St. James School
Weekly News
August 16th, 2007
WELCOME
BACK!!!
WE ARE SO HAPPY TO BE BACK AND IN SESSION FOR THIS
SCHOOL YEAR AS WE PRACTICE….
“FAITH UNDER CONSTRUCTION”
As we are blessed to be adding to our current parish facility to meet our space needs, we are also challenged to be extremely flexible and patient as we need to change current procedures that we may have in place. During this time students, staff, and parents are asked to all work together in an understanding manner as we actively demonstrate our commitment to “faith under construction.”
Completion of the addition is slated for March 2008 and as such we are all asked to practice our LIFESKILS of flexibility and patience during the school year as we adjust to the physical changes in our building that will arise as a result of the construction process. (Some of the major areas affected by the construction are as follows:)
Extended Care can be in session this Friday, August 17th, from
12:00 – 4:00 PM.
We are extremely sorry for this last minute notification. The construction crew and the utility company will be moving power lines and we will not have any electricity after 4:00PM on Friday. Not having electricity poses several problems for us, but the most obvious is we would not be able to have students here in this heat without air conditioning. As this is very last minute, we tried everything we could to avoid cancelling Extended Care completely. Unfortunately, this is our only option at this point. We tried to contact all families today that were signed up for Extended Care on Friday. If you were not contacted today and you absolutely cannot make any other arrangements after 4:00PM please contact Mrs. Doherty at home at 792-2421. We did not expect to call on your patience and understanding on the third day of school. Thank you. Please remember if you are using Extended Care tomorrow your child must bring their own lunch.
Back Stairwell
The addition will connect to the
northwest corner of our present building and as such, the back stairwell is
closed during the construction process.
We have retrained the staff on the new routes to follow for tornado and
fire drills, and are currently instructing students of the changes.
Playground Area
Access to the back of the building is restricted to construction vehicles only as a safety precaution during the construction phase. This will not allow for students to use the playground area in the back for recess. Fortunately, we have plenty of area surrounding our building and students will be redirected to areas designated for soccer, basketball, kickball, and open field activities.
School Parking Lot
As the students will now be using the front grass areas and the parking lot for their playground we need to change where our school staff parks during the day. We will now be using either side of the grass median for staff parking during the day rather than the parking spaces in the center section of the parking lot. On one side of the grass median you will notice that we need to utilize every parking space available; including the handicap spots. As we can not change the signing and the painting on these spots to read non handicap during the school week and handicap during the weekend we need for you to understand why these spots will be used during the construction period.
As visitors during the day, we ask that you park in the first section of the parking lot as you enter our grounds. We will be monitoring our traffic numbers for the first few weeks to see if this procedure will work. Please be patient with us as we work out the details. When a large group meets during the school day, for example, our Over 50's group, or if there is a funeral mass, we will need to be flexible and make the parking changes needed. Parking for these groups will then be in the center parking lot section. Thank you in advance for your cooperation during this time.
Extended Care
Our students in Extended Care will be utilizing the front as their playground area as well. Please park in the center section of the parking lot near the baseball field. We feel this would be the safest area for cars to enter and exit.
OFFICE NEWS
Attendance
For the safety of your child please call the school office to let us know
when they are absent. If we are not notified
by 9:00 AM of why your child is absent, we will be calling contact phone
numbers to determine the location of your child. We also ask that you inform the school office
of any planned absences for the day/ or any portion of the day by sending a
note to us through your child’s teacher.
This will lessen the need for us to make phone calls trying to determine
the whereabouts of your child.
School Fees
The second installment of school fees was due Friday, August 10, 2007,
and the final payment for school fees will be due October 12, 2007. Installments equal $88 for each student
enrolled. Please remit payment to the
school office by Friday, August 31st, to bring your account
current.
Messages to Students
Please call the school office before 2:30 PM to let us know if you have a
change in plans for your child’s ride home or if they will need to go to
Extended Care for the day. This will
give the school office adequate time to relay the message to the student/teacher
and lessen confusion at dismissal time.
Messages to Teachers
If you need to contact a teacher during the school day with a message you can either e-mail your child’s teacher directly or call the school office to be put into the teacher’s voicemail box.
School Uniforms
At St. James we require our students to wear student uniforms as part of
our school dress code. Everyone needs to
be in compliance with our school uniform policy. We do not want to devote
instructional time to uniform infractions.
It should be noted that the uniform policy is seen by the administration
as a positive for the student, as it promotes a positive learning environment
that promotes school pride and eliminates differences among students based on
material possessions.
As you know, all uniforms must be purchased through school. Order forms to purchase uniforms can be
obtained in the school office. We are
only able to keep a limited stock of uniforms on hand due to space
restrictions. School uniforms are in an
area that cannot be accessed during the school day and as such uniform
orders will be filled after school by staff members. We will do our best to
fill orders, and have the items back to you in a timely manner. If we do not have an item in stock, we will
notify you of that fact and order the items needed in bulk orders that are
placed periodically to restock our shelves.
