The 2020-21 School Year Has Begun!

One week down with 37 more weeks to go for the 2020-21 school year. This week was just week-one of what could possibly be the toughest school year we will ever face in our lifetime. Yes, this week was not a full-week being that it was a four-day school week with a half-day thrown in the mix, and PK and Kinder had staggered schedules the first week.

The first week had many distractions, like the grass cutting crew deciding that the first day of school would be the best day to cut the grass. AT&T had issues with the internet on the first day back, which continued for the whole first week. This made it especially difficult for our online educators working with the online students. The internet connection kept dropping, but everyone stayed persistent and it all worked out.

Morning drop-off worked perfectly! A special shout-out to May Young and George Dhuy for volunteering for the third year in a row to help the students at morning drop-off. The afternoon pick-up had a hitch in its giddy-up, but Sara Westrich and Angela de Jong came up with solutions and quickly communicated the solutions with everyone. By Thursday and Friday, the afternoon pick-up was over by 3:06 pm, and will only get better quickly.

The temperature checks have worked well with all the specials teachers stepping up to lend a hand to help the regular classroom teachers with getting the students ready for the day. All temperatures are recorded and those records are sent to the office so that we can keep a complete temperature log of all the students for the year. All staff members have their temperatures taken and recorded daily as well.

The students are doing a great job wearing face masks and face shields. Thank you parents for working with your child(ren) on wearing the masks. Your work has made a big positive difference. We have learned that students who wear glasses are having problems with their glasses fogging up when wearing the face masks. When they wear the face shields, they have no problem with their glasses fogging up.

We had no idea how this week would go, but as I said before, we have been planning this week since March 16th. This week went better than we planned for. Then again, we planned for the worst. If you plan for the worst and the worst doesn't happen, then that's a good thing.

Since this was the week we have been working towards since the middle of March. We are happy how week-one turned out. With all that we have had to overcome, this past week was a success.  The students came back to school after five months of being gone from this building.  This week has been as close to normal as life has been for all of us since March 16th.

Thank you to Christy Matlock, James Newell, and Lori Morgan for designing and building the plexiglass shields used in the PK classroom. Blake Matlock participated in the build as well. Christy and James also build the partitions in the Covid-19 room. Cannot believe that schools now have Covid rooms. Crazy. Gotta do what you gotta do to follow the guidelines.

Annmarie Ghio built partitions in her 3rd grade classroom as well to keep the students safe. Karen Otts is building partitions for E-Care. Lots of creativity and hard work going into keeping the students as safe as possible.

The middle school lockers have been moved/separated to help with social distancing. When middle schoolers have to change classrooms, we are utilizing outdoor entrances as much as possible for two reasons. The first is to help with social distancing by not having the students in the hallways and the second is for a mask break. If they are outside and practicing social distancing, they can remove their masks. Took lots of practice to figure out the movement from classroom to classroom. Think we have it figured out now.

The State Department of Education has provided us with five more thermometers and roughly 6,000 disposal masks. If a student or staff member needs an extra mask, we have plenty. The masks have been distributed to all the classrooms.

We have made good use of the washer and dryer donated to the school. We are constantly washing the towels we use for cleaning the classrooms. That worked out well and helps hold down the cost of cleaning supplies.

The hallways from one end of campus to the other have a dot on every sixth floor tile (floor tiles are 12 inches long) on both sides of the hallway for the students to stand on. There is never any doubt about how far six feet is. If you are not on a dot, then you are too close to the next person and there is a good chance I will be yelling at you. Sorry, that won't be a time for me to be Mr. Nice Guy. And, that's when positive motivation and reinforcement go out the window. Safety first, your feelings second.

For all the spending related to Covid-19, we have added an expense line to the budget for Covid-19. Wish we had a Covid-19 revenue line to go with that expense line. Unfortunately, there is no Covid-19 revenue. All schools and businesses everywhere are experiencing the same thing. 

Now, we focus on week two. We cannot get complacent. We have to stay vigilant. When I say we, I mean all staff, students, and parents. We also need to stay home if we are not feeling well. We cannot jeopardize anyone's health by not being honest with how we feel. All it takes is for one person to not follow protocol to cause harm to themselves and others. An outbreak of Covid-19 can happen. If we follow protocol and health guidelines, chances are an outbreak won't happen.

Please follow all health guidelines, stay safe, and keep the school in your prayers.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School

 

Holy Week and Easter During a Time of Pandemic: A Spiritual Meditation

Painting by Ethan Nichols

St. Ann Class of 2022

Every so often, I ask a student or colleague to be a guest writer for my blog. Today, I received this spiritual meditation from Anthony Maranise. Mr. Maranise is the 8th grade religion/confirmation teacher at St. Ann. With Mr. Maranise's permission, I am sharing his spiritual meditation not only because I love what he has to say but also because what he has to say is so appropriate for this time we are going through. This spiritual meditation is definitely worth reading. Without further ado, here is his meditation.

