Tuesday eNews

September 6, 2011

Dear St. Francis Xavier Families,

Stuff Happens. You've no doubt seen other renditions of this same concept, but the reality is that the unexpected happens - both pleasant and unpleasant. In the past week my great niece was born on the living room floor with her dad serving as midwife to her mom because there wasn't time to get to the hospital, and my mom walked into a surprise party for her 90th birthday. We plan and strategize, and still, stuff happens. A lot of stuff is happening this week at school that we want to share with you.

Our ITBS testing will begin this week and continue on into next week. Students will actually be tested on T/W/TH of each week, and other days are used for make-up. I encourage you to not schedule any appointments, help your students get good rest and a good breakfast with some protein, but moreso, when you remind them to do their best, help them to keep testing in perspective. Our goal as a school is to use the test results to continue to strengthen our instruction and teach beyond expectations. Any test is a one day snapshot, and ITBS is a norm referenced test that compares students who took the same test at the same grade level at approximately the same time. Each child is infinitely more complex and his or her gifts and strengths will be demonstrated in many, many ways.

Then, to be better prepared for emergencies, our students will practice an Evacuation Drill this week. Much like Fire Drills and other safety plans, on Thursday afternoon, after testing, our students will practice how to calmly, quietly & swiftly evacuate school and proceed over to the Church which is our destination for Evacuation Drills. We will account for everyone together in one safe place.

Lastly, we apologize for Renweb difficulties the past two weeks which have been out of our control. The company has suffered some infrastructure issues that caused our system to not respond effectively, and we hope repairs have put our troubles behind us. All information and grades should be easily accessible now.

Thank you for balancing the stuff which arises and impacts our daily lives. Let's treasure that God is there in the stuff of life, always present and always caring for us through it all - good and bad. This isn't just to comfort us, it's to beckon us to reach out to God and let God help us. What a great gift to pass on to our kids, to teach them to reach out and let God take them by the hand.

Blessings,

Ms. Kim Cavnar, Principal

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