Fall Fest and the School

The importance of transparency in the workplace cannot be overstated. I learned this years ago when I first became a school administrator. I quickly learned that being a Catholic School administrator is much more than knowing about curriculum, instruction, and student discipline. It is about being accountable to everyone, leading by example and faith, developing relationships, working with parents, building a development network, hiring the best people possible, creating a great team, and becoming a trustworthy leader.

In order to learn more about leadership, I turned to leadership experts for help. I started reading leadership books by John Maxwell, Jon Gordon, Stephen Covey, Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Joel Manby, and The Arbinger Institute. I listen to Minute with Maxwell every morning when I arrive at St. Ann. Been doing that for years. My favorite leadership books are The Energy Bus and Soup by Jon Gordon and Love Works by Joel Manby.

These leadership gurus have many commonalities in their leadership styles. One of several commonalities that stuck with me was transparency. You have to be transparent in what you do or you are going to do whatever you do all alone with no support. No matter how good your idea, you will be on your own unless you keep your team informed and included on what's going on. If you want to succeed and do what's best for the company, you need to be transparent. Transparency creates trust and leads to success.

This brings me to the St. Ann Fall Fest and here's the transparency part regarding Fall Fest and the school budget. The budget for the the 2019-20 school year is a little less than $1.8 million. Most of the school's income comes from tuition. But, with 59% of the families receiving financial aid, there's a pretty big income gap that needs to be filled. The single biggest income gap filler is the St. Ann Fall Fest.

We projected the Fall Fest would make up $50,000 of the school's income gap. That's what it did last year, and hope to repeat that this year. We need for Fall Fest to at least make up that gap because that's what we put in the school's budget.

When the Fall Fest organizers ask the school families to sell raffle tickets, this is why. When they ask us to sell even more raffle tickets on top of the tickets already sold, this is why. The car raffle was the single biggest ticket item and income producer last year. Period! With the choice of one of two cars this year, we anticipate the car raffle ticket sales to be higher than last year. As of today, we are actually down by about $5,000 on the car raffle. That's 1,000 $5 raffle tickets less than last year.

If you haven't purchased car raffle tickets, please consider buying a pack of 10 tickets. We have them in the school office. Come on by.

If you have friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and/or relatives who would like a chance to win a car, please consider selling them tickets.

For more information, call the school office at (901) 386-3328 or visit the Fall Fest website at https://stannfallfest.org/. For more information regarding the car raffle and to purchase raffle tickets online, visit https://stannfallfest.org/home/schedule/raffle/.

If you are unable to purchase raffle tickets, come by this weekend and join us at the best party in Bartlett, TN at the St. Ann Fall Fest.

Thank you for supporting St. Ann Catholic School.

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

Click here to read previous blog.

What Makes St. Ann a Catholic School is...

St. Ann Students at
Madonna Learning Center

Even though this is only my second year at St. Ann, this is my twenty-eighth year working is Catholic Schools (and my thirty-first in education). I have to admit that I need to sometimes step back and remind myself that St. Ann is a Catholic School first and foremost. Even though I never forget that it is a Catholic School, I sometimes have to remind myself what being a Catholic School means, and it is not just having Catholic in the school's name.

So, I thought this would be a great topic for this week's blog: What Makes St. Ann a Catholic School... 

Colts Running Club at
Autism Awareness Run

The most important thing we do during the week is to attend Mass every Thursday with Fr. Ernie. During the school Mass, 5th-8th graders sing in school choir, serve as Altar Servers, and students in grades 1-8 serve as lectors. The students also run the AV equipment for our school Mass. Mass with Fr. Ernie also becomes a Catholic question and answer session. This has become a neat part of our Mass.

Prayer is an important part of being a Catholic School. We pray the Rosary together on the first Friday of every month. We begin the school day praying the WIT Prayer followed by the Act of Contrition. We end every day praying the Hail Holy Queen (Salve Regina). We also pray before lunch.

Colts Running Club at
FedEx Family House Run

We also recite the school mission statement after the prayers and Pledge of Allegiance. "Our mission is to provide a Catholic education through faith, service, and love." The staff rewrote this mission statement last year and reviewed it again this year to make it reflect what we do every day.

Our 7th and 8th graders partner with Ave Maria Home to do service projects to help the residents and improve the grounds. This is part of the service work our 7th and 8th graders need for confirmation. Even if the students aren't going through confirmation, they are still required to perform these service hours.

During the school year, the 2nd graders prepare for first reconciliation and first communion.

