Parent Update - July 27, 2020

July 27, 2020

Dear Parents of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School,

Greetings! We are working diligently preparing for the return of your students --- on-campus and remotely --- on August 12^th! 

We still have about ¼ of our families who have not completed our 1^st Quarter Learning Preference Survey. If you have not yet completed, please do this as soon as possible using this link: https://staopcs.org/student-learning-choice. If you have previously submitted and want to change your preference, you have until this Friday, July 31^st, to complete. Remember that during the quarter, you may switch from on-campus to remote but not the reverse. 

Please mark your calendars that there has been an adjustment to the first week of school. As has been on our calendar, we have a ½ day on Wednesday, August 12^th, which is our tradition for the first day of school. We will also have ½ days on Thursday, August 13^th and Friday, August 14^th. By allowing for ½ days, we are able to accomplish many things: establish arrival, dismissal and transition protocols on campus with our students, add in our lunch program the following week, limit any movement by beginning auxiliary classes the following week, meet with teachers daily to address any concerns and make necessary improvements, allow teachers to provide extra support to remote learners, deeply clean classrooms and more. For those needing full-day care, students may attend Beyond the Bell on Thursday and Friday. To still meet all calendar guidelines, October 16^th, will now be a full day of classes. Our updated school calendar is attached.

Meet the Teacher will be a virtual event this year. We know this is disappointing as we all look forward to the opportunity to meet our teachers in person before classes begin. I promise we are working to make this as special as possible and will take extra time at the start of school to get to know you and your students. 

I want to share what our numbers look like at this point. Currently, we have 9.96% of families who have chosen remote learning for the first quarter. 90.04% of families have opted for in-person learning. We are still waiting for about 140 students’ preferences to be submitted. 

Thank you for doing all that you can to take care of yourselves so that we have a safe and healthy return to campus. Please practice wearing masks so this is not new to your children. Please follow all CDC recommendations so that we take care of ourselves and the broader community. 

Finally, to review previously sent materials, or to look at our review our Return to Learning plan, please visit our website at: https://staopcs.org/reopeningplans. This page continues to be updated. 

Only by His Grace,
Veronica Tucker
Principal