrative fees are currently being reviewed by the Board which may result in an increase in the current $7.00 athletic fee.

A reminder to parents/grandparents that if you are interested in volunteering in the classroom or on field trips, that a valid Vulnerable Sector Check is required to be on file at the school office. Please contact Megan Richards or Lauren Lenouvel (school secretaries) to obtain the required letter to initiate the process with the OPP detachment. Please note that all Vulnerable Sector Checks are to be completed online through the OPP website and a visit to the OPP detachment is no longer required.

With weekly skating trips to the arena and our school ski club poised to get underway in the New Year, we encourage families who wish to volunteer to obtain their vulnerable sector checks as soon as possible. The turnaround time to obtain these checks varies and we would not want to disappoint parents or children.

Our Board Office recently sent an email to all families on October 17th regarding respiratory illness season. Please review the email as it has important information for our families.

We ask that students remain home until

- symptoms have been improving for at least 24 hours (or 48 hours if you had nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and/or fever) and

- you do not develop additional symptoms

The Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit remind our families to be cautious and to limit the spread of illnesses by washing your hands frequently and staying home when sick.

You know your child best and if you suspect they won't be able to comfortably make it through their school day, it is best to keep them home. We appreciate our families following these general guidelines to keep our students and staff healthy during these upcoming months.

A reminder that Friday, October 27th is a PA day and there will be no school for students. You can view the staff agenda on our school website.

Our next Catholic School Council meeting will be on Tuesday, November 14th at 5:30 pm in the School Library. All parents are invited to attend.

Thank you to this year's Executive which was formed at our meeting earlier this month:

Chair - Theresa McGowan-Beard

Secretary - Jessie Stevens

Treasurer - Crystal Newman

Parish Rep - Holly Agnew

Thank you to Sarah Olenik for her participation over the last few years as Chair of our Council. We appreciate your dedication to Holy Name of Mary and wish you all the best!

We are looking for new members! With the return to normal routines within the school we anticipate that the Catholic School Council will host events and fundraisers throughout this school year. However, in order to organize and manage these events, we need parents to assist. Our school council is currently made up of less than 8 individuals. Without the assistance and involvement of others, Council will unfortunately not be able to host events that students look forward to including the year-end celebration. Please consider joining our Catholic School Council in a voting or non-voting capacity to ensure that events can be hosted and enjoyed by our students. Contact the school office for further information or join us at the next meeting on November 14th.

Our lost and found is bursting at the seams! Please remind your child to stop by the rolling rack and table at the front of the school to check the items we have collected in the 7 short weeks that school has been underway to see if any items belong to them. We also encourage parents to drop by the school to check out our lost and found area. All items remaining at the end of November will be packaged up and delivered to the Hub to help support our community.