I Asked. You Answered!

St. Joseph Catholic Church
York, PA

Want to start off by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. Hope your Christmas was wonderful, and filled with happiness, family, and a time to reflect on your faith. I also hope you have made time to just exhale a bit.

Kelley and I have taken advantage of this break to visit friends and family in York, PA. This was actually my first time in Pennsylvania. Wish we could have stayed for awhile longer but it was just a quick trip up and back. I want to come back here in the summertime. This place is beautiful in the winter. Cannot imagine how beautiful it is in the summer.

St. Ann Staff Christmas Luncheon

In my last blog, I asked that you share your expertise with our school to help make St. Ann better for our students, and you have answered the call! I asked. You answered! Here is a way several people have stepped up to help.

An issue many of our students are facing is reading comprehension. You ask the students to read out loud a passage from Harry Potter, an article from ReadWorks, or a story in an English book, they can read it. They just don't know what they have read. Ms. Ferrante in the LIFE

Christmas Dinner with
Family in York, PA

program has made huge strides with her students in reading comprehension. The problem is we need more adults reading with our students one on one. Ms. Ferrante, Ms. Williams, Ms. Ghio, and I have met to organize a team of reading volunteers to work with our students. Currently, we have nine volunteers who will come in at different times to work with our students one on one on reading fluency and comprehension. If you are willing to help our students become better readers, please call the school office to volunteer your services. The more volunteers we have, the more we can help our students. We are no different than any other school in that we have students with Dyslexia, students with reading difficulties, students a grade or two below in their reading level, students who are reading at a college level, and your average students who are reading at grade level. All students can benefit from reading one on one with reading volunteers. All volunteers will have to go through a background check, and receive Virtus training (Protecting God's Children).

Thank You Note On My Computer!

It has taken awhile but student council is finally getting under way. I will be the moderator for the student council starting January. I have met with Blake Arey, student council president, to start putting a plan together. The other members of the student council are:
Luca de Jong- Vice President
Abigail Adams- Secretary
Joshua Parker- Treasurer
Landon Willins- Director of Publications
Zach Griffith- Chaplain

Blake plans to contact the other members of the council to get their ideas on what they would like to do. My first suggestion is they work with PK3 and PK4 on setting up a plan of chaperoning the little ones at school Mass every Thursday. We did this at Resurrection and it worked out well. The 8th graders can chaperon the PK3 students. The 7th graders can chaperon the PK4 students. The 6th graders can help chaperon both grades. This will give the middle schoolers more responsibility, and give the little ones a Mass mentor/buddy. We will soon see what else the student council plans to do for the spring semester.

Extracurricular Exploration (EE) classes have ended for the first semester. For the fourth session which begins in January, we are offering seven classes in five sessions. Sign up for EE will take place the first day we return from Christmas Break. Here is a list of the next EE classes:
1.  Sewing/Art
2.  Volleyball/Basketball
3.  Chess
4.  STEM Building- This includes a competition on Feb. 23rd at Southwest Community College.
5.  History of Pop & Country Music
Sewing and Basketball are student led with a faculty member supervising.

Support St. Ann!

Our annual giving campaign is underway. So far, we have had many new/first time donors! Having spent many years raising money for different schools, getting new donors is hugely important. Even more important than that is to get donors to become recurring donors. If you are doing good work, it is easier to keep a donor than it is to find new donors. Our development department, led by Angela de Jong, sent out annual giving brochures to our parents and grandparents. We have been receiving gifts for the school every day. We are excited about the support, and how people are stepping up to help make the school better for our students. Once we get back from the Christmas break, we plan to reach out more and more to our alumni.

Brett Skydiving!

For all you alumni out there, don't forget to save the date: Tuesday, March 5th for our St. Ann Alumni Fat Tuesday Party! For more information about this party, please contact Angela de Jong at angela.dejong@sascolts.org.

