January 2016 SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS

Notre Dame High School

Notre Dame began celebrating our 140th anniversary on January 28th. The year-long celebration began with Mass where we honored the founding Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Future events are being planned. A series of videos will be published throughout the celebration period. https://vimeo.com/153819944

Celebrating 140 Years #1

Notre Dame students participated in a Pro-Life Rally at the school after their trip to D.C. had to be cancelled because of a major snow storm. Watch the video of our rally at: https://vimeo.com/152989360

Our Lady of Perpetual Help School

The newly formed Sapphires Dance team made their first public appearance, doing a great job of entertaining the crowd during the home basketball games!

Our awesome parent volunteers stepped into the classrooms for a few hours to allow all of our teachers to attend two half-days each or professional development for iPad/Apple TV use and

integration.

The combines OLPH/St. Jude Middle School Swim Team had a phenomenal day at the Knoxville Area Middle School Championships. We had great races and were third overall in our division of 12 teams!

St. Jude School Coming Soon!

Knoxville Catholic High School

Congratulations to Olivia Jones, Matthew Ramos, Collin Patton, and Christian Fox for being selected to the All-East Band. Congratulations, also, to Nathan Geist who auditioned and made the All-State Band. The Guidance Department held a Junior Guidance Night for all juniors and their parents on January 14, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 a.m. Over 20 invited guest speakers presented sessions on a multitude of college-focused breakout sessions in the A and C Wing Classrooms. Representatives from ETSU (the President, in fact), UTK, UTC, Wofford, Sewanee, Emory, Davidson, Alabama, Memphis College of Art, TN College of Applied Technology, Pellissippi, Roane State, Military Academies, and much more.

Congratulations to the KCHS Swim Teams on great performances in the KISL Regional Championship Meet. An impressive 11 athletes qualified for the State High School Swimming and Diving Championships in 3 weeks. Senior Alec Connolly became a 3-time City Swimming Champion by winning the 50M Free, 100M Back, and 200M Medley. Alec also broke his own school record, AND the City meet record in the 50M Free; and broke his own school record in the 100M Back by almost 3 seconds. Parent Course Selections Meetings for the 2016-2017 school year were held on Thursday, January 28 at All Saints Parish Hall. Meetings were held at 8:30 a.m. and at 6:30 p.m. with great attendance. Many thanks to all of the sponsors, donors, guests and volunteers that helped make the 5th Annual Green & Gold Gala a success. More than 180 alumni, parents, and friends attended the event, held Saturday, January 30 at The Standard in downtown Knoxville.

Sacred Heart Cathedral School

Electromagnetism is Engaging Mrs. Templeton's 6th graders built and tested their own electromagnets as part of their unit on magnetism and electricity. The electromagnets were made from insulated copper wiring, nails

and D cell batteries. Part of the prep for this activity was finding the working electromagnets in the building.

Geography Bee 8th Grader, Jack Newman won the SHCS Geography Bee and will go on to compete in the next level of competition. 7th Grader, Riley Smith is the runner up. Congratulations to all the participants!

Digital Literacy Middle school students in Digital Literacy enjoying end of semester Makerspace. The students built video game controllers and musical instruments using Makey Makey electronics kits.

Big School Visit Day It was "Big School Visit Day" for SHC PreK students! They got to tour the school, visit the library, art room, music room, Kindergarten classrooms, had a snack in the Eagle Cafe and Principal Mr. Breen read them a story!

SHCS Alumni Mr. Breen and Mrs. Punch visited Knoxville Catholic earlier this week to talk with some SHCS alums. The purpose was to get to know our alums and to talk with them about their transition

from SHCS to Catholic. We got many kudos for our teachers and some really valuable feedback from our young alums! We would love to hear from all of our alumni – let us know what you’ve been up to and join us for the 26th Annual SHCS Dinner, Dance & Auction at Cherokee Country Club on April 23.

St. John Neumann School

Pancake Breakfast – On Saturday, January 9th, our annual 8th Grade Pancake Breakfast was held at Aubrey's on Campbell Station Road in Farragut. Our SJNCS 8th grade students served a delicious breakfast that included hot pancakes, eggs, bacon, coffee, and juice. Thank you to everyone who attended. Since Aubrey's donates all the food, the 8th graders were able to raise $2,820. Each year the students get to purchase a legacy gift for the school with the funds raised from the breakfast. When they are on their retreat in the spring, they will decide on the gift. Thank you again for supporting this annual event!

Spelling Bee – The SJNCS School Spelling Bee was held on Wednesday, January 13th. Congratulations to 7th grader Mary Tasket for taking the top spot at the bee! Mary will now move on to the Regional Scripps Spelling Bee held at the University of Tennessee. Our guest "Pronouncer" was Jim Wogan, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Knoxville. The judges were Sr. Mary Marta Abbott, Fr. Doug Owens, and Joanne Perkins for this year's bee.

Geography Bee – On Friday, January 15th, our annual SJNCS Geography Bee was held in the school library. The winner of this year's Geography Bee was Michael Stapleton! This is Michael's second year in a row as our Geography Bee champ. First runner-up was Lydia Fields and second runner-up was Ben Pinzon. Michael will now continue in Tennessee's regional competition soon.

Service Learning - SJNCS eighth grade students recently wrote a persuasive essay in English class. They searched for a worthy organization that the students of SJNCS could support with an out-of-uniform donation day. The eighth graders voted on their favorite essays and from those, Lincoln Murr's essay supporting Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust was chosen as the most persuasive. On Wednesday, January 27th students came to school out of uniform for a $2 donation to support DAV. Great job Lincoln! This is truly service learning in action!

