Introducing Some New Colts

Leslie Harden (L) &
Melanie Wall (R)

With the coming of a new school year, there also come changes to the school staff. We made several changes and added some new positions.

The first addition is we added Leslie Harden as our new assistant principal/counselor/8th grade religion teacher. Leslie comes to us from St. Joseph Catholic School. She served as principal at St. Joseph. Leslie also served as principal at Little Flower. We have been co-principals for the Jubilee Schools and friends for a number of years. She will bring with her a wealth of Catholic School experience. St. Ann will continue to improve and grow with Leslie Harden working with the teachers and students.

As St. Ann continues to grow, we are adding new classes. We will have two PK4 classes. Lori Morgan will continue as one of the PK4 teachers. Deborah Harty will be the other PK4 teacher.

Layla Post will serve as the PK4 aid.  Mrs. Post actually spent the later part of the 2018-19 school year at St. Ann.  When Mrs. Harty needed an aid because of an injury she sustained at work, Mrs. Post served as her aid.  The teachers thought so highly of her they asked that we hire her to replace Wanda Sexton in the PK classroom.  Mrs. Post is a St. Ann, St, Benedict, and Colorado State University alum.  She earned a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus on Child Development.  She plans to continue her studies at either the U. of Memphis or CBU.

With Amanda Bannister returning to the PK3 classroom, Selina Trouy has returned to the position of office manager.  As we say in the office, Mrs. Trouy is once again the face of St. Ann.

Jennifer Burnett will replace Selina Trouy as our new finance manager. Mrs. Burnett grew up a member of St. Ann Parish.  She is a graduate of Bartlett and U. of Memphis where she earned a B.S. in Education.  She comes to us after spending the past thirteen years at Varsity Spirit. Mrs. Burnett is not only a St. Ann employee, she is also a St. Ann parent. Being able to have her children with her at St. Ann is priceless. For six years, I had my children with me at Helias Catholic High School, Those were the best six years of my professional career because I had the opportunity to share every school day with my children.

With Deborah Harty moving to PK4, Melanie Wall will serve as our new 1st grade teacher. Ms. Wall comes highly recommended to us by the great folks at the Jubilee Schools. She comes to us by way of St. John Catholic School.  She is a lifelong Memphian having graduated from St. Mary's, Briarcrest, and U. of Memphis with a Bachelor's degree in English and Master's degree in Early Childhood Education. Ms. Wall has spent a lot of her summer at St. Ann getting ready for the new school year. Her classroom is ready to go.

In my next blog, I will introduce Tina Ostrowski, Judy Thomas, and Lola Scarlett.

Don't forget our $10K Challenge Match.  We are quickly approaching $7K in the St. Ann portion of the match led by the Class of '86. We would love to see other St. Ann classes help us meet the $10K match. All funds from the challenge match are earmarked for financial assistance.
https://stannbartlett.weshareonline.org/St.AnnAlumniMatchingChallenge

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

St. Ann Alumni Matching Challenge

A number of years ago, I was introduced to Dallas businessman Mike Devereaux. Even though Mike is not Catholic, he loves the role that Catholic education has played in his, his wife's, and children's lives. Mike is a product of Catholic Schools in Cincinnati (Our Lady of the Rosary and Roger Bacon High School). His wife is a graduate of Bishop Byrne here in Memphis. His sons graduated from Jesuit Dallas.

Mike has been a supporter of Catholic education in Memphis for many years. In our conversation, Mike has decided to continue to support by challenging St. Ann Catholic School.

Mike and Carol Devereaux have a $10,000 challenge match earmarked for tuition assistance for St. Ann. We are required to raise $10,000 to receive the match. This $20,000 will help provide families with much needed financial aid.

It is important for the future of St. Ann to have more alumni involvement and support. We are turning to our alumni to help meet this challenge match. We need your support to help our students become St. Ann alumni just like you.

Our goal is to not only match the Devereaux donation but to match it several times over because we are currently giving over $100,000 in tuition assistance for the 2019-20 school year to help our families. And, our fundraising goal for the new school year is $130,000 in tuition assistance. That's a tall order but we believe we can reach this goal. $130,000 is our BHAG (Big Harry Audacious Goal)! In order to achieve big results, we need to set big harry audacious goals.

Do you have to be an alumni to give? NO! We want and need our alumni to give and that is the main target audience but not the only target audience. We need support from everyone.

Financial assistance at St. Ann is not merit based (scholastic or athletic).  All financial assistance is awarded on the basis of need.  The average families receiving aid is headed by a single parent with two children in school and have a yearly income of approximately $35,000.

Please consider supporting St. Ann in order to help more families with tuition assistance. We cannot underestimate the importance of a Catholic education for all children.

And, let’s not leave money on the table.

Please contact me at didier.aur@sascolts.org for more information.

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

Blogging Changes

"Progress is impossible without change." I used these words on progress to review my blog in order to figure out what changes need to be made. Readership of my blog was extremely high then dropped off quite a bit towards the end of the year. The novelty of the blog simply wore off. I need to do something different. If my blog isn't progressing, it is time to make some changes.

If you have been reading my blogs, you know that I have no problem trying to do things differently and changing things up. I'll take a chance on making things work. If it doesn't work, change/improve it and move on. With that being said, I am making several changes to my blog.

First of all, the blog is TOO long! A blog needs to be shorter because blogs should be a quick read. We live in a time where you have 3 to 9 seconds to get and keep people's attention. If not, the backspace and delete keys work quickly. So, I plan to shorten the blog.

Secondly, the blog focuses on too many topics. The blog should cover one topic at a time. Kind of like when you are writing a paper; focus on one topic.  In many of my previous blogs, I tried to cover way too many topics. So, I will focus on one topic for each blog. This will be so hard to do because I have so many topics I would like to cover.

Thirdly, I started this blog back in 2011 when I lived in Missouri. The reason I started this blog was to focus on Catholic education with an emphasis on Lasallian education because of my roots with the Christian Brothers. Not only am I a graduate of CBHS and CBU, but I also worked at CBHS, Holy Names, Helias, and Resurrection. All these schools were part of the Lasallian family. Plus, I am a founding member of the Blue Streak Scholarship Foundation, which is an organization whose mission is founded on the teachings of St. John Baptist de La Salle. Today, I am serving my third term as president of Blue Streak. My plan is to continue focusing on different aspects of Catholic education especially with updates on St. Ann Catholic School.

And finally, I will make the blog a little less predictable. Instead of publishing the blog every Sunday evening, I'll publish it at different times when I have something to share. And, I already have a long list of topics I would like to share via my blog.

Let's see what change will bring. Some people hate change. I'm not one of them.

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