Cop Stop

The 8th graders study Theology of the Body in the spring. They have also started a new program called Angel Wings. The 8th graders do this every Friday morning. The students write letters and prayers for teachers they appreciate. On Friday morning, they put on their angel wings and go read their prayers for the teachers. It is nice having students praying for the teachers.

St. Faustina Youth Society volunteers at Room in the Inn to feed the homeless, Madonna Learning Center, Shepherd's Haven, Ave Maria, and St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry. They have fed first responders in our community, participated in Cop Stop through the Bartlett Police Department, and taken food to the Bartlett Fire Station on Alturia. The students of St. Faustina also pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet once a month.

Collecting Food for SVdP

Volleyball teams supported Dorothy Day House a couple of weeks ago by raising money and collecting needed items.

Every Catholic teacher became certified Eucharistic ministers under the guidance of Jerri Hess.

Colts Running Club participated in charity runs for Autism Awareness and FedEx Family House.

Journalism Club raises money for St. Jude in the fall and Catholic Charities in the spring. They also organized a book drive also for Catholic Charities and diaper drive for Birthright.

Reading Adventures with PDO

The school hosts Trivia Night every spring for the St. Connie Scholarship Fund to help families with tuition assistance.

8th graders team up with Kindergarten students in our school's Big Brother, Big Sister mentoring program.

The 3rd graders partner with students at Parents' Day Out in Reading Adventure with Ms. Cindy's students.

Praying the Divine Chaplet

The Beta Club members prepare Christmas boxes for children in poorer areas. Their boxes went to Ecuador and Peru last year through Samaritans Purse.

Don't forget all our students have religion class, daily. They are taught the importance of prayer. They learn about God's love for them. And, they are active in helping those in need.

Yes, there is more to being a Catholic School. This is just a start. No, we aren't a perfect Catholic School. No, we will never be a perfect Catholic School. Yes, we will continue to strive to improve in our Catholicity. Yes, we will continue to be a Catholic School first and an educational institution second.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School

I Love to Work!

Today has been a very good day. After a non-stop work week of putting in 10 to 13 hour days, attending evening meetings, and spending a good portion of Saturday on the soccer field watching several of our St. Ann teams in action; today I got to relax. I enjoyed time with family, attended Mass, went out for lunch after Mass, finished reading The Outsiders (What a great read!), watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Singapore and several episodes of Barnwood Builders, cooked dinner and did laundry for the week.

Is this what I do every Sunday? I would say that's pretty close to what most of my Sundays look like. Need to throw a few English Premier League games into the mix.

What does this have to do with St. Ann? Nothing and everything. Since I spend 55-60 hours per week at St. Ann, thought you should know a little bit about what I do on my day off.

What else do I think you should know? Well, I love to work. I work 55-60 per week because I enjoy doing my job. No one requires me to put in that much time at St. Ann. I do so because I receive lots of satisfaction from a job well-done. I derive fulfillment not from helping people be happy, but from helping people be better. If I can help the students become better at everything they do, I receive fulfillment.

Do I do all this so the students can make the honor roll, achieve high test scores, and prepare them for high school and beyond? Well, those are great and admirable things to strive for. But, I do all this work to help the students obtain salvation. In working for their salvation, I hope to develop students who are well-adjusted in life, who will serve those in the community in need, and who make a positive impact on society.

How do I hope to accomplish this? Mainly through example. I want a school full of adults who set the right example of walking the talk of Christianity every day to help make the students better people.

We need to teach our students to be better people. That means teaching responsibility; pushing our students academically; expecting them to have proper behavior; teaching them about kindness, compassion and service; and most of all, developing their faith and love.

The test scores will come. The success in high school and beyond will happen. All of this will take place if we focus on making our students better people by setting the proper examples and holding them accountable. If we all follow the examples Jesus set for us, we will all be better people.


What prompted me to write this particular blog? All of today's readings: Amos, Psalms, 1 Timothy, and Luke. If you didn't hear or read today's readings, CLICK HERE to do so.

Have a great week.

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

Donor Luncheon

Thank You Donors!

St. Ann family and friends are very supportive and are an extremely necessary part of our school. Because of the generosity of those who support St. Ann Catholic School, we have been able to hold steady on tuition from last year. We hope to hold steady again for next year. We won't know if this is possible until March of 2020 when we put the budget together. If we can follow the plan we put in place for each department to not go over-budget, we will probably be able to hold where we are on tuition. To me, Catholic education needs to be affordable and available to all who want to be a part of St. Ann.

