February 2, 2023
February 2, 2023
Dear SJB Families,
Happy 100th Day of School!
Our celebration of Catholic Schools Week has been a fantastic celebration of Faith. Excellence. Service. We have had fun in ways big and small, which reflect our family atmosphere and faith community. A huge thank you goes to Mrs. Pierscionek, our 7th grade homeroom teacher and grades 5-8 math teacher, as well as the Student Council sponsor for all she did to help carry out the week. Mrs. Hardesty also spent much time supporting our celebration throughout the week. Most importantly, she picked up the donuts and handled the complimentary pizza for lunch tomorrow! Many hands went into planning our celebration this week, and we are thankful to all our teachers and staff for helping make it special.
The Winter Carnival was a huge success! Thank you to Kathy Barrett and all her many helpers for all they did to make it such a fabulous night of fun for our students, families, and parishioners. Thank you also to our many volunteers who helped run stations, and our student helpers: Cristian Benavides, Matthew Dawson, Santino Gaddi, Kelci Jaburek, Jack Marsden, Alexa Murray, Faith Owens, Jacob Spencer, Lucia Vang Nu, and Henry Weitz. Thank you to all who came to the wonderful event! It wouldn’t have been a success without you! Once numbers are tallied, a more detailed report will be shared.
Our week began with the celebration of our parish and faith on Sunday at 9:30 AM Mass where students from our school assisted with mass. Thank you to Alexa Murray, Madelyn Buchmann, Aaliyah Silva, and Aubrey Silva for serving as readers. Brielle and Danielle Borner assisted with the collection and Henry Weitz joined Brielle and Danielle with bulletin distribution after Mass. The LeMay Family brought up the gifts. Michael Mang, Julia Mawi, and Christina Sui were the altar servers. Thank you so much to our students for helping! If you didn’t receive a bulletin, please check it out here. Each of our classes shared a thank you photograph to our parish for their support of our school. Best of all, were the number of families and staff members who attended Mass at SJB this weekend. It was marvelous to see so many people at Mass sprinkled with our students in uniform throughout the church. I know that other families attended the 5:00 PM Saturday Mass and the 7:30 and 11:30 Masses. What a beautiful testament of faith and beginning to our celebration of Catholic Schools Week.
Our Open House was held on Sunday, and we welcomed ten families to our school to show them why St. John the Baptist may be the place they want to choose for school. Special shout outs go to our student ambassadors: Mia Grantz, Kelci Jaburek, Jack Kozlowski, Mike Mang, Jack Marsden, Alexa Murray, Faith Owens, and Lucia Vang Nu. Fortunate are we to have students who freely give of their time to SJB while enthusiastically providing tours to our prospective families. Please pray for the families who attended as they make their decisions about enrolling their children in school. Three have already submitted their registration forms. Additionally, our Band gave their first performance of the year. They played well and provided a nice concert for all in the audience. What a blessing it was to showcase both second and first year students this year. If you would like to see their performance, please click here.
Please check backpacks of your oldest child for registration packets for the 2023-24 school year! New this year is an early bird registration date of Friday, March 17, which locks in this year’s tuition rate. See the packet for more details.
On Monday, we gathered as faith families and tied fleece blankets for the newly baptized in our parish and rosaries to send to the Ukraine. Bishop Hicks blessed them today, making these sacramental, and extra special for the recipients. What a way to begin our week… in service for others!
Yesterday, we celebrated the community, and each faith family distributed a thank you snack basket to services and businesses in Winfield. We are truly grateful for their support and wanted to show our vision and core value of embraced by community in action.
We also launched our second year of One Book, One School book, Aven Green Baking Machine. We hope that you are enjoying the book with your children and that it is nurturing a love for words, for reading, nurturing compassion and understanding. Click here for chapter 4 read by eighth grade student, Aaliyah. Chapter 5 will be shared tomorrow, and the remaining chapters will be shared in the next two weeks.
Our eighth grade students participated in our annual Science Fair this week as part of Catholic Schools Week. It is evident that they worked hard on the projects and made excellent presentations to the judges who were our teachers and staff. Fr. Chris and Jim Nolan also served as judges. Thank you to Mr. Valenta, our science teacher and sponsor, and to the eighth-grade parents for their help and support! The results will be announced following the 8:15 AM School Mass on Tuesday, February 7. Those students who will be moving on to the Regional Science Fair will also be announced. Feel free to join us in church, if you are able.
It was a true blessing to have Bishop Hicks celebrate Mass this morning, tour our school, and consecrate our Sacred Heart of Jesus statue to the school. We had many students participating in Mass today and are thankful for all their roles. They exuded confidence and reverence. One student told me how happy he was that he was chosen to bring the gifts to Bishop Hicks. He exclaimed, "I was so close to our Bishop. It made me so happy to be near him. I am really glad that he came to our church and school. I prayed for him after the final blessing and will keep praying for him.” Our Vice President, Joey Zagotta and Augustine Cin even presented Bishop Hicks with some crazy socks and a SJB knit hat as we cherish that God loves us from head to toe. Bishop proudly donned his new SJB hat and loved that he received Bombas which donates a pair of socks for each pair sold. Click here to see Bishop Hicks blessing our newest statue and the presentation of our gift to Bishop. Fr. Chris reported that “Bishop Hicks loved his visit. He commented on the great feel of our school, how well behaved the kids are, how engaged they were at Mass and in the classroom. He was quite pleased.” We were all struck with Bishop’s grace, authenticity, and ability to connect and relate to our children. One final note about Bishop Hick’s visit, please ask your child (ren) about the significance of the number forty.
This afternoon, we watched the wonderful gifts and talents of twenty-one of our students in our Talent Show. They performed with poise, courage, and enthusiasm! The teachers even performed a collage of dances. Thank you, Mr. Hollatz, for coordinating this amazing project. Your organization and efforts were truly evident. Thank you, Mrs. Redar, for your help with try-outs and rehearsals, and thank you to our Student Council Vice President, Joey Zagotta; Augustine Cin, Phillip Cabrera, and Stephanie Blitvich for their help as emcees for the show. Unfortunately, our Student Council President, Jack Kozlowski, who assisted with the preparation of the Talent Show, and was going to be an emcee, could not be present today. Thank you to our stage crew of Mia Grantz, Tyler Stith, and Lucia Vang Nu. I am so proud of our student helpers who ran the show...it was seamless and professional! We are also thankful to all the parents and family members who supported our participants and those who came to view the show. I will share the video tomorrow when it is fully processed…you are in for a real treat!
Please pray for our eighth grade students, who are in their second year of preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. On Saturday afternoon, they will be participating in a retreat which will be staffed by Net Ministries. Net Ministries will be helping our students encounter the person of Christ through evangelization and discipleship. They will attend 5:00 PM Mass afterwards.
On Wednesday, our fifth and eighth grade students will be taking the Assessment of Catholic Religious Education (ACRE) test online. The ACRE test measures knowledge of the faith as well as beliefs, behaviors, attitudes and practices of the faith, and is given annually to all students in fifth and eighth grades in our diocese.
As you can see, we had a busy and fun-filled week and truly celebrated Faith. Excellence. Service. which Catholic schools provide. We are blessed indeed at St. John the Baptist. Thank you so much for choosing SJB and partnering with us for your child’s faith formation and education. We truly are embraced by a tremendous community!
May you receive many blessings this weekend!
Joyfully in His Service,
Joanne