Brett After Skydiving

I want to send a huge shoutout to St. Ann 7th grader, Brett Battle. On  Saturday, December 22nd, Brett became one of only 50 people his age in the whole world who has been skydiving. Rumor has it that he is ready to go skydiving again. Maybe I'll find the courage to join him or maybe not.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School

We Need Your Expertise

My Extracurricular Exploration
Soccer Team

I never thought that I would spend so much time reading and studying about education. I'm constantly thinking about what education looks like, and what it should actually look like. Since technology has taken over our lives, education has never looked the same. For decades, education never changed; it always looked the same. Now, education changes at the speed of technology. Educators cannot keep up with all the changes. As soon as the newest, latest and greatest educational thing comes out, it is already no longer the newest, latest, and greatest educational thing out there. To keep up, it takes a lot of money, training, and time. It also takes lots of research. That's why I'm always reading and studying about education. Keeping up is hard to do.

Our second computer lab
is getting lots of use.

In business, if you aren't innovative, creative, and are afraid of failing, you will. You cannot lose your edge. You have to stay focused, work smart, and take risks. Catholic education is no different. It is a business, and needs to be run like a business. It is part of the work of the Catholic Church but it is still a business. We have customers who pay us to educate their children. We do the best we can to work with the parents to educate the children. We want parents to feel at home when they walk through the school doors. Parents are a huge part of the educational process. Parents are actually the children's first teacher. We are there to support the parents. At the same time, Catholic Schools cannot survive without help from parents.

We have remodeled the
second computer lab to make
it more user friendly.

We need your expertise. Think of a way that you can help the school with the talents you possess. And, put those talents to use helping the school become a better school for all the children. Everyone has something to offer; everyone.

Steve Sones helped with security. George Dhuy and May Young work the carpool line every morning. Lori Locke is part of the development committee. Stephanie Nichols, Kathy Schiavone, and Jamie Coggins put on the St. Ann Fall Fest. Barry Wymore repaired the fence by the school entrance. Jimmy Crews has been working on repairing the school's website. Liz Wehmeyer taught our teachers about Apple Apps. Jennifer Podesta and Jessica Orban coached our volleyball team. These are just a few examples of great things our parents have or doing for our school.

My new St. Ann
stocking cap.

If you enjoy athletics, coach a sports team. If you enjoy reading, come read to a class or a group of students. If you are an engineer and good at math, tutor a student in math. If you write for a living, tutor a student in writing. Or, come have lunch with your child.

If you don't have time, but you are willing to help in other ways, we have a wish list of needs to enhance our children's education.

We all have a talent we can share for the good of our students. Please share. Feel free to contact me so that we can talk about ways you can share your talent(s). We need your expertise. Thank you.

I do have another favor to ask of you. I'm not sure who reads my blogs. Some of my blogs have been read by over 3,000 people. Some of my blogs have been read by a little less than 200 people. That's a huge variance in readers. If you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment. Just like to know who is reading, and get your thoughts.

God bless you and Merry Christmas,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School

Classroom Observations

The responsibilities of a school principal are many, especially in a Catholic School where we are in charge of everything that takes place in our schools including the budget, contracts, purchasing, payroll, development, hiring, parish council, accreditation, communication, parent liaison, safety coordinator, student advocate, student disciplinarian, curriculum specialist, counselor....  You get the idea.

One of my favorite responsibilities is classroom observation. While observing classes, I get to see the lessons taking place live, students working, teachers perfecting their craft, technology being used as a learning tool, student collaboration, and lots of good things you would expect in a learning environment. I also get to see the frustration from lack of understanding by teachers and students, students not succeeding from a lack of motivation, technology malfunctioning, learning differences which prevent students from keeping up with their classmates, and anger that tends to get the best of us when we spend 9-10 hours a day with the same group of people getting on your last nerve.

Education is beautiful but it is not always a bed of roses. I get to see this when I'm in the classroom. I get to see the human side of education. I also get to see a lot of compassion, love, hard work, the "Ah Ha" moments (which is extremely fulfilling), brilliance, friendships, and lots of smiles.

In this week's blog, I'm going to share with you what I see during some of my classroom observations.

I walk into Mrs. Morgan's PK4 class and I see Mrs. Morgan at the SMART Board working one-on-one with students teaching them how to write the letters of the alphabet. Mrs. Sexton is working with several students on reading using the iPad. Not only do I see these two wonderful teachers working with the students, it is also computer time so Mrs. Slattery is also in the classroom working with the PK4 students on the iPads as well. The students not working with the three teachers are working with a partner on centers. Not sure if I have ever seen a PK4 class this organized and running this smoothly before. It was quite a sight to see. As the principal of St. Ann, the best thing for me to do was observe, learn, and stay out of the way. Don't mess with perfection.

