north deanery news - Bishop Chatard High School
Transcription
north deanery news - Bishop Chatard High School
OCTOBER 2013 NORTH DEANERY NEWS Dear North Deanery School Families, Welcome to the second edition of the North Deanery Schools Newsletter! It is a pleasure to provide this resource for all school families of the North Deanery and we hope you join us in celebrating the many successes of our schools. An interesting theme emerged as we began compiling the articles submitted by the parish schools for this edition – the North Deanery Schools take seriously our Catholic mission to educate the whole child, centered on the person of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the church, and we strive for excellence in everything we undertake, as our faith compels us. We are all truly blessed to have these Catholic schools in our community; schools that care deeply about serving the needs of each individual student, filled with adults who know that students need to be challenged to accomplish things that they never dreamed they were capable of and supported when they fall short. Thank you for entrusting us to partner with you in forming your children to live lives of meaning and faith, to be the people God has called them to be. God Bless you, Bill Sahm President Bishop Chatard High School Gala Dates OPEN HOUSE Thursday, November 7th 5:30p-8p Presented by Bishop Chatard: The High School of the North Deanery Immaculate Heart of Mary St. Joan of Arc St. Lawrence North Deanery October 4 Grow with the Arts Saint Joan of Arc October 5 SPXtravaganza Saint Pius X Date TBD Ground Hog Romp! Saint Thomas Aquinas Date TBD Trivia Night Saint Luke October 19 February 8 November 2 February 22 November 16 March 13 Royal Extravaganza-Resort Royal Saint Simon Illumination Gala Immaculate Heart of Mary Lucky 2013 Saint Matthew Parish Gala Saint Matthew St. Luke St. Matthew School Bayou Bash 2014 Christ the King St. Pius X Chatard-A-Bration Bishop Chatard Father Beechem’s Blarney Blast! Saint Lawrence Look for our next edition December 2013! Please email story ideas, North Deanery news and photos to Dana Mullin, Director of Marketing and Communications at Bishop Chatard [email protected] St. Simon St. Thomas Aquinas r e v o id d I t a h Look w mer Vacation ! Sum AC T I V I T I E S Summer Camps at Bishop Chatard Over 200 students from the Archdiocese participated in our athletic and enrichment camps! iPad Cam p ball Camp Boys Foot Did you know? Our North Deanery schools received Future Trojan Friendship Passes for all students. The pass enititles you to Free admission to all Bishop Chatard “home” athletic events, concerts and drama productions. New this year..redeem your Future Trojan Friendship pass in the BCHS spirit shop for a free gift..a limited edition BCHS t-shirt! Music Camp Drama Camp CALENDAR OF ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS p Girls Basketball Cam Watch for the 2014 summer camp announcements in the December edition of North Deanery News! F E ST I VA L S St. Lawrence Fall Festival Sept 13, 14, & 15 St. Thomas Sausage Fest | Aug 16 & 17 IHM Fall Festival | Aug 24 St. Simon | June 6, 7 & 8 Bishop Chatard is a proud sponsor of the North Deanery Festivals! This year we had over 60 student volunteers participating in our North Deanery parish festivals! North Deanery Festival tour logo, designed by Pat Hirschfeld, SJA French Market | Sept 7 Christ the King | June 21-22 owner of Giraffe-X Graphics and St. Simon graduate. St. Andrew Fall Fest coming soon! Oct 13th St. Luke | Sept 21 We are proud of our North Deanery Leaders! Several of our schools have adopted the Leader in Me Program, based on the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Did you know St. Joan of Arc was the first school in Indianapolis designated as a Leader In Me School? The Leader in Me is an innovative, school-wide model that increases teacher effectiveness, student engagement, and academic achievement, while preparing students to be leaders in the 21st century. St. Joan of Arc began implementation of the program, based on Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, during the 2012-13 school. The entire staff was trained in the 7 Habits in the summer of 2012. In September, the classroom teachers had a day of training on how to implement the habits within their curriculum and classroom environment. This summer, the school was transformed from floor to ceiling with visual elements highlighting the program including rugs and wall paintings featuring each of the 7 Habits. All teachers attended a Leadership Day this fall at Leader in Me Schools in Ohio and Kentucky. A Lighthouse team was created and this team went through additional training as they lead us through the process to become a Lighthouse School in the next few years. A student Lighthouse team has also been organized. This will be similar to a student council. A certification team will go through training next summer. This team will provide the professional development needed to certify our new staff as they come on board. We look forward to year two and plan on hosting a Leadership Day at St. Joan of Arc in the spring. We invite you to learn more about the program by visiting www.theleaderinme.org Did you know? There