100 Days of School – On Wednesday, January 27th, kindergarten and first grade students celebrated 100 days of school by dressing as 100 year olds along with their teachers. They also participated in several math-related 100 counting activities during the day.

St. Joseph School

Saint Joseph School - Witnesses for Life

On the unhappy anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we gathered for Mass and prayed for an end to abortion and all crimes against life. Father Ron Franco, C.S.P. helped us reflect on the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi, who had special devotions to the Eucharist, the Crucifix, and to the Baby Jesus in the manger. "What these three have in common", he said, "is that they are the three places you would least expect to find God - in what appears to be ordinary food, in what appears to be a crucified criminal, and in a helpless baby." At Saint Joseph School, we lovingly recognize the presence of Jesus Christ in the countless helpless unborn babies of the world and work to end the evil of abortion and the conditions that tempt women to see it as a "choice". Saint Joseph School students and staff participated in both the Knoxville March for Life and the National March for Life in Washington, D.C. Annual Father/Daughter Dance - Saturday, January 30th Our Home & School Association plans a party with force - The Force, that is. We held our

Annual Father/Daughter Dance with a Star Wars theme. Dads and daughters dressed accordingly, wearing costumes or just "Dark side" or "Light side" apparel.

National Geographic Bee - Friday, January 8th

Ten qualifying students competed in the SJS National Geographic Bee. William Edward Lovelace and Fannie Njoroge qualified for the Championship Round and Fannie was victorious after correctly answering a question about Antarctica. Fannie has taken a qualifying test to determine if she progresses to the State Bee in Nashville. Congratulations to all of our participants: 4th Grade: Daniel DePersio 5th Grade: William Edward Lovelace 6th Grade: Cameron Allen, Abel Heredia 7th Grade: Mike Francisco, Sami McLean, Emma Schaad 8th Grade: Hailey Adam, Tim Crowell, Fannie Njoroge Admissions Open House - Sunday, January 31st To kick off our celebration of Catholic Schools Week, our staff hosted an Admissions Open House for prospective students. Ten families visited on Sunday with several more touring during the last two weeks.

St. Mary School – Oak Ridge

The New Year began with all sorts of exciting activities. We hosted several Open Houses to showcase St. Mary’s School to our prospective families. Our Basketball teams finished up the season with some great games and 8th Grade night. Bishop Stika joined us for the day on January 13th and celebrated Mass followed by classroom visits. Our students celebrated the 100th day of school. Kindergartners came to school dressed as “100 year old students”. Students in grades 5-8 participated in a school-wide Spelling Bee. Several of our students were recognized in the DaVinci Art and Science competitions. To kick-off to Catholic Schools Week, we have tradition of decorating classroom doors to begin the week of celebration. We are so appreciative of the incredible people that make St. Mary’s such a great school. Basketball Season at SMS!

Bishop Stika Visits St. Mary’s School

100th Day of School!

Decorated Classroom Doors made our halls festive and fun!

SMS Spelling Bee 2016 Participants from grades 5-8.

Congratulations to our winners at the DaVinci Science and Arts Fair sponsored by the Sunset

Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. In Science, Amelia Van Berkel won 3rd place for “Water, Water Everywhere, but not a Single Drop to Drink”.

In Art for 7th grade, Marissa Dalton won 1st for “Wind Chimes”; Joey Wood won 2nd for “The Prehistoric Flamingo”; and KelliAnn Corbett won 3rd for “Mysterious Mask”. In Art for 8th grade

Gabby Delamain won 2nd place for “Roses in the Rain”.

St. Dominic School

CHILDREN HELPING CHILDREN: KINGSPORT TO MALAWI Our fifth graders are creating a service project to benefit the people of Saint Vincent de Paul School in Blantyre, Malawi, Africa. This particular project involves an awareness of cultural differences. As our fifth graders learned about Saint Dominic’s “sister” parish in Blantyre, during religion class, they were amazed to hear about the scarcity of books at Saint Vincent de Paul School. They heard of a teacher using a single book with a class of 75 and quickly recognized the discrepancy between that and their “world.” Using the availability of books as a symbol of differences in our cultures, our fifth graders are collecting used books to encourage reading here and to help spur thoughts of donations for children in Blantyre. Individuals can donate books no longer being used and/or take books already donated. All that’s being asked in

return is that you say a prayer for the people of Malawi and, if you desire, make a donation for them.

Turner Stout(2nd from left), a current SDCS fifth grader, won the 11-year-old grouping of the Knights of Columbus regional round of a state-wide free throw shooting contest – again. Turner has now won this three years in a row and advances to state competition.

The school’s 43rd annual spelling bee was held on January 28 and it was a tremendous success. We are so proud of the way our children competed and supported each other. This year’s winner was Sachin Poobalasingham. Sachin, a fourth grader, was also the winner of last year’s spelling bee. The runner-up, was Lloyd Galvez, a fifth grader. Lloyd was also last year’s runner-up.

In celebration of our 100th day of school our children were given the opportunity to dress as a 100-year-old person. It was incredible to see where their creativity and imagination took them. There are other activities involving numbers throughout the day.

January marked the beginning of a new journey for some of our students. Kindergarten and First grade girls were invited to join the newly formed Daisy Troop at St. Dominic School.

St. Mary School – Johnson City

Coming Soon!