In Ms. Williams 4th grade class, I observe the students in one of the computer labs during Language Arts. Students are working on easyCBM, ReadWorks, RQ, IXL, and LIFE during this class period. While all this was taking place, Ms. Williams was constantly moving about the lab working with students one-on-one, answering questions, and working to motivate students to do their best. She was making sure the students are working at or above their reading level. We are constantly working to take the students up a notch. We spend a lot of time on Language Arts because reading is the academic skill that's hardest to improve, yet is the single most important academic skill we all need. Throughout the class, the learners were actively engaging in the learning process. I enjoy Ms. Williams class mainly because she individualizes so much of her lessons for the students. It is as if she develops lesson plans for each of her students. Developing one lesson plan for the entire class takes a lot of time. Her lesson planning is incredible.

In Mrs. Slattery's 6th grade computer class, the students created a Social Studies continent trivia game using PowerPoint. Isabella and Lacy worked on one with questions on flowers, capitals, and flags of the world. If you answer the question correctly, you continue moving forward. If not, you will have to try again until you successfully answer the question. Megan and Monserrat created a PowerPoint trivia game on Antarctica. The students who finished creating their trivia game were working on computer coding. Never a dull moment in Mrs. Slattery's class.

When I entered Mrs. Harty's 1st grade classroom, the students were listening to a Christmas story. This was followed up with a science test on weather. I took the test as well. I was happy to have finally passed a science test. That didn't happen very often when I was a student. It is pretty neat watching the minds of 1st graders at work. The intensity on their faces shows that they were truly concentrating on the test. For the teacher, the hard part was making sure all the students were on the same question. Remember, they are 1st graders. They need to follow along as the teacher reads the test to them. They took the test at the end of the day and there was no lack of concentration on their part. The students were super-focused on the test. Some of the 1st graders are so smart that it is scary. Mrs. Harty definitely has the patience of Job. I enjoyed being a part of this class.

Going into Ms. Ghio's Innovation Lab, I quickly see that she incorporated Religion and Geography into the lesson. The class tracked the journey of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Jerusalem. The learners use Google Earth on the iPad to do research on Israel. The students described the climate of Israel and the weather patterns in December and January. They also needed to figure out what landforms Joseph and Mary had to travel through. The main question the students needed to answer was: "If you were Joseph's apprentice, what could you design and build to help make their journey easier? Consider the terrain, weather, and cost." Students worked in small groups answering all the questions. This lesson is actually going to take several class periods to accomplish. Ms. Ghio and Ms. Williams were working together to figure our times Ms. Ghio could take smaller groups of 4th graders to complete the project. Our teachers work so well together.

I go from Ms. Ghio's class to Mrs. Miller's 3rd grade classroom to see students doing a wide variety of activities. Two of the students were working with Mrs. Miller on ReadWorks incorporating Reading and Science. Some of the students were working on Math concepts. The students are allowed to move on to a new topic or do review work. Several of the students were doing independent fiction and non-fiction reading. Other students were working on cursive writing or spelling words. Wish I could clone Mrs. Miller so that all schools could have at least one of her. Awesome!

Then, it was off to Mr. Kissell's 6th grade Language Arts class. The students took their vocabulary writing quiz and then moved to reading a story on ReadWorks. I got the opportunity to see the students work on answering ten ReadWorks questions (7 multiple choice and 3 short answer questions). The ReadWorks story is an eight part series of fictional work. While the students worked on the reading and quiz, Mr. Kissell sees their answers in real time. So, the students having difficulties are able to receive individual instructions from Mr. Kissell. The students are also able to revise the quiz if they did not do well. A big part of ReadWorks is for the students to use text evidence to support their answers. I love it that ReadWorks works on real time. Mr. Kissell is able to move about the classroom with his iPad and monitor student work, and students have the opportunity to ask questions as he moves about the classroom. ReadWorks also allows the students to monitor their own progress.

