No School Monday
As a reminder, there is no school on Monday – January 15th – for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.
Tonight: HSA/Gala Meeting
The January HSA meeting will be held this evening – Thursday, January 11th – at 6:00pm in the school cafeteria. We will be working on final planning for our March Gala and discussing events/fundraisers for the upcoming months. We hope you will join us!
Catholic School’s Week Mass Helpers
National Catholic Schools Week is an annual celebration of Catholic education in our Country. During Catholic Schools week (which runs January 28th – February 3rd) Catholic schools across the country will be celebrating and highlighting faith-based education in a variety of ways. Next week our full flyer of events for CSW will be sent home.
As part of the events, we are asking SJS students to represent our school by attending any of the weekend Masses throughout the Parish in their school uniform. In addition, we are looking for TWO STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES for select Masses occurring the weekend of the 27th & 28th to hand out a special gift from our school as parishioners enter or leave the Church. With them will be other student representatives, from our sister school St. Bridget (student representatives in middle school will receive service hour credit).
If your child would like to help, please SIGN UP HERE. In addition to each helper, we are looking for one alternate per Mass in case one of our primary student volunteers is unable to make it last minute.
Student representatives and alternates should be in Grades 2 – 8, please.
Please Join Us: Volunteer Recognition Mass
Volunteers play a critical role in supporting our students and staff here at Saint James School – helping with sports & extracurricular activities, running classroom parties, helping with HSA events, and more! As such, one of our favorite activities during Catholic Schools Week is to show our appreciation to our volunteers for their “Service” to Saint James School.
This year, we will be honoring our volunteers with special prayers and recognition at our school’s 9:00am Mass on Tuesday, January 30th.
If you have volunteered at SJS in any way during last year or this current one, we hope you will join us so that all the students of Saint James School can see the faces of the dedicated parents and family members who donate their time and talents to helping making Saint James School such a wonderful place for our children to learn and grow.
Volunteers able to attend are asked to please complete the following form by Monday, January 22nd: VOLUNTEER RSVP FORM
MAP Testing Starts Tomorrow
Please note that students in grade 3-8 will be taking the next round of MAP Tests on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of THIS week. Please ensure your student is at school on time, otherwise they will have to wait in the main office until testing is done and make up the test another day. Thank you!
Extra Curricular Fun Starting Next Week
As a reminder for families that registered: Cooking Club starts after school this coming Monday (1/8), Chess Club starts on Wednesday (1/10) and Art Club will start on Thursday (1/11).
All three clubs run until 3:15pm and participants will be dismissed from the side door in the Pre-K parking lot (our regular dismissal lot).
Please remember to send in a note to your child’s teacher stating that your student will be staying after and for which club. Please also indicate in that note if your student will be picked up at 3:15pm or should go to aftercare.
Reminder: Important Volunteer Information
As a reminder, any parents, grandparents, etc. that would like to volunteer at Saint James School must go through a VIRTUS training session and complete a background check. This includes volunteers for any field trips or classroom parties. This process only has to be completed one time during your family’s time with SJS.
The VIRTUS training session is currently being held online so we encourage families to complete this requirement now while it can be done at your convenience. The VIRTUS session is focused on identifying signs of abuse in children so you will want to complete this while your children are NOT in the same room.
To register and begin the online session, please go to: https://www.virtusonline.org/virtus/.
Choose the green box titled, “FIRST-TIME REGISTRANT” in the left-most column and follow the prompts including the drop-down menu to choose HARTFORD Archdiocese. Select the online class option (a link will be emailed to you). At the end of the course, please print off the CERTIFICATE and send it in to the Saint James School office so we can have a copy in your file.
Please reach out to Mrs. Thornton in the main office to get a copy of the background check form. Once you complete the form, Saint James School sends your background check form in for processing.
Ski Club Starts Tomorrow
Ski Club begins on Friday, 1/5. For students taking the bus to Mount Southington, all of their ski/snowboard gear, attire, change of clothes/shoes, and extra “stuff” can be stored in the gym entrance until the end of the day. Mrs. Guenther will open the GYM DOORS at 7:25am on Friday morning for you/your student to begin dropping items off. Please do not unload skis/boards in the “drop and go” area unless it is before 7:30am.
For families driving up, there has been a delay on printing the RFID cards so we will let you know tomorrow via email if they will be in students’ backpacks tomorrow or if you will need to meet up with Mr. Joyner at the mountain to get them.
Varsity Games @ SJS Tonight
The SJS Varsity boys and girls basketball teams will play our sister school Saint Bridget on our home court this evening. The girls play at 6:00pm; boys play at 7:15pm. All are welcome!