Holy Week & Easter During a Time of Pandemic: A Spiritual Meditation

By Anthony Maranise, Obl.S.B.

We tend to view the happenings around us through a “me-centered” prism. Some examples help: That four-engine long train is going to make me late for work!; That Dow plunge cost me so much yesterday!; perhaps even, Social distance is making me stir-crazy! How relevant that last one, right?

This year, Holy Week and Easter are a bit different for us all. We are living the most hallowed of liturgical seasons amidst one of recent history’s most difficult, challenging, and uncertain seasons — that of a viral pandemic. ‘Social distancing’, then, is a term to which many of us have become accustomed. As an infection mitigation effort, it refers to the necessity to physically withdraw from close contact with one another. These efforts are not cruel, but selfless as through them, we can help to ‘slow the spread’ of illness and keep safer those with compromised immune systems and the elderly for whom illness can be more costly.

Painting by Zoe Geronimo

St. Ann Class of 2020

Be that as it may, how are we supposed to live Holy Week without being able to gather in our churches for worship? To celebrate Easter’s exceeding joys without being able to be close to our families and friends? It is truly a different kind of Holy Week this year, and it will be a different kind of Easter as well.

Let’s shift from that typical “me-centered” prism for a moment. Consider this, instead:
Both voluntarily and involuntarily, the object of our imitation and devotion in this holiest of time of the year — Jesus, Himself — experienced and knew ‘social distance.’

In two salient instances during what Religion scholars have revealed to be the timeline of historical events which make up the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday) of Holy Week, Jesus either ‘socially distanced’ or was ‘socially distant’ from those He loved.

1. After His Last Supper, Jesus went with His Apostles into a nearby garden known as Gethsemane. He asks the Apostles to settle there for a bit, to pray, and to keep watch with Him. Though together at first, all the synoptic Gospels report that Jesus withdraws Himself from them for a while to be alone in prayer by Himself. He ‘socially distances’ Himself and experiences His agonia (literally, ‘a struggle towards victory;’ ‘severe emotional anguish’), only to emerge strengthened in will, spirit, and mission.
2. Hours later, after Jesus is arrested, mocked, condemned, shamed, brutally scourged, and made to carry His own instrument of torture — all willingly, for the sake of our redemption — He is nailed to the Cross. The base of His Cross is placed in a hole in the ground and filled in with rock-pebbles to support its vertical position. Here, in this second instance, when Jesus is lifted high up above the onlookers in the crowd, we see Him made ‘socially distant’, indeed, physically separated from those various others who were usually so physically close to Him.
   

Painting by Caydence Davis
St. Ann Class of 2020

In this different kind of Holy Week, this different kind of Easter, we can be sure that though we face our own sorts of ‘emotional anguish’ precipitated by being ‘socially distant’ from those we love, we do so, not out of a “me-centeredness”, but out of an expression of care and concern for the well-being of those we love — to keep them safe. We do this inspired by Jesus’ first instance of ‘social distancing’ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Though ever fully Divine and God, we so often forget that Jesus, while on earth, was fully human as well. Like any human facing a major injustice and forthcoming unimaginable suffering, He ‘needed a moment’ to collect and compose Himself. He needed spiritual and emotional strengthening which God, the Father provided Him in earnest. He emerged from that agonia even stronger. From our own ‘social distancing’, so also shall we, if only we seek, as Jesus did, strength from God.

Anthony Maranise

Finally, our being ‘socially distant’ need not necessitate ‘spiritual distance’ in us. We should continue to look to Jesus in this Holy Week, as we have in all Holy Weeks past, as we should in all Holy Weeks to come, and always. We should look upon His Cross, but look into the ‘distance’ beyond it even more intently because Jesus’ own history ends not in His being ‘socially distant’ on that Cross. He rises! He rises from death and above it. He vanquishes it, conquers it, overcomes it, and returns from His ‘social distance’ to be once again reunited with and among those He loves!

The beauty is that includes us, even today. His Resurrection imbued into all of us who love Him and believe in Him a share in that strength He obtained through His ‘agonia’. Moreover, He has given us assurance that because He first endured the worst sorts of ‘social distance’ in pain, rejection, sorrow, shame, and death — but overcame it — so also shall we; and, all these things are so because of the events that took place on and are the reason for the Friday we call “Good.”


Thank you Anthony Maranise for sharing your spiritual meditation. You can learn more about Mr. Maranise on his website: https://amaranis.wixsite.com/amjm

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