Principal Post

Principal Post, January 10, 2024

Dear Parents,

Winter weather has hit! I hope everyone received the communication about Tuesday’s cancellation and today’s late start. Please let the office know if you did not receive an email or text message so we can fix our contacts list in Power School.

Cancellation or Late Start Information

Where can you find notification of a school cancellation or late start?

·     Email is sent to parents

·     Text message to parents

·     School website under Recent News - https://www.stpaulcatholicschool.org/

·     School Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/SPSCatholic

·     KWQC Ch. 6 News Closings and Delays

·     We follow Davenport Community School District cancellations and delays due to busing. If you see Davenport has cancellation or delay due to weather, St. Paul’s posting will follow shortly.

January Panther Perks Turn in Tuesday

Due to the Snow Day yesterday, Panther Perks orders won’t be filled until next week. Our volunteers are only available on Tuesdays to fill orders. If you need your order filled before next week. You can take it to the Parish Office, and they will fill it. Orders turned in for this week’s Turn in Tuesday will be credited for the February Turn in Tuesday Out of Uniform.

Time Sensitive - Returning Students for the 2024-2025 School Year

Please look for an email next week on January 16 or 17 for information about re-enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year for returning students. The process is easy for all students who are currently attending St. Paul’s. Using the link, we will provide next week; parents will use their PowerSchool username and password to log in. Once logged in, you will update each returning student’s information. Once completed you will receive and email confirmation that the process is complete.

Due to our classes filling up because of the influx of students getting ESA’s, we need all returning students information updated by February 1.

Early Outs, Days Off and Fun Events

January 12 – 2-hour Early Dismissal, End of 1^st Semester

January 20 – Spruce Up the School

January 25 – Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Mass at 5:30 PM

January 27 – Celebrate St. Paul’s Adult Social in Denning Hall, more details to come

January 28 – Catholic Schools Week Open House and Boy Scout Pancake Breakfast

January 29 – February 2 Catholic Schools Week Celebration Activities

Not New, but Important

Books, Resources and Apps

Thank you for partnering with St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School in your child’s education. We believe parents are the primary educator of their children, especially when it comes to their faith. Our goal at St. Paul’s is to provide a faith-based education that follows the Catholic Church’s teaching in all areas of faith and morality.

With that in mind, I want to let parents know that all our faculty and staff do their very best to preview all books, materials, and apps that the students use at school to ensure it aligns with our Catholic teachings. In our professional development meetings yesterday, we discussed best practices for reviewing and selecting curricular materials. We will continue to keep this discussion as a priority. Even with the amount that we monitor these materials, at times something may be inadvertently missed. If your child should bring home something that concerns you, please contact your child’s teacher. They are doing their best and would appreciate you reaching out to them.

Digital Resources – Digital Resources are constantly changing; therefore, we must continually monitor these resources. The apps we use are great learning tools. Because we use the free version of many of these apps, we do need to monitor the ads that appear. To eliminate ads, it would take quite a bit of our financial resources, for this reason we will need to remain vigilant.

School iPads – When at school, the iPads students use is filtered by our network filters. This is a very tight filter that hone in on key words to filter out inappropriate content. When your child uses their school iPad at home, our network software doesn’t travel with them. The only filter is what you have on your home network. Keeping this in mind, if your child is using their school iPad at home, you will want to monitor what they are accessing.

ESA Families

ESA funding for 2nd semester is now available. The process to initiate funding is like 1^st semester.   

School action:

• SCCS will review tuition and fees for all current students and adjust the amount to be charged for 2^nd semester, if necessary. 
• In some cases, SCCS may add band, algebra, and/or sport fees, as well as PSAT and/or AP test fees. (These options were not available 1^st semester.) 

Parent/Guardian action:

• Odyssey will automatically notify you that an invoice is available to review
• Review the invoice at Odyssey. If you have questions, please contact Bobbie Goetsch at (studentaccounts@sccsiowa.com or 563-326-5313 ext 282) 
• To maintain ESA eligibility, approve payment through Odyssey https://iowa.withodyssey.com/ soon as possible. Our goal is to have 100% of our families accept 2^nd semester tuition and fees by January 10th.