Next is Mr. Cooper's music class with the Kindergartners. This should be interesting as they are learning about sounds. There is so much curiosity and energy packed into their little bodies that makes it hard for them to control themselves especially in music class. Best just to give them an energy release and music class is that energy release. If you turn on music in a kindergarten classroom, there will be a lot of dancing and jumping around that kind of looks like dancing. Maybe we should combine Music with Physical Education. When Mr. Cooper asked the learners about the different sounds, I didn't notice all the different sounds until I heard their answers. Time to check my hearing.

Just an FYI: Kindergarten teachers have earned their place in heaven. They don't even have to worry about purgatory because they have a get out of purgatory free card. I believe the same should be true of elementary and middle school principals. Just sayin'.

The day would not be complete without a visit to 2nd grade with Mrs. Odum. She took full advantage of her new speakers by playing Christmas music while her students learned about Math by surveying classmates. Students used pencils or crayons to make the survey tally marks before making the final count. The students moved from math survey to centers. Some of the students started using iPads with headphones to work on IXL, while others worked on the handwriting skills by practicing upper and lower case Uu and Yy. The final group worked on Lyrics to Learn. Through the generosity of one of the 2nd grader's grandparents, the 2nd graders have a subscription to Lyrics to Learn until the end of the school year. If this programs helps improve the 2nd graders' reading comprehension, maybe we can get it for Kindergarten through 5th grade next year.

This should give you a brief look at one day at St. Ann Catholic School. The school spelling bee was about to start. It is time for me to get out of the classrooms and leave the teachers alone. It has been a great day with me doing one of my favorite things as an educator and that is working with my teachers to help them become the best teachers they can be. We at St. Ann are fortunate to have the teachers we have who make teaching at St. Ann Catholic School a part of their life's mission. We have many master teachers and many more who are working to become master teachers.

If you are looking for a great school for your child(ren), I know where you can find just the right place. There are lots of great things taking place at St. Ann Catholic School. Come by for a visit. I believe you will like what you see. After thirty years in education, I love what I see.

God bless you and Merry Christmas,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School

A Thanksgiving Blog

1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

With the Thanksgiving break and as hard as we have been working, I took advantage of this break in many ways including not publishing a blog the past two Sundays. Instead, I spent part of the week wrapping up some work that needed to get done and to get caught up on the Advanc-ED accreditation process. Didn't get nearly as much accomplished as I hoped to but that is typical of my ADD life.

My Family in San Antonio

Plus, my daughter, Celina, came home for Thanksgiving! I'm extremely thankful for the opportunity to be with her. Kelley and I get to see her about every three months or so. She lives in San Antonio, which makes for a long drive. To fly to San Antonio isn't cheap especially for two people. Frontier is supposed to have direct flights between Memphis and San Antonio. Good luck trying to find those flights. It is much easier and less expensive to fly her back to Memphis. The problem is we miss out on the opportunity to visit San Antonio. Once Celina returned to San Antonio, we might not see her till maybe March of 2019.

On the other hand, my son and daughter-in-law, Jonathan and Brittany, live half a mile from my house. We get to see them almost every day. So, Kelley and I will appreciate and take advantage of our proximity to them as best we can.

Madonna & Child
by Katie Jones

Our art teacher, Katie Jones, is working to incorporate religion into her art classes. During art class for the next few weeks, the students are working on the Keep Christ in Christmas poster contest for the Knights of Columbus. Teachers are asked to speak to the students about the history of Christmas, have the students write a special Christmas prayer, and/or discuss what images they think of when they think of Christ and Christmas. This is also part of incorporating Religion and Art into our STREAM program. I look forward to seeing what the students come up with on their Keep Christ in Christmas poster projects.

IXL Stars Wall

The IXL and Honor Roll Walls are complete! Teresa Ferrante and
Annmarie Ghio put together the Walls to honor student achievement. The IXL Wall honors the top three students in each grade level in Math and Language Arts. The top three performers in each of those two subjects are listed on the wall. The Honor Roll Wall honors the students on the Principal and Faculty Honor Roll.

