3/14 Newsletter

St. Petronille Catholic School

A Note from Mr. Schmidt

St. Petronille Families,

What an absolutely incredible 2025 Key to the Future Auction! It was truly inspiring and humbling to see our school parents and friends walk the red carpet and come out in such resounding support of our school and our teachers. In all, through the wonderful generosity of our families, we raised over $568,000 in gross, which includes $210,000 from our Paddle Raise for the Teacher Supplemental Income Fund!

These figures are unbelievable for a school of our size. The funds will do tremendous good in supporting the sustainability of our teacher compensation initiatives, allowing us to invest in continued improvements to our classroom learning environments, and provide our students more curricular and technological resources to enhance their learning! Given that the auction once again exceeded our wildest expectations, we will work hard in the coming weeks to decide how they will be specifically used to benefit our school and we will certainly announce our complete plans to the community when we are ready.

My overwhelming feeling at the moment is gratitude. I am grateful for Mrs. Debbie Quirk, our Director of Advancement, who has so successfully developed and executed a comprehensive development strategy for our school. I am grateful for our Auction Chairs Michelle Jadin, Stacey Lewis, and Shannon Schmidt, and the entire Auction Committee for their tireless efforts over the past 6 months to make auction night special and successful. Above all, I am grateful for our families who so generously supported us and our initiatives. It is incredibly affirming to know that our priorities, values, and initiatives are shared by our families and so overwhelmingly supported in the interest of the formation of our children.

On behalf of the entire staff at St. Petronille Catholic School, thank you!

God bless,

Eric Schmidt

P.S. Huge congratulations to our 8th grade students who will be receiving their Confirmation tomorrow!

P.P.S. Please remember that Monday is an out-of-uniform Green Day for St. Patrick's Day!

Accepting School Board Applications

The St. Petronille School Board is seeking candidates to join the School Board for a 3-year term beginning June 2025. Being a part of the board is a great opportunity to contribute to the success of St Petronille School! We are seeking diverse skillsets to add to our team to contribute to current projects to improve teacher compensation, classroom technology, curricular resources, and tuition assistance as well as to promote new initiatives to help to forge our school’s future. We look forward to what the future holds and prayerfully hope to attract new School Board members who share our enthusiasm for creating a bright future for our students, school, and community. Please know that School Board members do not need to be school parents, and we are open to applications from all individuals who share our investment in the future of our parish school.

Please submit applications to School Board President, Jonathan Sluys, via email at stp@sluys.net.

2025-26 School Board Application

In the Know with PO - March

Hello everyone! We held our March meeting on 3/4 and we’d like to share what the parents/committees have been working on:

What’s been going on?

Hosted Heritage/International Night on 2/20 - approximately 225 attendees (150 were students)
Coordinated the Chicago Wolves Hockey Game Watch on 2/23
Hosted a Fine Arts Presentation for students on 2/27 with local graphic artist and illustrator, Ross Felten, from the series Ava the Monster Slayer by Lisa Maggio
Hosted a Dad’s Poker Tournament 2/1
Hosted a Sunday evening post mass Potluck dinner - 30 families attended
Coordinated Enrichment Clubs - all going well and will run until 3/18
Hosted a Sunday evening post mass Pizza Dinner on 3/2 - approximately 60 families attended
Families received $2,405 back with “Earn Back with Raise Right”, 31% increase with 14 new members from Feb 2024 to Feb 2025. Please contact Sirleia De Almeidasirleialmeida28@gmail.com with any questions.

What’s next?

4/24 Jr High Social
5/15 Fine Arts Program for students - Dueling pianos
Teacher Appreciation Week in May

Please save the date for our next PO meeting on Wednesday 4/9 @ 7pm and reach out to any of us on the board to learn more.2024-2025_PO Chairs & Shadows .xlsx

All are welcome!

One Book, One School Trivia!

Congratulations to LUCA and SOPHIA BERNARDI for winning the Masterpiece Week 5 Trivia!

Please see below for this week's trivia questions!

OBOS Trivia - Week 6!

St. Pets' Youth Ministry is Back!

Backpack Mail

Photos of the Week

Somehow our Girls 7B1 basketball team was left out of my basketball announcement last week! That certainly didn't stop them from completing a dramatic last minute championship win last Saturday! Congratulations girls!

Also, congratulations to our other Charger basketball champions and finalists! Thank you all for representing our school so well!

Charger basketball accomplishments don't stop with graduation! Huge congratulations to alumni Audrey Kinney and Lily Spanos on winning the IHSA Class 3A Girls Basketball State Championship with the Montini Catholic Lady Broncos! We are so proud of you, and of Coach Spanos as well!