This week we celebrated Ash Wednesday. Fr. Carlos was our homilist and had a wonderful reminder for all of us. Lent in Spanish is Lento and means to slow down.

Our lives are so busy and we forget to slow down to pray, slow down to fast, and sometimes slow down to give or serve others.

Fr. Carlos also reminded us that Lent is 40 days because it was how long Jesus spent in the desert - slowing down - he went without food and water and went there to pray. It's to remind us to spend the 40 days growing closer to God, thinking of all our blessings and remembering there are some that are going without what we have.

Our classrooms have and will be talking about Lent. There was a Lenten calendar sent home that helps give some ideas of how to practice and celebrate this season.

We are going to be tempted to forget the purpose of the Lenten season with all the busy around us, and it's okay to fall, but remember it's good to get back up and try again.

I hope you have a blessed and reflective Lent.

Please take some time to open your child's enrollment packet for next school year. This is found through the Family Portal.

We started enrollment early this year to help us determine staffing needs. Please help us by completing your enrollment as soon as possible.

Just a reminder of some of our dates to help make enrollment smoother this year.

· March 1st: Parish Commitment must be submitted and signed for 2024-2025 school year. Families who fail to return form will be changed to the Non-Parishioner rate. Forms may be turned in before March 1st.

· April 1st: Families contact local school districts for transportation requests - Requests can be made before April 1st.

· April 20th: Financial Aid due

· August 1st: First Tuition Payment is due.

Forms may be found on our website: https://www.stfrancisststephen.org/admissions/financial-assistance/

Mrs. Caito-Capozzi is available to assist you in all your enrollment questions.

Thursday afternoon we started our SFSSS Spelling Bee, and the contestants were so prepared we ran out of time and had to finish it Friday morning!!! We had over 12 rounds of words!!!

We had 14 excited students interested in being our representative! 5th graders Domanic, Joseph, Nora, Jakub, and Sonny, and 6th graders Brandon, Annabella, Francesca, Elizabeth Anne, Lucy, Connor, Janelle, Miles and Giana, all did a WONDERFUL job!! All of them would have represented SFSSS well!! Their classmates were their audience cheering them on.

Congratulations to Lucy Humphrey for winning our SFSSS spelling bee, and to Miles Ventura for being our alternate!! Lucy will be our representative at the St. Mary Smith Spelling Bee!

Congratulations to all of our spellers! I was very proud of all of them!! They were prepared and did an awesome job!! They should be very proud of themselves!!

This year we are going to have a math-a-thon.

Goals:

• To raise money for the school. (We would love to make improvements to both the bathrooms and technology.)

• To encourage more math thinking, solve math challenges, and encourage more fluency.

During School Activities:

1. Each day there will be a theme.

2. Each class will complete a daily theme activity during homeroom, morning meeting, math class, or tech/flex time.

3. Each week, the school will create a slideshow of the math activities completed in the week to show you, our donors, and potential donors.

1. Spread the news about our fundraiser. We have a $8,000 goal. Here is the link to the main page: https://app.99pledges.com/fund/2024mathat
2. Complete the tic-tac-toe board. Those who complete a tic-tac-toe will earn tickets for the Family Night Door Prizes.

Topic: Read Aloud with Ms. Pohorence

Time: Feb 19, 2024 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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