As you all hopefully have noted, there will be no school on Wednesday, November 24^th.  We exceeded our goal and sold over $40,000 worth of Scrip.  The Scrip Committee had asked for 100% participation, and with the help of the staff and pre-school, we made that.

Some families were credited with a large purchase that had been made a few days before.

Our half day off school does not indicate in any way that our education here at St. Paul is not important. 

Which leads me to the next piece of business.  I hosted the Principals’ Region 4 meeting this week at St. Paul.  One of the schools, Sacred Heart in Eureka, did a presentation on becoming a Blue Ribbon School.  I have thought about this for some time, and I have the card on my desk about it.  With School Improvement Process underway, I did not want to take on another major task. 

However, I took the criteria for this year (which has changed from previous years) to see where our school would place, and if we would even be eligible.  Former criteria was based on 8^th grade standardized test scores.  Now the criteria is based on all grades tested standardized test scores.  Our school would be eligible since we score in the top 15% of the nation!  I will definitely apply next year after we receive our standardized test scores.  You should be very proud of your children.

Thanks to all of the families and students for the donations for Thanksgiving.  We have huge boxes of food to donate to St. Vincent de Paul and Circle of Concern.

The 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades had a wonderful experience going to the St. Patrick Center.  It was much different than what we all thought.  The building is beautiful, and they work so hard to rehabilitate and assist people to get back into the workforce and living on their own.  I would like to do something in the coming months to donate money to the Key Player Program.

We have some new students to join our veteran ambassadors.  Our ambassadors for the school are:  Sam Himstedt, Emily Snyder, Maggie Whealen, Trey Schamburg, Haley Schwartz, Nathan Bira, Wils Schamburg, Bailey Vierling, Nathan Higgins and Rachel Bartnett.  Congratulations!

All the candy collected from Halloween  made 600 bags that will be given to families with their Thanksgiving baskets.  The Kindergarten also collected 30 pounds of lollipops that were sent to our military overseas. 

Lifetouch will be sending home Holiday Packets for you.  You may purchase the items they send, or you may send them back to school to be returned. 

Congratulations to Brynn LaMear.  Brynn is a figure skater and will be competing this weekend in Kalamazoo, Minnesota.  She has worked very hard to pursue her highest competitive goals in synchronized skating.  She has been training for some time now while keeping her grades up, too!  We wish her luck to bring back some medals!!

Have a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving! 

Mrs. Pam Brown

November 28                           First Sunday of Lent

December 4                             First Reconciliation

December 8                             Feast of Immaculate Conception – All School Mass

                                                Bookmobile

December 9                             Math Meet – St. Genevieve duBois

                                                Ladies Sodality Christmas Party

December 10                           Noon Dismissal – Faculty Meeting

                                                Crazy Sock Day for Autism

December 15                           All School Mass

December 16                           Christmas Concert – 7:00 p.m. in Church

                                                Pre-K-4, beginning band and advanced band

December 17                           Progress Reports are available on FastDirect

December 22                           All School Mass

                                                Christmas Classs parties                                  

Noon Dismissal for Christmas Holiday

Everyone will be able to access your account with Food Service on FastDirect.  Letters are coming home with your account number.  Please go to Links and click it.  Then click on Lunch Card Balances.  You will find your account number with the balance on your student's card.

I have several meetings next week and will be out on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.  Friday will be a "big" day.  We will have the Walk-A-Thon for Diabetes.  The primary grades will have their Halloween parties while the upper grades have the Halloween costume contest.  WE NEED MORE CONTESTANTS!!  We cannot have a contest without more people.  Come on and have some fun!

Thanks to Mrs. Grabowski we will be selling 10 oz. bottles of water to the students in the cafeteria beginning November 2nd for $.15.  Dierberg's is working with us to provide water at this low cost for the students. 

Our food drive for St. Vincent de Paul was overwhelming.  Thank you so much.  The men came to pick up all of our items and were so elated.  They could not believe how much they had to stock their shelves.  I told them we would be doing another food drive for Thanksgiving for them, and they said they would need more by then.  Once again, thank you so much.

Happy Halloween!!

There is no school on Monday, November 1st.  School will resume on the 2nd of November.  We will begin some School Improvement Process meetings this week with committees.