Joyfully Embracing Our Mission

You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?

It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;

it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.

Just so, your light must shine before others,

that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

~ Matthew 5:13-16

Happy New Year! I love Isaiah’s imagery of LIGHT in the First Reading celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord. How fitting for this year’s theme, “Come, live in the light!”

Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,

the glory of the Lord shines upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth,

and thick clouds cover the peoples;

but upon you the LORD shines,

and over you appears his glory.

Nations shall walk by your light,

and kings by your shining radiance.

Raise your eyes and look about;

they all gather and come to you:

your sons come from afar,

and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.

Then you shall be radiant at what you see,

your heart shall throb and overflow,

for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,

the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.

Caravans of camels shall fill you,

dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;

all from Sheba shall come

bearing gold and frankincense,

and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.

As we begin the new decade, it’s hard not to speculate what the next ten years will bring us. Are we looking at this generation’s Roaring 20s: an era of social, political, cultural and industrial paradigm shifts? Will we “Rise up in splendor” at our LIGHT that has come?

SCHOOL RESUMES MONDAY, JANUARY 6

As we’ve communicated, we begin school on Monday, January 6. We are grateful for your patience with this change. Please make sure your calendars show that we will have the Teacher In-Service on Tuesday, January 21, but the School Office will remain open and that CKZ will be available from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M. on this day for those who need it. Please respond to the ParentSquare post asking if your child will be attending CKZ on this day so that we can arrange for appropriate staffing.

READING FOR FUN AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!

We hope your students had plenty of opportunities to read for fun over break. Data after data speaks to the benefits of reading. Renaissance (parent company of STAR assessments) states, “15 minutes seems to be the “magic number” at which students start seeing substantial positive gains in reading achievement; students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day see the greatest gains of all.” Read the complete article HERE.

2020-2021 REGISTRATION

The portals to register for the 2020-2021 School Year and to apply for Tuition Assistance using FACTS are now available. Soon, you will be receiving your Registration Packet which will include the 2020-2021 Tuition Agreement. If you would like to be considered to receive the Catholic tuition discount, please be sure to save a copy of the tax (donation) letter your parish will be sending you shortly. Please stay tuned for more information in the next couple of weeks.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

As always, your homeroom teacher is your first point of contact regarding anything related to your child(ren). If you have questions outside of this realm, please reach out to your PTG Room Reps or the school office.

REMINDERS: HEALTH AND SAFETY | ATTENDANCE

Please remember to keep students at home if they exhibit symptoms that might contaminate classmates and teachers. The Santa Clara County Public Health site and our Parent and Student Handbook give this guideline:

In general, children should stay home if they have a fever of 100.0 °F or above and they should not return for at least 24 hours after the last fever (without fever-reducing medicines).

Additionally, a child should stay home if they are unable to comfortably participate in classroom learning/activities, or teachers determine that they cannot care for the child without compromising their ability to care for the health and safety of the other children in the group, even if their illness is not listed as an excludable illness.​

Please remember to call or email the school office and copy your child(ren)’s teacher(s) if your child will not be at school. In addition, when your child returns to school, please email the school office and copy the teacher(s) noting the day(s) of absence and the reason for the absence. This is a requirement under the state’s Ed Code.

LOOKING FORWARD TO CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

Please save the date for our Catholic Schools Week Family Mass and Pancake Breakfast on Sunday, January 26 followed by our January Open House. We especially invite our St. Clare alums to check-in with us and reconnect, recollect and support St. Clare School. Student Council and Student Ambassadors will be planning activities to celebrate who we are as a Catholic School in the Diocese of San Jose. Please make plans to participate.

LOG HOURS IN PARENTSQUARE

Remember to log in Serving St. Clare hours in ParentSquare. Here’s the POST reminding you to do so! Hours that remain unfulfilled by May 31, 2020 will be billed directly to your FACTS account at $25/hour. Look for opportunities to volunteer: daily hot lunch service, daily yard duty, Saturday work days, art volunteers and other classroom volunteers. Upcoming opportunities include: attendance at PTG meetings, Pancake Breakfast, Catholic Schools Week, Golf Tournament, Lunar New Year and WCEA Visit. Call Ms. Teresea for other ideas.

GRATITUDE FOR YOUR LIGHT

As always, your generosity is not lost on us. We are grateful to many of you who have completed your hours in October and continue to volunteer joyfully and willingly. You are why this community thrives. You have responded to the invitation to “Come, live in the light!”

LEAD WITH LOVE

As we contemplate Christ’s manifestation to the Magi, what will our role be as parents and grandparents to our children in this next decade? What kind of humans are we raising and what kind of parenting role models are we to our children? My hope is that we are raising children who will LEAD with LOVE: that they will know to defend the downtrodden, to be merciful to those who seek mercy, and to make the hard choice to be compassionate to all.

It’s certainly the example set by the Three Wise Men who were instructed by Herod to report the location of the child who would be king so that he may “worship” him; instead, they heeded the dream not to report Jesus’ location because of Herod’s plan to kill the newborn king and made the difficult choice to take different paths home so that we would be saved.

As we celebrate Los Tres Reyes Magos, may we find joy in the manifestation of Christ in our every day lives!

Joyfully in Christ,

Mrs. Cecile Mantecon, Principal

The 2019-2020 St. Clare School is now available for public consumption. You will find the calendar in a number of places. They all sync to the Google Public Calendar for our school, so you can trust that these calendars are current.

To find the calendar in our school website, go to https://www.stclare.school/ and scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Calendar" icon (third from the left) or visit https://www.stclare.school/calendar.

To find the calendar in ParentSquare, go to your HOME page and look for "EVENTS" and click on "view all".

To subscribe and add the St. Clare School Public Calendar to your calendar app, use this link:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/drexelschools.org_u0vj6uj1r91qlk8hu9uk1t7qro%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

• 1/6 St. Clare School Classes Resume
• 1/6 STAR Assessment Window begins
• 1/7 PTG Meeting, 6:30P, MakerSpace/Art
• 1/10 Prayer Service, 8:45A, Church
• 1/11, 1/25 HSPT for Catholic High School Admissions
• 1/14 3rd Grade to DeAnza Planetarium
• 1/16 Free Dress for those with PASSES
• 1/17 School Mass, 9A, Church
• 1/20 No School: Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observed
• 1/21 No School: Teacher In-Service | CKZ Available to those who RSVP
• 1/22 A Cup with the Principal
• 1/23 Free Dress for those with PASSES
• 1/24 Spirit Shirts with Uniform Bottoms
• 1/24 Graduation Photos for the Class of 2020!
• 1/26 Catholic Schools Week Mass at 9A
• 1/26 Pancake Breakfast following Sunday morning masses
• 1/26 January Open House, 10A-1P | Welcome, alums!

Email: office@stclareschool.org
Website: https://www.stclare.school
Location: 725 Washington Street, Santa Clara, CA, USA
Phone: 408 246-6797