The Father/Daughter Dance took place last night. It was a magical evening of dinner and dancing. Not sure who enjoyed the evening more: daughters, dads, or volunteers who made the evening possible. Lots of thank yous to go around starting with Lori Locke and Home & School for organizing and putting on this event. It was such a fantastic dance, especially for a first time event, that Home & School wants to add another dance event to the calendar for the students and parents. Thank you to the daughters for getting your fathers on the dance floor. The dance floor was rockin' last night as DJ Cel cranked out the tunes. Thank you to the fathers for putting their daughters ahead of everything else to spend a memorable evening sharing lots of love and a great time. The memories fashioned last night will last a

life time. Congratulations to Greg and Cassie Richardson for winning the dance contest. They better spend a lot of time preparing for next year's Father/Daughter Dance because they will have to defend their title. There will be plenty of Father/Daughter Dance Teams ready to take their title away. Next on the agenda is the Mother/Son Video Game Night in February. Should be another great evening for our St. Ann families.

The Christmas Door Decorating Contest was a big hit! With enthusiasm, creativity, and Christmas spirit abound, the contest brought out the best in staff, students, and room parents. The winner

of the 2018 Christmas Door Decorating Contest was Mrs. Metaxas and her 5th graders! I have to admit that their door was better than the school office door, but only barely. 2nd place went to Mrs. Odum's 2nd grade class. 3rd place went to Mrs. Harty's 1st grade class.

Mrs. Metaxas: 1st Place

Through Title II program with Shelby County Schools and Bartlett City Schools, we have been able to send teachers to national conferences for professional development. The latest to take advantage of this program is Annmarie Ghio. She just spent part of this past week in Charlotte, NC at the National Science Teachers Association Conference on Science Education. The conference sessions provided hands-on learning opportunities for science educators. The sessions were geared towards the latest in science content, learning strategy, and research to enhance and expand professional growth, as well as having opportunities to collaborate with science education leaders and peers. This was a wonderful opportunity for Ms. Ghio to gain more knowledge and experience to help her students.

Mrs. Odum: 2nd Place

We have been able to take advantage of the Title program to fund our CPR training; dyslexia workshop with Bodine School; easyCBM webinar; Tracey Angotti attending the state physical education conference; Deborah Harty participating in a learning behavior management seminar; and I attending the Advanc-ED conference. We are greatly benefitting from attending these conferences, and helping to make St. Ann a better school. So far, eight teachers have already been approved to attend conferences in the spring for professional development. We also plan to bring in an expert in gifted learning to assist our teachers on working with our gifted students.

Click Here to Support St. Ann

Finally, our annual giving campaign started this past week. Annual giving brochures have been mailed to our school parents and grandparents. Soon, they will be going out to our supporters and alumni. This year's goal is $50,000. Quality schools like St. Ann that offer exceptional programs, staffing, and facilities could not continue to operate and maintain such high standards without substantial support beyond just tuition. The actual cost of a St. Ann education is supplemented by generous gifts and additional financial support that make the difference between a good school and a great one. Please join us in supporting St. Ann Catholic School.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Prinicpal
St. Ann Catholic School

Saint Ann Annual Giving

In the next two weeks, you should receive in the mail a St. Ann Annual Giving brochure. The purpose of the annual giving is for parents, grandparents, alumni, parishioners, faculty, and friends to help strengthen and support St. Ann and its educational programs, professional development, community projects, and facilities.

Since I'm big on transparency, I want you to know about annual giving and why this is important to St. Ann.

Annual Giving is a fundraising activity designed to stimulate regular giving. Annual giving is important for many reasons, including it: (from CASE: Council for Advancement and Support of Education)

• Provides income both for specific projects and unrestricted funds,
• Establishes giving habits and enable patterns of giving to be tracked,
• Establishes a donor pipeline, enabling the identification of donors with the potential capacity and propensity to give bigger gifts in the future,
• Increases donor participation rates,
• Helps improve and keep data about prospects up to date,
• Is a great stewardship tool,
• Helps reinforce core messages about an institution,
• Helps identify the enthusiasts who might be leaders or significant volunteers and
• Strengthens the bonds between an institution and it prospects

There are five steps to an annual giving campaign.
1. Case for Support- This is where we have a compelling story for why our organization exists. Instead of telling you why we exist, how about if I show you why we exist! Just check out the pictures in this blog.

2. Database- A good database can help us streamline fundraising, be more donor centered, and raise more support for St. Ann. Our database will help track donations, including annual giving.

That's why we invested in our new Bloomerang database. (https://bloomerang.co/)  Bloomerang's mission is to be the world's best developer and deliverer of tools and perspectives that generate value for nonprofit donor relationships.

