Catholic Schools Week: A Week of Celebration

Pajamas for Catholic Charities

I write my blog on Sunday evenings, and today being Super Bowl Sunday, I did the same thing today as I do every Super Bowl Sunday, I watched the last two minutes of the game. I do that every year, just the last two minutes. Evidently, that's about all I needed to watch this year. Congratulations to the New England Patriots and the Patriot fans out there.  Super Bowl Champions times VI!

Student Trivia Contest

This has been a great Catholic Schools Week for St. Ann filled with days of celebration. It started off with the school choir singing at Mass, and an extremely well attended St. Ann Preview Day last Sunday. Monday was Pajama Day. You wore your pajamas to school if you donated a new pair of pajamas to Catholic Charities. Well, Catholic Charities received a car load of pajamas to give to children needing pajamas to keep warm at night. Tuesday, we wore our favorite sports team jerseys. Cannot believe how many Steelers fans we have. I wore my São Paulo

My São Paulo Soccer Jersey!
But I'm Playing Volleyball.

Futebol Clube soccer jersey. São Paulo is my favorite soccer team from my hometown in Brazil. Yes Battle Boys, they are much better than Chelsea. And yes, Tottenham is also better than Chelsea. Just saying. Tuesday was also the Staff/Student Volleyball Game. The students put up a good fight, but they were no match for the likes of Deborah Harty, Tracy Angotti, Billy Gage, James Newell and Ryan Cooper. Just in case you didn't hear, Deborah Harty was voted the game's MVP for her total court domination, Wednesday was  Pep Rally Day and Red, White, and Blue Day. Everyone came to school dressed in Red, White, and Blue. USA! USA! Thursday was Career Day and Grandparents Day. This was probably the best day because of all the Grandparents who attended

7th Grade Student Ambassadors

Mass with their grandchild. There are few things in life as wonderful and special as a grandparent/grandchild relationship. Friday was School Spirit Day, Faculty Appreciate Day, and the Student Trivia Contest. As you can see, it was an action packed week for which I'm still trying to recover. Now, I'm hoping for a few days of nothing but normal school days just to try to get caught up. I'm adding a lot of Catholic Schools Week pictures to this blog.

Winning Volleyball Team!

Now, for all the updates, and we have lots of them.

Volunteer Tutors: We have a whole bunch of wonderful people volunteering to tutor our students who need extra help. Now, we have a group of students from CBHS and SBA who want to perform their service hours tutoring our students after school. What better way to use service hours than by helping other students: Students Helping Students! Teresa Ferrante and Annmarie Ghio are in charge of scheduling the tutors with the St. Ann students. We are in constant need of volunteers. So, let us know if you are willing and able to help.

4th Grade PJ Day

I have asked Sally Fillion and Tracy Angotti to put together a St. Ann Bowling Team. They have followed through on this request, and they formed a St. Ann team with 17 students having signed up! I think more students will sign up as word spreads about the team. I encouraged forming a bowling team because bowling is a lifetime sport. I believe lifetime sports are very important. I play a lifetime sport in soccer. I'm 57 and still play. Not very well nor very fast, but my friends and I still play.

3rd Grade PJ Day

The next activity I want our students to participate in is in skeet and trap shooting. I want to form a St. Ann Shot Gun Team. The high schools have them. This would help our students make their high school shot gun team. The problem is, we need some coaches to teach our students. I might have to get the Bartlett Police Department involved somehow. Hey Captain Sones, I need your help on this one.

The Chess Club is coming together nicely. The Club now has nine members! My hope is that the Chess Club will also continue to grow as students learn more about Chess. I might be the worse chess player in the world, so it would be best if I just stay away when they are playing.

Band at Pep Rally

The next Extracurricular Exploration classes will start in a couple of weeks. We've come up with new EEs with the first being a tutoring EE. It is not for students who need to be tutored. It is for our middle school students who would like to help tutor the younger students at St. Ann. This is another form of Students Helping Students! We are also considering an IXL/Khan Academy EE for students who would like the opportunity to advance their studies. We have academic EEs, athletic EEs, and fine arts EEs. The middle school students are getting a lot of choices in doing different things outside of their regular class time.

One of Our Trivia Teams

I think we need a Hunger Games EE. No, we are not going to hunt each other down in the Arena developed by the Gamemakers. This would be a Hunger Games Book Club. Or, we could have a Harry Potter Book Club. Quidditch anyone? Accio! If you've read Harry Potter, this would make sense.

We are going to have a Gardening EE for the next two EE sessions. Mr. Gage will lead this EE. If you are interested in helping with the Gardening EE, please contact the school office. We sure could use some master gardeners or just some regular green thumb type people.

Students at the Pep Rally

We have some great St. Ann folks who have stepped up to donate the $2,098 we need for the security cameras. I plan to get together with Susan Hunt to get the project moving forward. Another item I want to add to the security system is speakers in the hallways. The intercom messages cannot be heard in the hallway. If there is an emergency, students and staff in the hallways need to know what's going on. When we asked for the speaker donations for the classrooms, we received more speakers than we needed. Now, we can use those speakers in the hallways (I hope). We will have to wire them to the existing audio system. I'm then going to buy an Amazon Echo, and have Alexa play classical music throughout the whole school all day long. I'm just kidding. Maybe. Once the cameras are in, the door locks will be next.

Student/Staff Volleyball Game

St. Ann Trivia Night is coming up on Saturday, March 2nd. I hope to have a room full of St. Ann supporters answering all kinds of crazy questions. Now that Catholic Schools Week is over, I'm going to focus on maxing out our trivia night. The Aur Family is entering a team. Our goal is not to finish last. We don't have very high expectations. We just want to support St. Ann and have fun.

If you would like to sponsor trivia night, please get in touch with me for sponsorship opportunities. All proceeds go to the Sr. Connie Scholarship Fund. This scholarship fund goes to St. Ann parishioners who need financial assistance to attend the school. This is a great way to make the school more affordable for families in our parish.

Click To Support St. Ann

Hey St. Ann alumni! We need you. Please put a team together for trivia night, and don't forget to attend our Fat Tuesday Alumni Party on Tuesday, March 5th. Yes, it is a weeknight. Come out anyway. St. Ann is a great place, and we want you to be a part of it.

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