We Are Called

During one of my first interviews for a principal job, the pastor was talking to me about joining that parish. I was only the third lay principal and would be the first one that had children. I was thinking about it for a second and told him that I knew God wanted me to be good mom before anything else.

The next couple of weeks we will be talking about vocations. It is important to think of the gifts God gives us and discern how to use them in the world. Sometimes that job changes over time. I think we need to help our children understand that God first calls us to a primary vocation - which is marriage, religious life or devout single life. God's plan for our happiness is best when we start with our primary vocation and then consider our gifts/skills.

Public schools are mandated to start career education in middle school. I think with our faith having us think about a primary vocation, we start earlier than that. See below for a contest -

Kathy Rhodes

To get our students thinking about their vocation - we have developed a sheet to help them identify their talents and think about how God may want them to use those gifts to serve Him in our vocation. Students who complete it and turn it in will have the opportunity to win lunch with lots of surprises with Mrs. Rhodes. Please share with them how you discerned and came to your primary (married life) and secondary vocation (career path). We know that God has great plans for each of our students and they will be happiest when they are following that plan.

Nov. 5 No School

Nov. 12 Mother/Son Event

Nov. 23 11:30 Dismissal

Dec. 14 Christmas Program K-5

April 20 Confirmation

No new covid cases this week.

In addition to covid, the cold and flu season is upon us. We have already seen a variety of different symptoms circulating around the school. I appreciate your prudence in keeping sick children home and me aware of all health scenarios. It is always important to be practicing healthy lifestyle choices, but especially during the fall and winter months, when viruses and other illnesses are more prevalent and easily spread.

Healthy habits include, but are not limited to:

-Frequent hand washing

-Avoid touching your nose, mouth and eyes

-Avoid sharing cups, devices, utensils and pencils

-Daily exercise

-Get at least 8-10 hours of sleep each night

-Get 8 cups of water each day (please send your children with a refillable water bottle to school)

-Do what you can to reduce added stress

-Add more protein, fruits and veggies to your diet and avoid excess sugar

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns or if I can help you in any way.

Nurse Mary

Just a reminder that it is in the handbook that pets are not allowed on school property. At the end of each day we try to be efficient so that everyone can get their evenings started.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090E4FABA62DAAF49-mother

Hi Sacred heart families!

I thank you for the responses for volunteers to help in the counseling department! I will be getting back to you all soon. I also wanted to make sure you are all aware that I will be showing the Sunflower House E safety video to middle school classes beginning as soon as next week (Nov 1-5) to 7th grade and will finish showing it to all middle school students by the time we leave for Christmas break. Please read the letter attached to the emailed link via educonnect and contact me if you have any questions or concerns about your child attending presentation.

Thank you and enjoy a fun Halloween weekend!

Lori Schierts

SHOJ counselor

Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) is in great need of more basketball officials this upcoming season. Games involving Grades 3 thru 8. Great way to earn some extra $$$. Minimum age requirement is a high school freshman. Training for new officials to be conducted in early November. If you are interested, please contact the CYO Office at 913-915-0139 or email at glabayen@gmail.com. Please do not contact the CYO office for additional information as we cannot provide any further guidance.

With gratitude,

Maureen Goetz

Catholic Youth Organization of Johnson & Wyandotte Counties

Director of Operations

Office: (913) 915-0139

School Families: Adoration for the wellbeing of parish students and teachers (signupgenius.com)

Your unique charity link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/48-0625990

Dear CYO Fall Sports Coaches,

Michele Coffey partners with me to get the CYO sports teams’ group shots into the yearbook. If you would like to make arrangements with her to get your team picture taken, her contact information is mcoffey1234@icloud.com

If you are not having Michele Coffey take your team’s photo, it is extremely important that you take a group photo of your team and email it to me to include in the yearbook. I am sending this out before the end of the season, so that you will have time to plan ahead and get a good “group shot” of your team in their uniforms. Once the season ends, it is very difficult to track down a well-lit photo with everyone in it. Generally, smaller teams have 2 rows of players, and larger teams have 3 rows. We love to have the coaches in the group shot, also!

If you are receiving this for Cross Country, please take team shots grouped by grade level (example: all the 4th graders in one shot) and send me one group photo of each grade that has participants.

Please send your team photo to: ami.barragree@shoj.org Include in the subject line the grade, sport, and coach’s name so we have the right information to put in the yearbook. It is important to send a “large” or “full size” photo, so that it is not grainy when we include it in the yearbook. If you send a photo, and do not receive a response “thank you” email from me within one school day, please check with me to see if it came through – occasionally our school spam filter catches emails with photo attachments & doesn’t send them through to me.

Thank you so much for all you do to support our youth in sports! We want to ensure that no team is left out of this year’s school yearbook.

God bless you!

Mrs. Ami Barragree

We love having parents in the building! After consulting with other principals and some parents, we are going to limit attendance to those who signed up to help. I understand that this is change but in trying to limit the number of people in the classrooms, we feel it is necessary. Some parents had a great idea to have the costume parade (weather permitting) at the end of the day on Oct. 29. We will figure out some details and let you know the plan as we get closer.

We are increasing the cost of seconds to $2 in November. This is necessary because of the cost of the food, for example we are charging less than our cost for a slice of pizza if we leave it at one dollar.

Near and Dear Day (formerly Grandparents Day). We will start with Mass at 8:15. Kids will find their grandparents in church. Immediately after Mass they will walk through the MPC and get donuts. They will then be able to visit the classrooms. Just a reminder, we are following the mandate of all adults in the building wearing masks. Grandparents will be able to check the students out in the classrooms for dismissal. It is a half day of school that day.

In the Archdiocese we are required to ensure safety through the Virtus program. You can find information on their site virtus.org. If you do not want your child to participate in the lesson, please email kathy.rhodes@shoj.org for the form by Nov. 8.

In an effort to help the students understand the consequences of their actions and give more immediate/meaningful consequences, the following changes will be implemented for this semester (and start over each semester) immediately to middle school behavior plan:

4 demerits= 1 week lunchroom duty and no recess starting immediately the next day for 1 week (Example: Wednesday-following Tuesday)

-Communication will be made to parents that their child has reached 4 demerits and will have lunch duty.

-If students are on lunchroom detention and are reprimanded with another demerit, immediate detention the next morning Morning detention (7:00am-7:30am) just sitting in library OR cleaning/completing tasks around the building.

8 demerits= in addition to another week of lunch duty/am detention, the student is given a warning behavior contract which parents sign acknowledging that another demerit will cause the contract to go into effect.

9 demerits= loss of privileges Contract remains in effect until there are three weeks without detentions.

12 demerits= ISS

Email: kathy.rhodes@shoj.org
Website: school.SHOJ.com
Location: 21801 Johnson Drive, Shawnee, KS, USA
Phone: 9134225520
Facebook: facebook.com/SacredHeartCatholicSchool