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Dear St. Mary School Families and Parishioners,
This will be the last Principal’s Corner before the school year ends. I will resume with the monthly updates in August. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your generous support to our school and parish throughout this year. We could not do this without your help! Happy Mother’s Day to all of our mothers. Thank you for all you do and the difference you make in the lives of so many! Thank you for attending the Mother’s Day Tea in our Little Scholars Academy. Our junior high students did a fantastic job with their musical. It was so great to see all their talents. A special thank you to Mr. Gorski and the entire junior high faculty for helping our students to put this wonderful show together. Zoe Virant and Hannah Passow will be traveling to Columbus this weekend and compete in the State Science Fair at OSU. We are extremely proud of them and wish them the best of luck. Special thanks to Mrs. Allin and their parents who supported them in this endeavor! Last week we welcomed our incoming Kindergarteners. Each child coming to our school participated in a Kindergarten screening. We are excited to see them back in August. This Monday, May 13th, our Beginning and Advanced Band members will perform their spring concert under the direction of Mr. Littman. The performance is at 7pm in the Banquet Room. All are cordially invited to attend. The Operation Keepsake program will start for our students in grades 5-7. This program is part of our health curriculum. Our students have completed their spring MAP Testing. Our hope is that each student met personal academic goals and showed educational growth. After our all school Mass on May 24th, St. Mary School will host the annual “Pass it On” ceremony. The Class of 2019 will pass on the candle of knowledge and leadership to the present seventh graders. It is a beautiful ceremony and a long standing tradition of St. Mary School. Please join us for both the Mass and ceremony. Over the summer, we will begin construction for our Makerspace. This room will give all of our students an opportunity to become critical, creative, and innovative thinkers. They will be encouraged and empowered to become self-directed learners. The Makerspace will include many opportunities for all age groups and house flexible furniture, a Lego wall, a few 3D printers, a green screen with video equipment, a white board, and other machinery. All of this will contribute to continuing to make St. Mary School the excellent educational institution that it is! We will also remodel one of the current additional preschool classroom and convert it into a full classroom for our new 4-year-old three-day preschool program. Lots of great things will be happening at St. Mary School and we are excited to invite you all back in August. May you and your family have a wonderful summer! Blessings, Friederike Wintersteller - Principal
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 It is hard to believe that we began the fourth and last quarter of this school year. In a few weeks, our 8th graders will be graduating and moving on to high school.
Last weekend, several students from various grades participated in the diocesan-wide X-STREAM Games & Expo. We are very proud to announce that Jennifer Graham and Zoe Virant were awarded 1st and 2nd place in the Ignite the Power of Art competition. Our robotics team was awarded 1st place for teamwork and autonomous robots. Congratulations! This is a great accomplishment. This year’s One Hall One Book project Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White was a wonderful project for our PreK-5th grade students. Our students were involved in many cross-curricular activities. For our Learning Fair, the lower hall was transformed into a farm and county fair. Thanks to all the teachers and volunteers who helped with this project! Our school hosted the level 2 speech competition for 8th graders. A total of 12 participants from various schools joined us for this event and gave impressive speeches. On April 16th our lower school students will present a spring concert at 2:30 p.m. in the church. Mr. Gorski and the students are very much looking forward to this special event. Please come and join us. May you and your family have a wonderful Easter. God Bless, Friederike Wintersteller - Principal Principal’s Corner January 2019
It is great to see our students back ready to start the second semester of this school year. I am very proud of all the hard work and effort our students displayed so far and would like to thank everyone. Keep it up! Grades K-8 took the winter MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment and were tested in the areas of reading and math. Grades 2-8 also were also tested in language arts. The results are individualized and include benchmarks, as well as reveal academic skills and concepts your child has acquired and what he/she is ready to learn. You will be able to compare your child’s fall scores to the current ones. The last MAP assessment will be taken in May. We are looking forward to our upcoming Catholic Schools week from January 27th – February 1st. This year’s theme will be St. Mary Chardon ROCKS! PTU will be hosting the annual Pancake Breakfast after 8 am & 10 am Masses followed by our Open House on Sunday, January 27th. This year’s family project will be called “God’s Word is Music to My Ears.” Each family will be asked to find a Bible verse that speaks to them and share it along with a picture of the family. All students in grades K-8 will take a field trip to the Rock Hall of Fame. Our junior high students will invite the younger students to a STEMnival where they feature their own game and roller coaster creations. We are looking forward to a fun-filled week! Our STEM curriculum will soon be enhanced by a Makerspace Room. We met with an architect to go over plans on how this special place will look like. We are hoping to start construction over the summer and have the room ready to be used for STEM activities in September 2019. It will be great to see our students working collaboratively, learning, exploring, and inventing! God Bless, Friederike Wintersteller - Principal Principal’s Corner December 2018 November and December are quite busy months at our school as we reflect on the many things to be thankful for and prepare for Christmas.
