Congratulations to Fifth Grader Adrianna Vandross. Recently she was named Greenville County’s Grand Prize Winner for her Red Ribbon Poster. Adrianna was honored at County Square on December 9. She was treated to lunch and received a $100 prize. Her teacher Donna Barkey, classmates, and the entire school applaud Adrianna on her award!
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School held its annual Talent Show on Friday, November 19. It was a wonderful success with lots of singing, dancing, art, and even poetry readings!
The students perform a Thanksgiving song.
A poetry reading.
Fifth/Sixth grade teacher Donna Barkey emcees the show.
Greenville County First Steps presented St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School with a pledge of $85,000 to expand K3 and K4 programs for the 2010-2011 school year.
The classes will operate on a Perry Preschool Model, which combines the classroom setting with the child’s home setting. This is part of a three-year study between the High/Scope Educational Foundation and Clemson University that focuses on curriculum and home visiting.
Classes will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 pm, Monday through Friday, with after class care available on site until 6:00 p.m. for a fee.
The classes will have small numbers of students for more individualized attention. The teachers are High/Scope Curriculum trained. Classroom teachers will do a weekly home visit with the child and parent or guardian. The home visit will include a variety of learning activities.
On Friday, June 4, we had our Moving Up Day 2010 and Family Picnic for our students, parents, siblings, teachers and staff. This was a wonderful time for us to celebrate the end of a great school year with all of our students and their families!
During the Opening Prayer Service in the chapel, we gave out report cards and students moved to their new spot in the chapel to sit with their new teacher. After the service, students and their parents visited their classrooms for next year.
Afterward, everyone enjoyed a picnic lunch and of course dancing to the tunes of our favorite deejay, Father Patrick!
On Thursday, June 3, four St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School students were honored at the Graduation Mass. Congratulations to the Class of 2010: Megan Rochelle Cooper, Antoine Samuel Vaughn, Maria Valentia Vasquez-Zuniga, and Keyannia Nashae Whitlow.
In honor of Better Speech and Hearing Month in May, Clarity administered hearing and speech screenings at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School. Clarity is a non-profit agency that provides speech and language, learning and psychology, and hearing and audiology assessment and treatment. The organization’s goal was to reach more children by doing on-site screenings at individual schools.
All K3-Grade 6 students were tested for hearing and K3-Grade 3 were tested for speech. Clarity also brought a special guest to meet the children: Miss Oconee County Teen, Amanda Maughan. She was diagnosed with dyslexia at Clarity several years ago.
Amanda will be competing at the Miss SC Teen pageant this month. Her platform is dyslexia. She wanted to give back to the organization since it helped her overcome challenges with dyslexia, She volunteers at screenings and other events.
Clarity’s clinicians thought that St. Anthony’s students tested well and were very attentive and well behaved. “This shows that the work of the teachers and volunteers at St. Anthony’s is very advanced. We loved testing the students and will look at the possibility of making this an annual event there!” says Casey Sanders, Clarity’s Director of Communications and Development.
(A special thank you to Casey Sanders for providing the background information for this blog post!)
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School recently was named Safe Kids School for 2010 by Safe Kids Upstate. This organization is led by the Greenville Hospital System Children’s Hospital.
To be considered a Safe Kids School, we had to successfully complete five of eleven safety initiatives offered by Safe Kids Upstate. A few of those initiatives included participation in a Student Safety Patrol program and a Fire Safety program, as well as hosting a PTO meeting that featured safety topics.
Sister Mary Jane Reisdorf leads our Safety Program. She, along with other 2010 Safe Kids School safety staff and leadership, were honored at a breakfast earlier this month.
Lookin' good in the neighborhood.
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School received a 2010 Outstanding Board Award from the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) during its Annual Convention in Minneapolis on April 6-8. St. Anthony’s is one of five schools nationwide to receive the award this year.