We remind parents to keep the labels on items purchased in case your
item does not fit and needs to be exchanged for another size. We will accept exchanges on purchased items
to allow parents to have students try on the uniforms at home to determine the
correct size.
OPEN COMMUNICATION
We want to stress the importance of maintaining open communication
between all interested parties in the education of your child. With that in mind, we encourage parents,
teachers, and administrative staff to use as many avenues of communication
possible to transmit information. This will help assure that parents and
students are being updated on planned events at school, and kept informed about
their student’s performance.
Newsletters
This year we will use your e-mail account for our weekly newsletter
rather than sending home a hard copy. We
feel this is the most efficient and effective way to communicate to our
parents. This enables us to be more
responsible citizens as we will not be using reams of paper each week. (Save some trees…Yeah! Save some money…Yeah!)
EVERY Thursday we send home a newsletter that focuses on current school information.
If our goal of paperless is to be accomplished we will need to be
notified of the correct e-mail for each family.
The most current e-mail address we have for your family was the one you
provided for us this summer when we sent out the class lists. If this is not your most current e-mail please
update your e-mail information and send it to
karrie.snider@stjames-school as soon as possible. You will receive a confirmation telling you that your information was received and that it will be updated in our data base for future use. In addition, your address and e-mail information obtained from our current registration data base will be used for our school directory which will be issued in a few weeks. Please call the school office by Monday, August 20th if any information needs to be corrected. Thank you. In addition, the newsletter will be posted on the St. James web-site which is located at www.stjames-school.org.
Monthly school calendars and school cafe menus will be posted by the end
of each month for the following month. For
example, by the end of August, we will be posting the cafe menu and school
calendar for the month of September.
NOTE: As a result of the power being turned off on
Friday, we will not be able to have the school lunch scheduled for Monday,
August 20th, being we cannot assure that the food items needed
can be properly refrigerated, if they are delivered earlier than the day the
items will be served.
We have contacted CiCi’s Pizza
and they have agreed to supply us with Cheese Pizza for the students who order lunch
on Monday, August 20th.
The attached school lunch calendar for August 2007 will reflect the
change.
Powerschool
This on-line program will allow parents to access their student’s grades,
correspond with teachers, check lunch balances, etc. Parents will be sent
information shortly on how to access their child’s account. Each child will have an individual password to
enter their individual account. It is
intended that only parent’s access the system to have it work most
effectively. Therefore, password
information will be sent home to parents in a sealed envelope. We ask that you keep the information in a
secure place that can be readily accessible for parent use. If necessary, you may contact the school
office if you ever lose your password.
SCHOOL PICTURES
Monday, August 27th is
individual school picture day for our students in Preschool through 8th
grade. On Tuesday, August 28th,
we will take pictures for our Tuesday and Thursday preschool and pre-k
students. Lifetouch pictures will be
taking our school pictures this year and we have contracted with them to take
individual pictures next week as stated above and group classroom photos in the
spring. We ask that students “dress up”
for picture day. Students do not need
to be in their school uniform. If
your child has P.E. on picture day, please send along an extra pair of shoes to
wear to P.E. class.
ATHLETIC NEWS
Who’s On First?
Alicia Brown, who has served as our assistant athletic director is now our athletic director and Michelle Strada, who has served as our athletic director, will now be our assistant athletic director. A special thank you to both of the ladies for their work and dedication for our young athletes.
Volleyball registration
Volleyball registration for 4th through 8th grade girls ends TOMORROW, Friday, August 17th. The registration fee for volleyball is $60. Please send your registration into the school office with payment. Registration forms can be obtained in the school office, or printed off the school web-site.
Volleyball practice will begin the week of Monday, August 20th. Volleyball games will begin the week of September 13th. Game days are as follows by grade: Tuesday/Thursday - 8th grade, Saturday - 6th and 7th grade, and on Sunday afternoons – 4th and 5th grade.
If you have any questions, please contact Alicia Brown at (816)415-8139 or aliciapetteybrown@sbcglobal.net.
MEET THE TEACHER NIGHT
We were excited about the turnout this past Sunday at our Meet the Teacher
Night and Ice Cream Social. It was great
to see everyone again. We hope you had a
chance to meet some of our new staff and new St. James families. We wanted to thank, Shellie Kemna, as PTO
vice-president, and her host of volunteer helpers who helped make the event a
success. In addition, we wanted to thank the PTO who supplied ice cream treats on
this hot summer evening!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU ,
THANK YOU!!!
We wanted to thank everyone who pitched in to help us as we prepared the
building and grounds to be re-opened for this school year. Namely we would like to publicly thank the
custodial staff who worked hard to clean the building and those volunteers who
came out to help us on “Deep Cleaning Day” that was held on Sunday, August 5th. We are especially grateful to those
individuals who braved the hot weather and helped us set up the soccer fields,
prepare the ball fields, and move the picnic tables to their new areas. Great Job!!