Monday Morning Memo

Welcome back!  I hope you and your family enjoyed a wonderful Christmas break! 

Our fiftieth anniversary celebrations begin this Sunday at the 10:30 service.  Since our school began in the church in September of 1963, we are beginning our celebrations with a church service.  Father Stan Runnels has chosen to have the service in our new multipurpose room.  As always, but especially for this new beginning, we hope members of the school community will join us for this special event.

Open House for Prospective Families will occur this Saturday from 10 – 12.  If you know families who are interested in attending St. Paul’s, please encourage them to come.  Thanks in advance to the students, faculty, and parents who will be in attendance to meet, greet, and show off our school!

Parents’ Guild meets this Wednesday at 8:30 in the Garden Room of the church.  Please know that all families are part of the Parents’ Guild and invited to attend the meetings.

If you are planning on applying for tuition assistance for the 2013-2014 school year:

·        Applications will be accepted November 1 – January 15. Priority will be given to applications that are completed (including supporting documentation) by January 15.

·        The application process begins online, at www.factstuitionaid.com.

·        After completing the online portion of the application, you will need to mail or fax in all required supporting documentation.

St. Paul’s will try to answer questions regarding the online application process, but, since this is not our program, may be unable to do so. If you need assistance with the online application, help is available from FACTS via telephone (866-315-9262) or email (info@factstuitionaid.com) Monday – Thursday, 10:00 – 7:00; and Friday, 10:00 – 5:00.

Just a few reminders about our snow day calling procedures:

-         We will call you through our One Call Now system that notifies you at the phone number(s) you have requested.  If you did not hear from us on the Thursday morning before our Christmas break, please contact Linda van Thullenar to make sure she has your correct information.

-         We will post the information on the TV news services but this often takes time, due to the high volume of schools with which they are dealing.  You should receive your One Call Now call first – if their system is working correctly for us!

-         There will be a message on our school phone system.  This is the least effective way of getting our message, as there is only one line on which the message is contained and often many people calling into that number.

-         We will try to get the message to you as early as possible but often road conditions, weather predictions, and decisions by other schools and school systems make this happen later than we would like.

-         If we have school and you feel the roads in your area are too dangerous for you to travel, stay home and let us know.  We do not want you to take risks and the road conditions vary greatly in different neighborhoods.

-         We do NOT contact people on snowy days if we ARE having school. 

We will be having a tornado drill this week to test our new procedures.  It was brought to our attention at a coffee that we should take another look at our tornado procedures and refuge locations and, sure enough, the recommendations have changed.  It is now recommended that all of us get down to the first floor.  We have informed the teachers, created new refuge location floor plan maps with routes to follow, and will practice this week.

In spite of the break, we have a lot of people experiencing the symptoms of the flu and upper respiratory infections.  To reiterate our policy on working to prevent the spread of these illnesses, here is what our nurse has advised and what is stated in our policy handbook.

We are making every effort to minimize the number of illnesses at St. Paul’s this winter and we ask that parents help us in our efforts by considering the following guidelines before sending their children to school.

·         Sick children need to be home until they are well for a 24 hour length of time.

·         “Sick” is a fever of greater than 100 degrees (student must be fever free without the aid of fever reducing medicine for 24 hours). 

• “Sick” is continuing to have a persistent cough even with cough medicine.
• “Sick” is vomiting and/or diarrhea within the past 24 hours.
• “Sick” is a sore throat that doesn't go away with over-the-counter pain medication.

This flu season is already a very active one and we can significantly impact the spreading of germs by frequent hand washing and containing the spread of illness by staying home when not feeling well.  If there are any questions that our nurse, Mrs. Kuhls, can answer, please don’t hesitate to contact her by phone (816-268-6548 or e-mail at ckuhls@speds.org.  Thank you for your efforts to keep our community healthy. 

Former Kansas City Royal and Hall of Fame member George Brett spoke to the St. Paul’s Middle School on the afternoon of Dec. 12.  This was arranged by Mr. Kurt as part of his ongoing Hall of Fame project this year.  Mr. Brett spoke about his baseball career and his growth and development as a young athlete growing up in California.  He delivered a great message about academics and the importance of reading, studying hard and practicing hard.  He also stressed the importance of listening to parents, teachers and coaches and taking their comments as instruction for growth and not mere criticism.  A student Q & A session followed and Mr. Brett engaged the students with many funny and interesting stories about his long career in baseball and his love for Kansas City.  Seventh grader Carol-Ann Gibbs opened the assembly with a video/power point presentation of Mr. Brett.