Thank you for your generous support of St. Mary’s Toys for Appalachia drive! Our school has a long-standing tradition of providing toys to families in Grahn, KY, who would otherwise have no presents for Christmas. The Grahn Community Center operates with volunteers only and helps to serve over 100 families each season in this Appalachian region. It was great to see how many new and nearly new toys, as well as monetary donations have been made. In each grade students received their first St. Mary’s Vikings Pride Award. This award is given on a monthly basis to students who show special acts of kindness, good citizenship skills, and display leadership. We are blessed to have so many students who, led by our Catholic faith, are empathetic and committed to be a vital part of our Catholic community. I am proud to share that the results of our school survey given by parents, faculty, staff, and students were overall very positive. Furthermore, we would like to thank you for your constructive feedback, as this will help us to better determine our strengths and weaknesses and make St. Mary’s a better place to learn and grow. During the last few weeks, we spent some time on school safety. Lieutenant Troy Duncan met with our faculty and staff and reviewed important safety procedures. He also met with each grade level (PreK-8) and talked to the students about the importance of school safety and our various drills. We had an all-school lock down drill at the end of November. Thank you Lieutenant Duncan! Additionally, sixth graders will benefit from a new program: PLUS- Peers Learning Usable Skills. This program is offered by Officer Pat Willis and not only supports the DARE program that is offered for fifth graders, but also includes topics which help our students to be safe and make good decisions while growing up. More information will be sent to the parents of the participants and an informational parent night will be offered. We were able to offer this program due to a grant from the state of Ohio that is to be used to improve school safety. In preparation for Christmas, our students participate in the annual Christmas concert during the last week of school. It is always a delight to see them and our parents enjoying this special event. Thanks to Mr. Gorski who took the lead. I would also like to thank our parents and parish community for all your support and help to our school. We are blessed by your generosity and commitment to make St. Mary’s a special place for our students. May Christ’s peace and hope be with your family. Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!  Principal’s Corner November 3rd, 2018 Last Friday was the end of the first quarter. I am very proud of all the hard work and effort our students displayed and would like to thank everyone. Keep it up for the upcoming terms!
Starting this month, students will have an opportunity to receive a St. Mary’s Vikings Pride Award. This award will be given to them by their teachers on a monthly basis. Teachers will be looking for students in all grades who show special acts of kindness, good citizenship skills, and display leadership, all in embedded in our environment of Catholic faith. At the end of each month, winners of the St. Mary’s Vikings Pride Award in grades K-8, will receive the award in church after mass. Preschool students will be given this award in class. Winners in grades PreK-2 are asked to come to my office and pick out a prize from a treasure box. Winners in grades 3-8 will be entered into a drawing for a special luncheon at the end of each semester in January and May. Each non-public chartered school will be accredited by the State of Ohio every six years. Our school is currently in year one, the self-study, and will be visited and evaluated by the state in October 2019. We are asked to define a new academic and religion goal, which will be our focus for the next few years. All parents, faculty, and the students in grades 5-8 will be surveyed via Google form. It is imperative to receive your feedback and we are asking you to please fill out this anonymous survey. This will help us to determine our strengths and weaknesses and make St. Mary’s a better place to learn and grow. The surveys will be sent out this week and based on your answers, we will work on a new school improvement plan. Thank you for your support! I will be offering Parent Coffee talks for each grade level. They are held Tuesday mornings from 9:00-9:30 in the ABC room. This is an informal get together for parents where school or non-school related items can be discussed. Please refer to the flyer and email that were sent home for more information. Thank you for your support with the Magazine and Candy Drive. This was a very successful fundraiser! Our annual Trunk or Treat was a great event. Families from our community truly enjoyed this event, especially the children receiving lots of candy! It was great to see so much creativity in the car decorations and costumes. Thanks to our PTU members who organized this event and to all participants who hosted a trunk. We truly appreciate it and could not do this without your help. Peace and Joy, Friederike Wintersteller Principal |
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May 2019
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St. Mary Chardon
401 North Street, Chardon, OH Phone: (440) 286-3590 Fax: (440) 285-2818 Email: kbrown@stmaryschoolchardon.org |
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