Dear St. Monica Academy Families,
New Technology: Four new Promethean Interactive Boards are being installed in classrooms (check out the pictures on our Facebook Page). We have a total of eleven Interactive Boards in all classrooms in 1st -8th grade and one board in Early Childhood. These boards are one of many teaching modes that our teachers use in our technology-rich and balanced instructional environment. In addition, the 50 new Chromebooks and 60 new iPads added earlier this year has given us the tools to deliver a solid instructional program to our students during a pandemic. Currently, we have 200 student devices, 100 i-Pads and 100 Chromebooks. We’ve also been able to upgrade classroom computer hardware in addition to P.E. & Music equipment that helps us focus on the physical, emotional, spiritual, and creative health of our students emphasizing the whole child.
ACT Aspire Standardized Tests have been suspended for this school year by the Office of Catholic School system-wide. While it was our initial intent to implement the ACT Aspire Test, the demands of serving both our remote and in-person students equitably and the burden of implementing the test during this stressful time of COVID-19 has impacted learning and proved too difficult to address. The i-Ready Diagnostics will continue to be administered online to give us a baseline of student learning in grades K – 8.
End-of-Year Celebration Guidance from Office of Catholic School is coming in early April. This will give us information on what will be permitted during end-of-year celebrations including our 8th Grade Graduation and other graduation events during the months of May and June. Mitigations will be slowly moved back but we want to maintain the safest environment for the remainder of this school year. Thank you for your patience during this crazy school year!
Last Call for 5Essentials Parent Survey: Please complete the Climate, Culture, and Catholic Identity Survey utilizing the 5Essentials Survey if you haven’t already. We would like large survey sampling of parents, so please visit https://survey.5-essentials.
Absences: Please continue to report any absences to the school office at 773-631-7880 and fill out the following Google Form each morning when your child is sick. If we do not receive a call from you by 9:00 a.m., we will call you. Please keep your child home and let me know if he or she is sick or experiencing any Covid symptoms.
Quarantine Guidelines: St. Monica Academy continues to follow changes in COVID-19 guidance from state and local health departments. As you may be aware, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) recently revised their travel and quarantine restrictions as well as their travel advisory map. Please review these Quarantine Guidelines. This map is updated every other Tuesday.
Fun Pasta Fundraiser: St. Monica Academy is fundraising with Fun Pasta Fundraising! We’ll earn 40-50% profit from every sale. Selling is fun and simple, especially because it is done all online! Fun Pasta is healthy fun pasta shaped like the holidays, sports, collegiate team logos, and more. Online colorful pictures show a wide variety of products that will appeal to everyone! FunPastaFundraiserMarch2021.
Join our Fundraiser! Click the link and place your order: https://www.
St. Monica Playground Closed - Currently, the playset equipment is closed indefinitely under our current Covid mitigations and guidelines. We also ask that parents and their children not use the equipment before/after school and at half-day dismissal. We also cannot have families present during recess time with classes outside if they have been dismissed. The teachers are supervising the students, and we require a contained area. We do not want parents and families mixing with classes outside, as we want to maintain a safe and supervised space for our classes while they are at recess. Thank you for your support and cooperation.
Tardiness – We are experiencing many late arrivals and tardy students. Since the weather has improved and the snow has melted, we would request that all families arrive on time. Entering the lassrooms after the late bell creates a disruption to our learning environment and to the school office at the beginning of our school day. We want to instill that promptness is important in school, work, and in life. Please help us with this to improve and minimize tardiness. Thank you!
Attachments:
Spring Pictures & 8th Grade Retakes: SpringPictureDayMarch2021.pdf
Queen of Hearts Flyer Form: QoHRaffleSchoolFlyerMar
Queen of Hearts Order Form: QOHSchoolOrderFormMarch10th202
Coming Soon
Friday, March 12 NO SCHOOL - Teacher Professional Day
Wednesday March 17 St. Patrick’s Day - Dress Down Day in Green
Thursday, March 18 Spring Picture Day and 8th Grade Graduation Picture Day attachment
Friday, March 19 St. Joseph’s Day -Dress Down Day in Red
Sincerely,
Ray Coleman, Principal
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