Weekly Family Communication

The mission of Holy Rosary School is to help each child discover and fully develop their God-given talents. As a Catholic School community, we strive for excellence in our students’ spiritual, academic, physical, mental, aesthetic, and social-emotional growth. It is our intention that those who attend this institution mature into active citizens leading a committed faith life and reaching out to help others locally, nationally, and internationally with their wisdom, time, talent, and financial resources.

Dear Holy Rosary Families,

We are nearly mid-way through the first trimester of the 24-25 school year. It's hard to believe! Mid-trimester reports for the first trimester will come out on October 18th. This is a great time to check in with your child's teacher about how things are going as well, if you have any questions or wonderings! We also look forward to conferencing with families the week of Thanksgiving at our fall conferences. This time is set aside for a 1:1 conference with each child and family and we hope to see all families there. Sign up times come out the second week of November, keep an eye on the eFC for more details.

The funeral Mass for our longtime facilities manager and friend Scott Stoefen will be on Saturday, November 16th at 11:00 am, with a reception to follow in the gym. All school families are welcome, and I know it would have meant a lot to Scott to have our school families there.

Have a blessed rest of the week!

In Christ,

Anna

• Oct 11th - 8th Grade Pizza Lunch
  
• Oct 16th - Parents Club (7pm)
• Oct 19th - Fall Open House
• Oct 22nd - Picture Retakes
• Nov 1st - All Saints Mass
• Nov 1st - 8th Grade Pizza Lunch
• Nov 8th - No School, Teacher-in-Service
• Nov 11th - No School, No BASE

Holy Rosary School will have its annual Christmas Program the evening of December 19th. You won't want to miss this special evening filled with student performances, readings, and prayer as we prepare for Christmas! Students will spend months preparing for this special evening and all students and families are asked to be present for this event.

October 13 – Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima

What happened on Oct 13, 1917? The Miracle of the Sun (Portuguese: Milagre do Sol)!
It was a series of events that occurred miraculously to a large crowd who had gathered in Fatima, Portugal in response to a prophecy made by three shepherd children. The prophecy was that the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Fatima) would appear and perform miracles. The crowd that gathered saw the Sun dance in the sky and emit multicolored light and radiant colors lasting 10 minutes!

Ways to celebrate:

· Say the rosary as a family and include the “O my Jesus..” prayer

· Make Portuguese food for dinner

· Teach your children about the appearance made by Our Lady of Fatima

I hope your October is filled with lots of treats. October is Bullying Prevention Month. As a school we continue to teach our Bullying Prevention Curriculum through Second Step. We are also emphasizing our PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention System) expectation of RESPECT.

A few questions you can ask at home:

What does it mean to be respectful to yourself, others and our school?

How does respect look/sound?

How can you be respectful today?

Please let me know what questions you have (mchoitz@holyrosaryws.org) and thank you for your ongoing partnership.

Volunteering is at the heart of our HRS community. Thanks again to the 200+ volunteers who made WestFest a success and our Golden Gator Award recipients Jessica Howell and Cory Voelker. This award was created to recognize parent volunteers who go above and beyond, and we will continue to highlight individuals and families who make a significant impact through volunteering.

As a reminder, we introduced changes to our volunteer hours program this year to sharpen the focus on events that are critical sources of funding. Each family is expected to volunteer at least 50 total hours each year with 10 of those hours towards one of our three biggest fundraisers: Annual Fund, Auction or Tree Lot.

In October, our collective efforts shift to the Annual Fund, which is the largest source of cash funds for the school outside of tuition. The Annual Fund is critical in helping to close the gap between the cost to educate a student (which is a little over $14,000 per student for K-8) and the cost of tuition. There is approximately a 25% budget shortfall that fundraising needs to cover each school year.

As we transition away from Magazine Drive (based on parent feedback from last year), we’ve increased the Annual Fund goal this year to $300,000 and need to raise $150,000 during this month-long drive. By now we hope you’ve learned about the various ways you can earn fundraising volunteer hours through Annual Fund participation and earn prizes we know the kids love! Our goal is 100% participation from every family in our school community. Thanks again for your support and participation.

With Gratitude,

Katie Townsend

School Commission President

Join us Wednesday, October 16th for our first Parents Club meeting of the year. We will have our wonderful school counselor, Megan Choitz, joining us to speak about building resilience. As usual, our meeting will be over Zoom. Due to content licensing, we will not have a recording of the meeting. We are extending our time for this meeting. It will be 7-8:30pm. If you are interested in joining us, please complete this form.

Holy Rosary School will once again host a fall Covid and Flu shot clinic this fall to help families who wish to have their students vaccinated. Family members of students are also welcome. We will have Seattle Visiting Nurse Association nurses on campus after school on October 28th. Sign ups are available using the QR code on the linked flyer. Parent volunteers are needed to make this happen. If you are interested in volunteering, contact Tiffany Jones (tiffany@tiffanyejones.com). Click here, if you have questions about the shot clinic.