St. Ann Donor Luncheon

The cost of operating a school goes up every year. So, how can we expect to hold steady on tuition? The answer to that question is that our donors make this possible. Simple. No secret formula. No magic spells. No complicated master plan. Our donors provide the school with gifts to make financial aid possible in order to help families needing tuition assistance. Our donors fulfill teacher wish lists to better help educate our students. Our donors pay for school improvements, renovations, and updates. Our donors purchase classroom furniture. Our donors enable us to improve school security. Our donors help us keep current on technology... You get the picture.

St. Ann Donor Luncheon

Because of what all our donors do for St. Ann, we are able to hold tuition steady. Donors pay for all non-budgeted items the school needs. If we add those items to the budget, the per pupil cost would increase. The per pupil increase would reflect on the tuition. The lower the per pupil cost, the lower the tuition.

We just need to continue to work hard to improve our school (Good things come to those who work hard and never quit.), stay true to our mission statement (Our mission is to provide a Catholic education through faith, service, and love.), stick to our philosophy of transparency (the reason this blog exists), include our families in day-to-day operations, continuously develop an already incredible faculty and staff, and do all this while keeping Christ and our students first.

This past Thursday, St. Ann hosted a donor luncheon. We wanted to bring our donors together to

St. Ann Donor Luncheon

simply say "Thank You" because without you, not sure St. Ann would still be here. Thank you for your faith, service, and love.

Sixty of our donors where able to break away from their busy lives to come tour St. Ann, have lunch together, and allow us the privilege of appreciating their commitment to St. Ann. It was a great day for school. For some of our donors, they had not been in the school building in decades. For others, this was their first time to visit the school.

Thank you parents, grandparents, alumni, parishioners, and friends of St. Ann Catholic School for your support. Thank you for helping to improve the lives of our students. Thank you for helping to keep our tuition affordable. Thank you for helping our teachers educate our students. Thank you for valuing a Catholic education. And, thank you for your love.

If you would like to support the students at St. Ann Catholic Schools, here are some ways you too can help.

Annual Giving

Sister Connie Passing on the Faith Scholarship

Alumni: Click Here to share your information with the school

Wish List Part 1

Wish List Part 2

If you have questions on how you can support St. Ann Catholic School, please contact Angela de Jong at angela.dejong@sascolts.org. Mrs. de Jong is our development director.

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

St. Ann Scholarships

In an effort to keep Catholic education affordable, we constantly seek ways to help families with tuition assistance. One fantastic way to accomplish this and at the same time honor people who do or have done so much for others is through scholarships. At St. Ann, we have a number of scholarships set up to help our families. Recipients of three scholarships were recognized at the school Mass this past Thursday and at the 11:30 am Sunday Mass.

Below is a description of each of the three scholarships as well as this year's scholarship recipients.

Sr. Connie Tarello

The Sister Connie Passing on the Faith Scholarship is given in honor of Sr. Connie Tarello for her dedication, service, and commitment to not only the Catholic faith but also to St. Ann. Sr. Connie is a member of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and an active member of St. Ann Catholic Church. She was a first grade teacher at St. Ann from 1971 until her retirement in 2013. This scholarship is awarded to students who are formed and grow in the Catholic faith at St. Ann Catholic School. These students are instruments of God's hands and have proven that they carry on the faith in actions and words. These scholarships also serve to help families as they strive to give their children a Catholic education. This year's recipients are Yoeni Morales (2nd grade), Ryan Cronin (4th grade), and Monserrat Zamudio (7th grade).

This scholarship was originally designated to be awarded to two St. Ann students. Because of the generosity of our donors and the success of St. Ann Trivia Night, three students now receive the Sr. Connie Scholarship. If you would like to contribute to the Sr. Connie Scholarship, you can CLICK HERE and donate online through our website. You can also participate in the St. Ann Trivia Night in the spring. Tentative date for trivia night is Saturday, March 28th. All proceeds from Trivia Night go to support the Sr. Connie Scholarship. If you cannot attend that evening, please consider being a trivia night sponsor.

The Dr. Ruth Dinkins Memorial Scholarship in honor of Dr. Ruth Dinkins for her dedication, service, and commitment to St. Ann. Dr. Dinkins, or "Dink" as her friends called her, was a pioneer in medicine. One of the few women in the 60's to study medicine, she became a pediatric anesthesiologist. She also served in the U.S. Army Medical Corp. She was a practicing doctor, but more importantly was a doctor to her small community in Medina, TN. Serving others and being with family and friends gave her the most joy in life. The purpose of this scholarship is to reward students who honor their Catholic faith and have shown an interest and aptitude towards math and science. This year's recipients are Lio Gomez (3rd grade), Evie Arrington (4th grade), Caroline Parker (5th grade), James Kargauer (7th grade), and Karla Ochoa (7th grade).

