Dear St. Monica Academy Families,

I hope this message finds you all well.

As I stated last week, this community is participating in the Archdiocese and Office of Catholic Schools driven 5Essentials Survey. The surveys opened on February 12th and will remain open until March 22nd.  

Just as a reminder, the 5Essentials gathers data related to five indicators that can predict important student outcomes, including improved attendance and larger test score gains. The five indicators that affect and predict school success are: effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environments, and ambitious instruction. Prior research has shown that schools that were strong on least three of these “5Essential” indicators were 10 times more likely to improve student learning gains in math and reading, than those that were weak on three or more of the Essentials.  

Previously, I told you of the importance of having results from parents, teachers, and students.  To have usable data, a school needs 50% of their students, 50% of their faculty and staff, and 20% of their parents. Last year, while St. Monica achieved the thresholds last year for teachers and students, our parent response rate was low, and I think that was largely due to the fact that promotion to parents was not a high priority. I am happy to report that only a week in, we have a parent response rate of 47% and a teacher response rate of 77%. I value the opinions of both of these groups. My personal goal is 70% of parents and 100% of faculty and staff. I also encourage you to allow your students in 4th through 8th grade to participate. Teachers will offer families non-consent forms for students, which you only have to fill out if you do not want your student to participate. Otherwise, participation is implied. This data will only improve our school. I ask that you consider completing the survey, if you have not already done so. I think your information, and the data received from you, will be absolutely essential. Parents have access to their survey through this link. All surveys completed by parents, students, and faculty and staff are completely anonymous.  

• Take the 5Essentails Parent Survey

Information collected from this survey will be made available to school leadership and Office of Catholic School leadership and will enable us to make considerations and decisions based on the response given by St. Monica Academy parents, students, and parents.

Starting this week, we will begin placing traffic horses and barriers to control the flow of traffic around the campus during drop-off and pick-up. This means you should travel south down Nottingham, west on Carmen Avenue, and north on Mont Clare. Although some may find this inconvenient, it will do us well to institute this in order to better protect our students as they arrive and depart from school.  

Re-registration remains in progress. Earlier, we sent home re-registration forms and the tuition matrix for the 2024-2025. There are, of course, benefits to re-registering early. There are deadlines explained in the terms and conditions section that some may wish to take advantage of because of the potential discounts. Also, and this is important, to ease the registration process, if you are re-registering one student, but will have a new student joining us in the building next year (a re-registration + a new registration in any form), please contact Mrs. Reykjalin directly.    

Throughout Lent, we will also be participating in the Stations of the Cross on Fridays at 1:00 p.m. The middle school grades will participate on 3/8. First through fifth grade will participate on 2/23 and 3/15. The entire school will participate on 3/22. Please feel free to join us.  

On February 29th, we will be having our spring parent-teacher conferences. Just as we did in November, I am including the link to the conference schedule here. Please follow the instructions and remember that the opening page is a link to Mr. Wenzel’s conference times. You must scroll along the bottom to go to your student’s teacher(s). It is important to note that these conferences are not required. However, you can request one by merely signing up. You student’s teacher may also require one and ask you to pick a time if he or she feels the need to talk about your student’s progress.

• Register for a Parent-Teacher Conference

St. Monica Academy is working on our calendar for the 2024-2025 school year. Because of the late date of Easter next school year (April 20, 2025), the calendar might look different than in previous years. This could mean having an earlier “Spring Break” and a later, but shorter, traditional Easter Break. We are currently evaluating some of the proposed calendars for our Catholic High Schools, as well as those for our local CPS schools, in order to accommodate those with older siblings and those of our community who work at CPS institutions. In addition to this, we will indeed be pushing up the date of the first, required Parent-Teacher Conference, as well as altering a few other aspects that will benefit St. Monica Academy as a whole. I am prayerful that this calendar will be able to be presented to you in early March.

Because these newsletters have been so packed recently, I failed to thank the volunteers from the parent community who successfully ran our Scholastic Book Fair during Catholic Schools Week. These parents did a great job and I felt this was run very well. Thank you, and we appreciate your efforts.  
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As always, visit the St. Monica Academy website to sign up for volunteer opportunities and to read about the importance of our fundraising efforts.

Go Mustangs!  

St. Monica, Pray for Us!

In His Name,
Wayne Wenzel, Jr.
Principal