3. Direct Mail- We need to have a direct mail campaign to keep our current donors and attract new supporters. Both recurring and new donors are extremely important to the success of any annual giving.

That's why our development committee has been working closely with Jeff Blankenship of Blankenship Creative to develop our direct mailing piece, which will be going out this next week. (http://blankenshipcreative.com/) Jeff produced our direct mailing piece as a donation to St. Ann. I'm anxious for you to see our good work.

4. Website- We are updating our website especially our "Support US" page. We are in the process of linking our support page with Bloomerang to help us better track our supporters. We want to make donating to St. Ann easier for our supporters. We want our donors to be able to designate their gifts for what interests them most. Those areas include scholarships, financial aid, classroom supplies, professional development, athletics, maintenance and upkeep...

5. Support Acknowledgment- The most important part of receiving any gift is saying "Thank You," and doing so right away.

Development is an important aspect of the existence of any non-profit. Non-profits that don't value the development (also called Advancement), will not exist very long.

Look at the websites of successful schools (universities, high schools, and elementary schools). A commonality is of an investment in a development team. The most successful have a development army, not just one or two people.

At St. Ann, we have Angela de Jong as our development director.  As the principal of the school, it is my job to support Mrs. de Jong in moving development forward to ensure that St. Ann will be financially viable and in existence for many years to come. That's why Nick Scully, Lori Locke, and Sr. Connie Tarallo have joined our development team. Development and the future of St. Ann is the reason we have been working hard on the annual giving. Our children deserve a great Catholic School. We want to make sure St. Ann is there for our students and their families for decades to come. If we do not work to make it the best school, and receive support from the thousands of students and families who have walked the halls of St. Ann, it will go the way of the Jubilee Schools, Bishop Byrne, St. Anne Highland, Memphis Catholic,....

As for me, I love Catholic Schools.  I hope to never see another Catholic School in our diocese shut its doors to students and their families. If we do not do the development work that's needed and support the schools, we will only have ourselves to blame if we fail.

For a successful St. Ann both today and in the future, let us work together. Support Catholic Education starting with our own St. Ann Catholic School.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School

Transparency: Keeping People Informed

Being Interviewed by Local News

I had a number of people this week, many of whom I never met before, thank me for the culture of trust via transparency we have created at St. Ann. The way to build a culture of trust is to let everyone know what's going on good or bad. Don't hide the truth. If I'm trying to accomplish something you might not completely agree with yet I'm transparent in what I'm trying to accomplish, at least there is an understanding. If I don't let you know what's going on, I'm not developing a culture of trust. A lack of communication usually leads to rumors and mistrust. Instead, fill that void with transparency and communication, and you won't have to worry about rumors and mistrust.

Abe Abuelouf
Being Interviewed

Communication and transparency! That's why this blog. That's why Monday Notes. That's why Flock Notes are sent out by Fr. Ernie, Kathy Schober, and Nicole McGlaughlin. That's why we post as much information possible on the school's Facebook page. That's why there is a Colts Parent Page on Facebook. We are on Twitter @stannschool. We are also on Instagram and YouTube. If we don't have a LinkedIn page, that's next.

Last week's blog received more publicity than all my other blogs put together. Channel 3 and Channel 5 news came out to the school to interview us. People stopped me everywhere I've gone to talk about it. Kelley and I enjoy going to Maximo's on Broad for Friday Night Date Night. Customers and employees alike were talking about it mainly because they know Fr. David Knight. Abe Abuelouf and our staff are heroes, and I come out looking like a genius. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read last week's blog.

The crazy thing is that my blogs receive anywhere from 800 to 3,600 hits. Last week's blog didn't even receive 400 hits. Fewer hits but much more publicity. Funny how that works.

Last week was an extra busy week even though we were off for All Saints Day. I took full advantage of the school being closed on Thursday to lock myself in my office to get some of my work done. We are playing catch up with the AdvancED accreditation process. We are basically having to do five year's worth of work in eight months. With students, teachers, staff, and parents completing the surveys, I'm confident our AdvancED leadership team will be able to create the school improvement plan.

I also worked on paperwork that's been building on my desk. I was taught to do the most important/urgent work first, the important/non-urgent work second, and everything else when you can. I believe I finished the important, the urgent, and some of the everything else.

