| | | | Dear Parents:
Happy New Year! We hope your vacation was enjoyable. On these cold and wet mornings, it is important that your child has a warm and waterproof jacket to wear to school. While the building is nice and warm, it can get quite chilly when the children go outside at recess time.
Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany is traditionally celebrated the 12th day after Christmas. The term epiphany means to show or to reveal. When the Wise Men, who brought the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus they were the first to acknowledge Jesus as King and so were the first to show or reveal Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. Today, the day is now observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by showing Jesus as the Savior of all people.
SANDWICHES-FOR-THE-NEEDY: Our first collection for the new year is this Friday, January 8th. Thank you again to the Kindergarten and 5th grade classes who will take the lead. We encourage ALL families to provide an extra sandwich for this first collection of the year. Some of our older students will prepare 50 additional sandwiches in with the residents at Alma Via to add to this collection. Please remember that in order to facilitate the distribution of sandwiches, we have been asked to provide just one type of sandwich: turkey on sliced white or brown bread, no mustard or mayo. | | | The Parents' Club have their monthly meeting tomorrow night, Thursday, January 7th in library at 7:00pm. Please consider attending. | | | Sacramental Prep class for 2nd grade parents, Tuesday, January 19th in the 2nd grade classroom at 7:00pm. | | | MOCK TRIAL: The School of Mock (Trial) has been regularly offered as a mock trial workshop with 826 Valencia, the non-profit writing organization founded by author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari. St. Thomas More School parent and Public Defender Vilaska Nguyen has led the 826 Valencia workshop and is again offering the class to St. Thomas More middle-school students. Sessions will be held on five consecutive Fridays, 4:30-6:00 PM, starting this Friday, January 8th. Click here to download the registration form. | | | CIOPPINO 2016: Please mark your calendars for our 24th Annual Cioppino Dinner Dance and Silent Auction on Saturday, February 20th. The evening includes appetizers, antipasto, salad, garlic bread, cioppino (or chicken if you prefer), dessert, balloon prizes and a fabulous auction. Babysitting is also available on site! Make an ONLINE RESERVATION NOW! The committees in charge are busy looking for raffle and silent auction items to use as part of this event. Many such items are received through the generosity of our parent community. Do you have items at home that you cannot use? Are you always thrilled by all your Christmas gifts? Well, one person's trash is another person's treasure. Send us your unwanted/unneeded gifts. We'll turn those lumps of coal into diamonds! The committee is now accepting donations of all kinds. Please drop all donations to the school office.
NATIONAL CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK: This runs from January 31st through February 4th. Please mark your calendars for our Family Mass, Open House, Book Fair, and other exciting events on Sunday, January 31st. The schedule of activities for National Catholic Schools Week is included in your envelope today and is also available here. Again this year we will be having a special day where we invite grandparents and other special guests to spend some of the day with the children. Pencil in Thursday, February 4th for this special day. Look for an invitation in next week's envelope. To help celebrate our grandparents and other special guests in the lives of our children, all students and their adult guests will receive a free lunch that day! We are looking for parent volunteers to help prepare this lunch. If you are available, please contact the office as soon as possible.
KINDERGARTEN APPLICATIONS: We are happy to announce that we have received a good number of applications for our 2016-2017 kindergarten class. Please note that in accordance with California State law children must be 5 years of age on or before September 1st in order for them to attend kindergarten in the fall. As a reminder, if you currently have a child in Utopia or a sibling who wishes to apply for kindergarten and have not completed the application, please do so as soon as possible. You can also apply online here. We have already begun scheduling kindergarten screening appointments for Saturday, January 30th.
SCRIP: As you know, each family is required to generate $100 from our scrip programs for the 2015-2016 school year. Since establishing this Scrip Requirement, it has been great to see so many families enroll in the Great Lakes Scrip (GLS) program and to see so many successful online orders that have generated funds for our school. It's not too late to sign up for Great Lakes Scrip, just click here and use our school enrollment code: 17L5C54E28365. Funds generated from scrip purchases are counted from May 1st, 2015 through April 31st, 2016.
I will be away from the office over the next couple of weeks. I am so lucky to have such great teachers and staff to hold down the fort while I am away. Vice-Principal, Natalia Girlich, will be standing in until I return. Thank goodness for modern technology as I am able to send the weekly newsletter from any corner of the globe!
Sincerely,
Marie Fitzpatrick
Principal | | | | | | | |