are over 200 Bishop Chatard Student Ambassadors, Retreat Team Leaders and Student Council representatives attend a Leadership Retreat each year! L E A D E R S H I P St. Lawrence 8th graders leading the little ones! The student tunnel and welcome to the new school year is a new tradition started last year. The 8th graders love it and it’s nice to have helpful hands to take little ones to their classrooms if necessary. CAREER DAY with Christ the King! We had a Career Day on 9/25/13 with 22 speakers presenting information about their various occupations to students in grades 5-8. Christ the King pastor, Fr. Steve Jarrell,was one of the speakers. D R A M A IHM 6th Grade Visits IRT to see Destination Broadway features a talented cast and crew of St. Simon students in grades 5-8. Destination Broadway is directed by Suzanne Collins with musical direction by Marla Smith. This is an evening you will not want to miss! Friday, Oct. 11 & Saturday, Oct. 12 at 7p.m. Off Broadway location: Fall Creek Valley Elementary Logo designed by Jacob deCastro (St. Simon ‘13 and BCHS ‘17) Jackie and Me Social justice issues go hand in hand with IHM’s commitment make God known, loved and served, allways. Last fall, the sixth grade classes at Immaculate Heart attended the Indianapolis Repertory Theater to see “Jackie and Me”, a play that portrayed Jackie Robinson’s life story. The following are excerpts from paragraphs they wrote about the experience. “This was a heart-warming tale of bravery, strength and baseball.” “Jackie and Me did not only show what it was like in the time of segregation, but it also showed how one person can change a whole lot.” “It inspired me to treat everybody equally”. “It was a very good play but it was disturbing to know how much people hated Jackie Robinson back then.” “Back then (in the 1940’s) what they thought was right, was actually very wrong.” ”The play really shows that racial prejudice is not okay.” ”This play taught me to keep on following my dreams.” Oct 31st | 9:30am Matinee / 7:30 pm Nov 1st | 7:30 pm Nov 2nd | 7:30 pm Join Us! Use your Future Trojan pass! To celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew, the 8th grade students presented the Kindergarten students with St. Matthew medals. St. Pius Students are WORKING to be of SERVICE to Others Our seventh and eighth grade students are currently planning service projects and writing grants. St. Pius students, Emma, Graysen, Maddy, Emily, and Ava are very excited about a Youth As Resource grant proposal they’re writing in hopes of working with female cancer patients at St. Vincent to keep their spirits up with a makeover and dance. They would like to have a dress and shoe drive to provide apparel for the special event. Zoe and Lauren want to hold a fundraising drive for Wolf Creek Preserve, a nonprofit with thirty-two wolves. Wolf Creek Preserve needs food for the animals, new fencing, and office supplies. Katherine is writing a grant proposal and hoping to have a schoolwide drive to fill backpacks for Schools on Wheels. Megan and Victoria are planning to bring a proposal to principal Bill Herman regarding a school-wide jeans drive. Students and staff could donate a pair of gently worn jeans and earn an out-of-uniform day. The donated jeans would be donated to St. Vincent de Paul. All students I spoke with told me they find that working on their service projects and grant proposals involves using each of the 7 habits we’re focusing on at St. Pius as a Leader In Me school. These students and others are taking charge! We’re proud of them. Congratulations MR. COCKRUM! Mr. Cockrum (7th & 8th Grade Language Arts teacher) at St Thomas Aquinas was honored to be selected as a recipient of the Jacobs Educator Award given by Indiana University. The Jacobs Educator Award recognizes a small group of outstanding teachers who are at the cutting edge of integrating digital technologies into their instruction. Jacobs Educators are part of a nation-wide community of highly successful teachers who work with the faculty at the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington in a variety of capacities, including teaching, research, and special projects and events. In addition to a oneyear stipend, Mr. Cockrum will be presented his award at the annual “Call to Teach” event at the IU School of Education on November 9th! M A K I N G A D I F F E R E N C E Welcome to Bishop Chatard & Christ the King Sara Castillo! “My name is Sara Castillo, I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. I came to school to the United States to get my under graduate degree. I went to Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa and got my B.A in International Studies and Religious Studies. I am currently pursuing my M.A in Theology at the University of Notre Dame through a program called Echo, and that is what brought me to Indianapolis. I am working with Carol Wagner, Director of Campus Ministry at Bishop Chatard High School, assisting with the different opportunities that Campus Ministry provides to the students. I am also working at Christ the King Catholic Church with Cindy Flaten. At Christ the King I am assisting with RCIA, Religious Education and the youth ministry. I am enjoying this opportunity, to learn