The Edward J. Kitts Educational Scholarship is sponsored by the St. Ann Knights of Columbus Council #7170. This scholarship is awarded to a student who exhibits Christ-like characteristics such as kindness, thoughtfulness, and a caring attitude towards their teachers and fellow students. This year's recipient is Christian Varela (Kindergarten).

If you would like to learn more about our scholarships and how you can support St. Ann through scholarships, please contact our development director, Angela de Jong, at (901) 386-3328 or angela.dejong@sascolts.org.

Once again, thank you to all those wonderful parents, grandparents, parishioners, alumni, staff members, and friends of St. Ann who constantly support our students. You are making a positive difference.

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

Click here to catch up on past blogs.

St. Ann Wish List Part 2

This week's blog is PART 2 of the St. Ann Wish List.  PART 1 is still online. CLICK HERE to view the first wish list. Lyrics2Learn Starfall, and 10 of the 20 head phones have all been donated.

If you would like to help the students and teachers with wish list items, you can either purchase them directly and have the item(s) sent to St. Ann or you donate directly to St. Ann and specify where you want your gift directed. CLICK HERE to go to our donation page.

PK-4, Mrs. Harty’s class, would like to add a Sony CFDS7-BLK CD/MP3 Cassette Boombox Home Audio Radio. The computer is across the room from the carpet area, and is too hard to use when Mrs Harty has to keep going across the room. The religion series for PK has a lot of songs with it. The class also has a lot of books on cassette tape, which could be utilized for student learning. The cost for this radio is $60.49 through Amazon.

PK3 would like to have a SUNYAO Kids Kitchen Step Stool with Safety Rail so the students can safely reach the sink when washing their hands.  The cost of the step stool with safety rail is $79.99 through Amazon.

Ms. Scarlett, the art teacher, has added several items to the wish list.  This includes real clay, color sharpies, watercolors, crayons, and difference sizes of canvases. These items can be purchased pretty much anywhere from Knowledge Tree to Target to Michael’s. Ms. Scarlett did not specify a quantity. I’m guessing that we need whatever is given for art class.

The first item on Mrs. Wendenon’s SPARKS wish list is to develop a classroom library.  A library wish list of books for SPARKS already exists on Amazon.  CLICK HERE to access the wish list. Books range from $5 to $24. The selection is pretty extensive.

Mrs. Wendenon would also like to have a Furinno 5-Cube Reversible Open Shelf, White/Light Blue, 11069 WH/LBL to house the new SPARKS classroom library. The cost is $25.13 through Amazon.

SPARKS students would like to have a class subscription to Mystery Science https://mysteryscience.com. A class subscription is $99 per year.

 And, SPARKS students would also like to have a subscription to Generation Genius. https://www.generationgenius.com  A one year subscription is $120.

We doubled the number of students in SPARKS this year. The students are excited and so is the St. Ann staff.

Mr. Gage would like a classroom set (25 copies) of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The paperback is about $10 through Amazon.  He would like to use this book for the 8^th graders. The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. Might have to read it again the students.

PK4, Mrs. Morgan’s class, would like to have a  The Learning Journey Code and Learn! Ladybug and The Learning Journey Code and Learn! Space Ship. The cost of these is between $24 and $44 through Amazon. These two are also available through Walmart.

Mrs. Miller’s 4^th grade class would like to have 10 Webster’s Student Dictionaries. Working on reading and writing, the dictionaries will come in handy. It is important for the students to learn to look up words and definitions instead of just Googling (Google as a verb). The cost is less than $5 each through Knowledge Tree or Novel for those wanting to shop local.

 

Mrs. Miller would also like to have a yearly subscription to Flocabulary.  CLICK HERE to see how Flocabulary works to keep students engaged. If students are not engaged, learning will not take place. A yearly subscription for the 4^th grade class is $120.

Mrs. Ghio has asked for two televisions and wall mounts for the new study rooms in the libraries. Students will be able to use Apple TV when collaborating, and teachers can use them for small group instruction. The rooms in the library have been converted to study rooms for student use. Each Toshiba TV costs $230 and the Wall Mount Bracket costs $32.

We have a great school, and through your support we just keep getting better. The new school year is off to a great start. Thank you.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School