“St. Anthony’s board should feel very proud. This national recognition is based on success criteria and researched benchmarks,” says Dr. Regina Haney, Executive Director, Department of Boards and Councils, NCEA. “St. Anthony’s board and committees have demonstrated that what they’re doing works: making a difference and keeping the school viable to ensure its future. It takes a team effort and hard work to produce such great results, so that one day, their students can also give back to school and society.”
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School Advisory Board Chair Erena Allen says, “Members of this board have toiled long and hard in pursuit of nothing less than the ultimate best for St. Anthony’s students and staff. We’re not a school of significant means, but we possess an abundance of faith, love and dedication that nurtures our students and encourages their success and willingness to give back to the community. Witnessing this is in and of itself the greatest award of all.”
Erena Allen, Sister Catherine and Father Patrick
Allen also insists that the work and efforts began years before she became the chair of the board. Principal Sister Catherine Noecker, OSF, says that board members Alan Cooper and Mary Corner have done so much over the past several years to get the board “organized.”
“When the word came from Sister Julia Hutchison, SND, our Diocese of Charleston Catholic Schools Superintendent, that they were nominating us for the award, I was super delighted,” says Sr. Noecker, principal of St. Anthony’s School since 1988. “It’s been obvious over the past five years that ours is a group that ‘shows up’ and does the work! Not only at the local school level either. Any time there’s been a regional or diocesan gathering, meeting or workshop, our board has been the most represented—and, with usually Father Patrick the only pastor present! We definitely are a ‘work in progress’ and the fruits of hard labor can be witnessed in the committee reports at each meeting.”
Father Patrick Tuttle, OSM, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church and School, adds, “I believe St. Anthony’s has been recognized for the new and total commitment to the Diocesan process of proper board formation. We listened and implemented everything we could. I think it’s a reward for growth and development and not that we are the best.”
“I admit proudly that the best boards are the ones who grow and develop. We’re hugely grateful to God for our graduation rates, our selfless teachers, our long-time principal, and the trust of our parents,” says Fr. Tuttle. “In the future we’ll need to address the relationship our school has to the new A.J. Whittenberg School, the Kroc Center and the City of Greenville’s needs for education. We’re a partnering people.”
On March 13, our principal Sister Catherine Noecker was honored at the annual Black Catholic Day of Reflection. This event is sponsored by the Diocese of Charleston’s Office of Ethnic Ministries.
Sister Catherine is celebrating her 50th jubilee: her 50th anniversary as a religious. Father Paul Williams, pastor of St. Martin de Porres Church in Columbia, S.C., presented her with the St. Francis Medal, a special honor from the Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province given to Franciscan priests and religious for outstanding achievement.
Sister Catherine was thanked for her years of commitment to the school mission, even during the leanest times of our existence. Sister Catherine sees this honor as a challenge to strive harder – as she would probably say, “to keep on keepin’.”
Getting to know Sister Catherine for more than a year now, I know she wouldn’t want me to blog about this award because she doesn’t want the spotlight on her. But, I’m doing it anyway. I’m thankful for the chance to work with you. You’re a friend, a mentor.
To read more about this event and award, go to the complete article on the Catholic Miscellany web site.
Ten-year-old Jeremiah Whitlow has been playing chess for about a year and a half for the St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School Chess Team. As one of the original members of the team, he joined because he had watched chess matches on TV and thought it looked fun. Jeremiah tried it out and found he just got better at chess as he continued to play. And, he was still having a good time.
In late February at the South Carolina Grand Prix Scholastic Chess Tournament in Columbia, S.C., he defeated three players and lost one round to win the K through 5 section of the monthly tournament. Jeremiah won despite the fact that he had to wake up before 6 a.m. to travel two hours to the meet!
He says that another reason he loves chess is because it has helped him to think. His grades are good because he has learned to focus better-and he has to keep his grades up to stay on the team.
Jeremiah is a great ambassador for our school! He has earned a United States Chess Federation Rating of 500 and will head for the S.C. State Championship later this month.