about the different ministries in the school and the parish and to witness the great opportunities the youth has to grow in their faith. I am looking forward to my time spent in both communities and to grow in my formation as a catechetical leader.” Annual Freshman Grandparent Mass at Bishop Chatard! Bishop Chatard Student Union ANNUAL HAUNTED HOUSE October 26th 4:30p - 7:30p Auxillary Gym $4.00 per person The Haunted House is for everyone! The “haunted” section will be 3 floors and will cater to older elementary and middle school students. The gym will cater to younger kids with crafts and a movie. Outreach Opportunities M A K I N G A D I F F E R E N C E Abound at IHM This year the students at Immaculate Heart of Mary and their families have donated nearly $5000 to the many outreach ministries that our parish supports. Each Friday, the collection at the all school liturgy is designated to benefit a specific ministry. Over the course of the year, IHM has supported more than a dozen different causes. In addition to our Honduras outreach, we have also helped to support Books on Wheels, Anna’s House (Lucious Newsom’s original ministry), and the Guardian Angel Guild, a group that provides funding to students with special needs. In December, we made a contribution to the Catholic charities Christmas Store. We have raised money for The Children’s Wish Foundation, the Little Sisters of the Poor’s Saint Augustine’s Home for the Aged, and Indy Reads. Get a sneak peek of St. Joan of Arc’s preschool and Transitional Kindergarten programs during the annual Peek-A-Boo! Gather up your family, put on your Halloween costumes and join us for some food, drink, trick-or-treating, and fun. You’ll have an opportunity to meet the awesome teachers, the school principal, and Father Guy while visiting with fellow parents and students. Helpers on hand to help out with fun activities to keep busy hands and minds happy! Join us Friday, October 18th from 6:30pm - 8 p.m. in the lower level of St. Joan of Arc School. For more information or to RSVP, contact the school office at (317) 283-1518. IHM is truly making God Known, Loved and Served. ...ALLWAYS. Receiving the 8th grade shirts is a rite of passage for St. Lawrence students. The kids take great honor in wearing them and highly anticipate getting them after a mass, usually in mid September. Distributing the shirts is very special at St. Lawrence! Each incoming 8th grader has a “secret prayer partner”. The prayer partner for the student presents the shirt and that is the first time the student knows who their faculty or staff member prayer partner will be! There is sometimes great speculation on who will be praying for whom and it’s all handled with great graciousness. The tiger bike rack is a gift to Christ the King from the A.R.K. Society. We’ve been raising money over the last few years with all of our recycling efforts and decided we wanted to give something to the school with our profits. It was our decision to have a bike rack sculpture created to encourage more students to ride their bikes to school, and more parishioners to ride their bikes to Mass on Sundays. The bike rack was designed and created by local artist and metalworker Elaine Maverick. TECHNOLOGY “Shining” in the Classrooms with CHROMEBOOKS! BCHS students are using 1:1 technology everyday! This year we are excited to announce a new technology initiative at St. Lawrence, particularly with our middle school. We are introducing 65 Chromebook devices for every middle school student, and have signed up with Google Apps for Education. With these devices, we will be taking learning and work creation to unprecedented levels! The Chromebook devices are simple laptop computers with the purpose for creating rich work through collaboration. By using these devices in the classroom, students and teachers will be able to sync calendars, notes, provide reading text, worksheets, and collaborate with each other with incredible ease. Furthermore, students will be able to save all work in the cloud for access at home, school, and on the road. The St. Simon annual Bites for Bytes is February 25th. Bites for Bytes is an evening of live music, a silent auction and flavors from local restaraunts. 100% of profits benefits the technology initiative at St. Simon! Support the Christ the King Tiger Trot on Friday, October 11th! The money raise will be used to purchase ipads for the school. That’s GRrrrr-eat! T E C H N O LO GY The middle school students at St. Thomas Aquinas have been immersed in a technology-rich environment for many years now, and are accustomed to using Google Apps for many individual and collaborative assignments. There was a positive response from 7th and 8th grade students and parents when they were offered the choice to purchase the comparatively affordable Chromebook for the current school year. For many students the best part was that this device would be their very own; it would come to school and go home with them. Along with the Chromebooks purchased by 7th and 8th graders, the school provided classroom sets for the 5th and 6th graders. STA students are enjoying many benefits with the use of Chromebooks. There is no lengthy start-up time (around ten seconds), so when a student opens his or