St. Mark Catholic School
Weekly School Bulletin
August 15, 2014
In this Issue:
Principal’s Corner – Welcome Back!
Virtue of the Month
Reminders
Cafeteria Accounts
Summer Thank-Yous
The Annual“Follow the Traffic Rules” Message
No Rescue
Reporting Absences and Sending Absence Excuse Notes
Need to pick-up your student prior to dismissal?
Prefecting
School Directories
We Need Your Bottle Caps!
Our Newly Redesigned Website
Follow Us on Social Media
Seen & Heard Around St. Mark
Principal’s Corner – Welcome Back!
The faculty and staff would like to take this opportunity to welcome you back to the 2014-15 school year, and to welcome our new families to St. Mark! We hope everyone enjoyed their summer vacations, and took time to relax and recharge together. We are looking forward to another great year with your children, full of learning and fun, lots of familiar St. Mark traditions, and some exciting changes, too. As we begin this school year, let us all be reminded that it is our mission to “educate each student in a spirit of faith, gospel values, and academic excellence according to Roman Catholic principles.” We pray that we can all continue to work together to make that mission statement come alive each day. We are all so blessed to be a part of this wonderful St. Mark community. Here’s to another successful school year!
Patricia Opon
Principal
Virtue of the Month – Joy
Teachers discuss the Virtue of the Month with students by using either stories or activities to engage them into seeing the virtue in action. Ask your child what he/she is learning about “Joy” this month.
Reminders
(Today) Friday, August 15: Early Dismissal at 12:00 NOON
Today is an early dismissal day. No lunch will be served. The After School Program is in operation.
Monday, August 18: Back-to-School Night for ECE-5th Grade, 6:30 PM, Cafetorium
This “Back to School Night” is for parents of students in Preschool through 5th grade. St. Mark is a child-centered community in which the majority of our events include the entire family. However, BTSN is reserved for “parents only” to come meet the teachers and learn how they can help make the learning experience a successful one. Please make whatever arrangements are necessary so you can attend the event. The entire program is usually complete by 8:00 PM.
Please try to arrive a little early to allow time to visit the Home & School Association“Information Fair” offering information and sign-up sheets for various events, volunteer opportunities, and clubs for parents and students.
Principal Patricia Opon will begin the formal “Back To School” presentationpromptly at
6:30 PM, followed by classroom visits and teacher/grade level presentations. There will also be a special “Theology of the Body” presentation for parents of 5th grade students.
Friday, August 22: School Liturgy
Our All-School Mass will be held at 8:30 AM in the church. All are invited to attend.
Cafeteria Accounts
Student dining accounts can now be monitored online. To set up a new online dining account, please follow these steps:
1. Complete the Cafeteria Enrollment Formattached and submit it to the school office. You will receive a confirmation email with online set-up instructions.
2. Visit the DineRite DRX website and set-up an online account by clicking here.
3. Payments to dining accountsmust besubmitted directly to the school, eithervia check (payable to St. Mark Catholic School) or credit card (electronic payment). Though payments are not processed through DineRite DRX, they will be reflectedon the online accounts.
If you have a DineRite account from last year, your password remains the same.
Summer Thank-Yous
With all of the upgrades and changes that took place at St. Mark this summer, we needed some extra help. Several people truly went the extra mile to assist us. We’d like to extend a very special thank you to:
Father Cliff for creating a “Student Art Wall” in the front lobby of the main school building. He has installed several frames equipped with Velcro backing which will facilitate an ever-changing display of our students’ masterpieces. Be sure to stop and take a look each time you visit the school. It will never look the same from week to week!
Art Teacher Tammy Williams for helping to redecorate the lobbies in both school buildings. She created the photo canvases you see hanging on the walls, as well as many new decorative touches throughout both spaces, making them even more welcoming.
Lisa Bonnett for upgrading and redesigning our school website. Lisa is a professional web developer (and St. Mark parent) who volunteered countless hours over the summer to upgrade and enhance the look and feel of our site.This was a huge undertaking, and one that is still ongoing, so we thank her for her past and future help! See more details about ournew website below.
Mary Currlin for spearheading the sale and distribution of our school supplies. Mary was at the school so much this summer, it felt like she was another employee! She streamlined the process and made sure each student got the needed supplies.
Janelle Bain and Lynne Vieraitis for organizing our Used Uniform Sale. Janelle and her family are new to St. Mark, yet she fearlessly took on the tasks of collecting used uniforms and organizing/executing our successful summer sale. Lynne was there to help all along the way.
Donna Leever for matching up our new school families with Host Families. Donna made dozens of phone calls and sent many more emails to make sure our new families were greeted by current families, and were made to feel welcome in our community.
Tony Forrest for providing us with professional photography for use on our website and in our printed materials. Tony continues to work tirelessly to give us professional-quality images that will truly make St. Mark shine in all of our communication efforts!
The Annual“Follow the Traffic Rules” Message
The beginning of each year brings the opportunity to remind those who pick up or deliver children to school about the importance of safety and adherence to the procedures. The general traffic flow and rules for following traffic patterns are located at the back of the Parent Student Handbook.An important concept to remember: These traffic rules are not “suggestions.”