Holy Rosary School has the opportunity to join other local Catholic schools to host a Japanese exchange student for one week in March between their academic years, from March 22nd - March 30th. Last year we had three students join, who were hosted by Holy Rosary families. It was a wonderful experience for everyone! The students joining us will likely be in sixth, seventh or eighth grade, and families receive a small stipend to offset the expenses of hosting a student for the week. The students would then attend classes here at Holy Rosary School during the week. If you might be interested in learning more about this opportunity, and possibly hosting a student for the week, please email principal Anna Horton at ahorton@holyrosaryws.org.

The priority application period for parish members & current school families is September 15th and goes until November 15th for the 2025/2026 school year. If you have a new student who would like to apply to Holy Rosary School, please complete our online application at: https://holyrosaryws.org/applynow/. Re-enrollment occurs in January. Any questions, please contact: admissions@holyrosaryws.org

Last call for Lost and Found! Any items not claimed will be donated end of day on Friday Oct. 11. Any item with a name in it will be pulled and returned to the owner.

Please click on this link to order. You can pick up in the office anytime between 8am to 4pm.

Contact Ellen Voelker at ellenvoelker@gmail.com to request uniforms in your child's size.

We are currently at 28% of our goal and just over $42,000 donated in our month-long Annual Fund Fall Drive. Our goal is 100% participation from every family in our

school community.

If you want to track the Annual Fund giving and see which family is atop the leaderboard, click here.

PRIZES

Students can earn prizes:

• 1 donation = 1 dress pass
• Earn 1 dress pass per donation received, (up to 10)
• 5 donations = a gator surprise

All K-8 students in the family will earn the above prizes. Preschool students will earn their own gator surprise.

Class Incentives:

• First class to 100% participation earns FREE DRESS, a movie and treats with Principal Horton

· All classes at 100% = sweet treat

· First grade to 100% = pizza & free dress

· All school 100% = free dress and no homework night

Family Incentives:

· All donations received before 10/13 at 11:59pm will enter the family into a drawing for 2 custom YETI cups.

· Weekly incentives

· Top 3 families with the most number of donations will receive dinner on HRS

EARN VOLUNTEER HOURS

10 of your 50 required hours must be earned through fundraising.

Earn 1 hour:

• Make a donation of any size to the Annual Fund for the 2024-2025 school year (Max 1 hour) Donations made during re-enrollment/enrollment count.

• Receive one donation from family/friends in any amount (Max 1 hour)

• Share your student's fundraising page on social media (Max 1 hour)

Earn the # hours spent soliciting:

• Solicit donations using your student’s fundraising page, email, call, or text with at least 10 people

We will have our Preschool-8th grade Open House on Oct. 19th, spread the word! Volunteer opportunities for parents and 8th grade tour guides!

Holy Rosary's booth at the Harvest Festival is in need of parent & 8th grade volunteers. Sign-up below. The West Seattle Junction also shared their Harvest Festival schedule for the Sunday, 10/27. Come join the fun!

Take a few minutes to log into your Safe Env account and check your status. You may need a 20-minute refresher. Checking your status now will save staff time in contacting you before you can volunteer.

New families: Please complete your background checks and SE training before volunteering! If you haven't set up a volunteer log-in yet to record hours, here is the link! One parent must be the main account user, a 2nd parent can be added to the account as a sub-account. Instructions will be on the main account user’s page on how to add a sub-account.

Basketball season is almost here! 4th-8th graders will begin practicing the week of October 21st (practice schedule TBD), so please register your players today!

We will be registering individual teams on October 18th, and the quantity of players registered for each gender/grade on that date will determine how many teams we register. Game will begin on November 9th!

• More information: Check out our flier for more information.
• Register: https://holyrosaryseattle.org/wwp-registration

GiveACA - 2024 - Archdiocese of Seattle (archseattle.org).

7th and 8th grade https://holyrosaryseattle.org/youth-confirmation

See our Flyer for more information.

https://holyrosaryseattle.org/infant-baptism-registration.

srstella@holyrosaryseattle.org

srstella@holyrosaryseattle.org

https://holyrosaryseattle.org/rcia-adults.

We offer Children’s Liturgy of the Word year round at Sunday 10:30am Mass.

• Parish Children’s Choir YouthChoir! (Grades 3-6) | Holy Rosary Catholic Church | Seattle, WA (holyrosaryseattle.org)
• Altar Serving (5th -High school)–email Paul Dolejsi at Pdolejsi@holyrosaryseattle.org for more information.

https://holyrosaryseattle.org/adult-confirmation-1

Veterans of Foreign War and Its Auxiliary Department of Washington are sponsoring their annual essay contest. There are 2 different levels based on your child's grade. Applications are available in the school office. Essays must be submitted by October 31st. Go to scholarship.com for more information.