her device, it is ready to use. Chromebooks are designed to be fast, allowing pages to be loaded quickly. And there has been little need for IT support in the first month of implementation. Faculty members have also noticed some positive changes in students with the implementation of this program. Many students brought in cases and made sure their Chromebooks were more protected travelling from class to class. Charging ceases to be an issue due to the long battery charge of the Chromebooks, but also impart to the personal responsibility students are taking. Students now carry chargers with them and know where to charge their own devices during the day. STA teachers are excited about the improved collaboration, creation and sharing of documents and presentations that Chromebooks provide for students. But this new program can best be summarized by a current STA 7th grade student, who said, “I love my Chromebook because it gives me great info super fast, and keeps me organized since everything is in one place. It just makes school happier.” “It was a great day for football! We are always pleased to host our Deanery Schools. Our Deanery Coaches do a great job preparing their young men to become future Trojans.” -Coach Lorenzano “We were very impressed with the turn-out for our cheer jamboree this year! It is encouraging to see so many young cheerleaders pursue their passion with an eagerness to learn and improve. The BCHS cheerleaders loved having the opportunity to teach some of the cheers, chants, and dances that we learned at our NCA away camp this summer. We saw a lot of talent and we look forward to seeing the 8th graders at tryouts at the end of the year!” -Coach Vitale FOOTBALL & CHEER JAMBOREE R E A D E R S In April, St. Joan of Arc librarians attended a meeting of the Shared System Schools. There are about 15 other schools, including high schools, that have access to the Indianapolis Public Library catalog as we do. During the meeting it was shared with us the number of times books were circulated (checked out) this year at each school . Saint Joan of Arc surpassed every other school by at least 3,000 circulations! This means that our students checked out at least 3,000 more books than children at these other schools! AMAZING! Saint Simon kicked off the school year with the 3rd annual Read-a-Thon. The theme for this year was I Made my Teacher Into A Sundae! following the past themes of I Made my Teacher Eat a Bug! and I Made My Teacher Wipeout! Each year students have exceeded their fundraising goal and enjoyed the ultimate prize! We currently have a set of Amazon Kindles for the students to use, as well as a pair of iPads for the students to take AR quizzes and request books from IndyPL. The Kindles and iPads continue to be very popular with the students. We are constantly looking for new ways to integrate this technology in the library. 179 IHM students participated in the Indianapolis Public Library Read Together Right Now! 2013 Summer Reading Program! Christ the King made a splash with the “Dive Into Reading.” year-long reading program. A guest diver appeared before school one morning! THIS YEAR’S RESULTS! Total Amount Raised: $20, 013.99 Total Minutes Read: 439, 158 minutes 9 classrooms with 100% paricipation WAY TO GO ROYAL READERS! Bishop Chatard students spent the first day of the Saint Simon Read-A-Thon as Celebrity Readers! Student Retreats: St. Luke Catholic School upper students participate in retreats in the fall to help them prepare to make the best of the gifts God has given them. R E T R E ATS Our eighth grade participates in an overnight Christian Leadership Retreat at CYO Camp Rancho Framasa. A combination of physical challenges, time for reflection and prayer helps with a positive start to the year. It helps the eighth grade understand their role as leaders in school. The seventh grade attended a daylong retreat at Marian University that focuses on the changes in middle school and how they will respond. Later in the year they will participate in a vocations retreat that will take the boys to St. Meinrad and the girls to a convent near Notre Dame. The sixth grade took part in a full day retreat at Bishop Chatard High School. The goal was to take time to pray and identify individual and grade level goals for the year. Our other grades take time for retreats though out the year and to help keep our faith and Catholic values front and center. We are thankful for the active participation of our priests, school staff and staff from CYO, Marian and Bishop Chatard for making the retreats such a meaningful experience. St. Lawrence 7th and 8th graders enjoy time at Camp Rancho Framasa. It is scheduled fairly early in the year so that class comraderie and togetherness can build quickly. And, it does! Trust, loyalty, and caring play a part as well. Our 8th graders also attended more of a personal retreat at the Benedictine Center in late September with a little more reflection and prayer. Our 7th graders will have a leadership retreat in the spring at Fatima. Over 60 St Luke 6th graders spent the day at Bishop Chatard , participating in a retreat. The theme Love in Action carried throughout the day. This is the 2nd year in a row Bishop Chatard has hosted the retreat!