- Do not arrive too early. Please do not arrive earlier than 2:50 PM for Preschool and 3:20 PM for Elementary and Middle School dismissals. No matter how early you arrive, the line is not going to move until the children are dismissed. All you accomplish is a long wait for yourself, and a major traffic jam (on school property and city property) for us, other motorists, and the Plano Police Department.
- Follow the rules as they are listed in the handbook.
- Follow the rules of common courtesy and common respect for your fellow parents.
- If you are not following the procedures and one of our staff members needs to remind you, please do not take offense.
- Public Service Announcement: The “no cell phone law” is in effect in all school zones in Plano. We are located in an official school zone.
NOTE: We also enforce the “no use of cell phones in the school building.” When you enter the building or if you are on lunch duty or playground duty, cell phones may NOT be used… either to send or receive calls or text messages.
No Rescue
Children take great pride in showing all of us that they are responsible individuals ready to fully participate in a successful school experience. We discourage parents from rescuing students who tend to forget assignments or school supplies at home. Truly, it can be a learning experience if they are given the chance to deal with the natural consequences. A forgotten lunch can be an exception, but we ask that you work with us to help students leave home fully prepared. If items (other than lunches) are brought to the school office we will not be able to deliver them.
Reporting Absences and Sending Absence Excuse Notes
Our Parent Student Handbook states that parents must report student absences no later than 9:00 AM the day of the absence. This can be done by either a phone call or an email to Rene O’Connor (her email is ). If we do not receive a phone call or email from you by 9:00 AM, we will need to contact you to verify the absence. Please help relieve Rene’s work load by promptly reporting absences so she doesn’t have to call you.
In the same fashion, when students return from an absence we must have a writtennote or emailin order to admit the student back into school. If we do not receive a note, Rene will need to contact you and obtain a written excuse before the student can return to class.
Need to pick-up your student prior to dismissal?
Please make sure you are familiar with the early pick up procedures in the Parent Student Handbook.
Prefecting
If you haven’t already done so, please sign up for perfecting by clicking here.
School Directories
A note about the 2014-15 School Directories: In an effort to include all new school families, the directories will be distributed at the end of September rather than at the “Back To School Nights” this year.
We Need Your Bottle Caps!
Our Art Teacher, Ms. Tammy, needs approximately 2,000 plastic bottle caps! She is working with our Middle School students to create a large “Starry Night” mosaic out of recycled bottle caps that will hang in the school. They can be all colors and sizes from beverages such as Gatorade, soft drinks, and bottled water. Ms. Tammy will give out a “Caught Being Good” coupon for each bag of 5 caps brought in.
Our Newly Redesigned Website
Have you visited the St. Mark Catholic School website lately? It’s got a whole new look as a result of a complete upgrade and redesign. While it was our goal for the website to become a place where prospective families could learn more about us, it was also important for it to become an even better resource for our current school families. Take some time to browse through the links. We hope you’ll find it to be user-friendly and informative. The site will continue to evolve over the next several months with even more content and photos being added, so continue to check back often. Some highlights:
-Detailed descriptions and contact information for the programs and services we offer
-Photos, photos, photos (more being added each day)
-Direct links to our social media sites
Do you have suggestions for content you’d like to see on our website? We’d love to hear them! Send any ideas to Debbie Reed.
Follow Us on Social Media
Want to get the latest St. Mark news in real time? Follow us on social media! We are on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Click on the widgets located at the top of the website homepage, or connect with us as follows:
Facebook – St. Mark Catholic School - Plano, TX
Twitter - @stmarkcatholic
Pinterest – St. Mark Catholic School
Seen & Heard Around St. Mark
First Day of School: Father Cliff made the rounds on Wednesday, welcoming our students back to school. See the photo at the top of the bulletin highlighting one of his Middle School classroom visits.
Middle School Prayer Partners Commissioned: Each year, our Middle School students look forward to participating in the St. Mark “Prayer Partner” program. “Prayer Partners” is a program designed to develop responsibility in the Middle School students, as well as provide the younger students with a role model. The program pairs Middle School students with one or two elementary students. Students in 6th grade have Kindergarten Prayer Partners, 7th grade students have 1st grade partners, and 8th graders have 2nd grade partners. The Middle school students serve as mentors and teachers during liturgical celebrations, and guide their partners toward a better understanding of how to participate at Mass (for example, prayer responses, singing, listening, proper gestures such as the sign of peace and genuflecting, and reflection about the Homily on the way back to class).
On Thursday, a ceremony was held to commission our Middle School students as official “Prayer Partners” for the upcoming school year. The ceremony was conducted by Father Cliff. He emphasized the importance of their role in our younger students’ lives, and the impact they will have on their faith journeys.
We Have A Baseball All-Star Among Us: 8th grader Dominic M. was chosen as the starting catcher for the Allen Sports Association All-Star Team that participated in the American Amateur Youth World Series this summer. Voting was done by opposing coaches. Dominic had a batting average over 500 during the series. Congratulations, Dominic!
We Have Softball Stars, Too!: 5th graders Abby A., Lauren D., Riley G., Marielma G., Allison G., Rebecca L., Veronica J., Emily J., Kendell K., Alex M., Makylah P., and Maggie S. participated in the Allen Sports Association Championship for the 10U girls softball spring league, and they won first place! This is the third year in a row that this team has won a softball championship. Congratulations, girls!