Good Afternoon!
It has been another wonderful week here at St. Francis! Our students had the opportunity to tour the Student Experience Center and get excited about the possibilities that will come from this awesome space. Please check out our Facebook page to see some of the images from the tours.
Our 5th and 6th grade students also celebrated the opening of their classroom library in Mrs. Maglio's room! It was a great day!
Congratulations to our first group of Falcon Five Awardees! Awesome job!
Safety Information:
Father Jeremy, myself and our entire staff have been prayerfully considering necessary safety updates that needed to be made to our school over the past couple of years.
In phase one, during the Summer of 2021, we moved our Main Office out of the school building into the entrance. This means that all visitors to our school must check in with the school office before being admitted into the school building.
In phase two, during the Summer of 2022, our staff along with the Summit County Sheriff Department, looked at areas in our building where we needed to increase our safety measures. This prompted us to schedule the installation of 13 additional cameras within our school building as well as outside of our school building. We have also eliminated students entering and exiting the school building through various doors throughout the day and have identified only two entrances/exits that will be utilized. These areas will be under camera surveillance to ensure that the doors are closed at all times. Finally, the doors to the Church will be locked from the outside at 9:00am-10:00am each week during the Children's Mass.
Our entire staff participated in an important safety training on August 23. During this training we heard a presentation from the Summit County Sheriff Department that detailed 3 options for our teachers to keep our students and themselves safe during an active shooter situation; run, hide, fight. Teachers will spend time this week in their classroom talking to students about all drills in an age appropriate manner. We will have our first lockdown drill next week.
In addition to these action steps, we are continually reviewing and updating safety plans for situations we pray never occur. St. Francis de Sales is fortunate to have a strong relationship with first responders in our area as well as the areas that surround us, and will continue to partner with them to ensure that our plans are as up-to-date and appropriate as possible.
Though these plans have been at the forefront of our planning, we know that our first priority is a Christ-centered atmosphere where students feel a part of our community, loved in our building and a place where families feel connected. We continue to ask for your prayers and support!
Here are some notes and reminders :
We are so excited to have our first OUTDOOR SCHOOL MASS on Friday, September 23 at 9:00am. This will be the kickoff to our Color Run day (more details to come) and we would like to invite families to attend as well. Each student should bring a beach towel to sit on for this Mass. Family members that plan to attend should bring a lawn chair.
Our website is almost ready to launch! We appreciate your patience as we work to create the most accessible and useful site for our families. In the meantime, there are several links below that will be helpful to you.
We hope you will save the date, and join us, for the Parish festival on September 18 from 12p-4p. It will be a great time with food, family and fellowship! Please see the flyer in today's folder for more information.
We look forward to seeing you at Mass tomorrow morning!
Blessings,
Mrs. Dougherty