I also learned from a former superintendent of mine that sometimes, when important/urgent work needs to be done, take a day away from campus, hole up somewhere, and get the work done. That's what I did last Friday. I spent a big chunk of that day at Panera on Stage Road, and worked without any interference. It was nice getting work done, but I missed the blessing of the pets, and my dogs need some major blessing. I did get to treat myself to a Panera breakfast. I do love me some egg & cheese on a plain bagel.

Sewing E.E.

If you were to ask me what are my least favorite things to do as the principal at St. Ann, they would be payroll and paying the bills. I reserve Wednesday mornings to do payroll. The first couple of times I did payroll, it probably took me five hours with more mistakes than I can count. Every time there is a mistake, I can expect a phone call from HR at the diocese. If there is a mistake on payroll, it is no one's mistake but mine. So, I've got to fix it. I don't like to make mistakes, but it happens. Now, I've got payroll down to two hours and only one or two mistakes. The week I don't receive a phone call from HR will be a very good week.

Sewing E.E.

Paying bills I reserve for Thursday mornings so that I can get them to the church office before Friday. Reviewing the bills is probably the day I cringe the most. I've been in Catholic School so long that I know we have to watch every penny. We have to scrutinize every bill to make sure we aren't being overcharged.

Sewing E.E.

Joni Crocker is our controller. So that we can keep a closer eye on our spending, I have asked Joni to add many lines to our budget so we can see how much we are spending with individual companies. I'm hoping this will give us a better idea of how we can save money, and help us build a better budget for next year. Thank you Joni for your leadership with the budget.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our request for the classroom speakers. The response was so enormous that we have more than we actually need. Mike Green is in the process of installing the speakers in the classroom with SMART Boards and also the gym. Installing the speakers with the SMART Board is a bit more complicated because more electrical work is needed. I believe speakers are already installed in all the other classrooms.

PEYOU Tripod for SPARKS

Romana Wendenon, our SPARKS teacher, requested five tripods for the work the students are performing in her class. She purchased one of the tripods herself. We asked some of our families who donated speakers if they could return the speakers they ordered and purchase a tripod instead. We were able to exchange three sets of speakers for four tripods. Thanks to our wonderful donors, this was a win-win for the students and school. Now, Mrs. Wendenon has the tripods she needs for her students.

Sewing E.E.

My favorite Extracurricular Exploration (EE) class this go-around is sewing. It is very practical for our students to learn how to sew. The best part is that it is taught by two of our 8th graders, Lauren Truelove and Ruby Langford. There is interest in having sewing EE class again next time. Starting in January, we will offer volleyball and hopefully scrapbooking. Who can lead scrapbook?

Food Drive List

The St. Vincent de Paul Food Drive starts on Monday and runs for two weeks. The food will be presented on Thursday, November 15th during Mass. Attached you will find a picture of what each class has been assigned to bring.

Also on November 15th, we will host STREAM Night from 5:30-7:00 pm in the school gym. Check the school's website and Monday Notes for more information.

League of Million
Word Readers

I love what Annmarie Ghio is doing with The League of a Million Word Readers. This is a new reading program designed to motivate students to read more, which will develop vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. After reading a book, students take a reading comprehension quiz, which calculates word count. Ms. Ghio's goal is to have 100% of our students in grades 1-8 participate. 3rd grade is at 100% and 1st grade is at 94%. 4th grade had the highest increase in participation (31%) from September to October. Please help encourage your child to participate in the League.

Congratulations to 8th grader Alex Galvez for reaching the one million word mark. He joins Michaela Crews as the first two students to reach that mark. Way to go!

When the opportunity arises, I want to brag on our students for

Dominic Podesta
ATA Champ

accomplishments achieved outside of the school setting. 3rd grader Dominic Podesta competed in the ATA Fall Nationals in Orlando, and earned 1st place in Combat Sparring and 3rd in Traditional Weapons. From now on Mr. Podesta will serve as my dean of students. If you get in trouble, you will have to deal with him.

In my next blog, I hope to address our annual giving campaign, the importance of the campaign, and why it is necessary to have an annual giving campaign.

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Until then, thank you for following my blog. If you aren't following the school on Facebook, please do so. That's where you will get the majority of the news about the school.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School-Bartlett