January Parent Press

PARENT PRESS

Engaged, Inspired and Prepared with Character, Integrity and Respect A Newsletter for the St. Paul’s Family

Jan. 2012

Academic

Spirituality

Arts

Athletics

Let There Be Light! & Pig Dissection

Community Service

3D Design Paper Airplane Contest

Region Football Team & State Swim Meet

January Calendar 10

Tuesdays at Two prayer time for parents

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Finding Kind cohosted @ UMS 5:30pm

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Open House grades 3-4 5:30pm

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VGBB @ Spanish Fort 6:00pm BVBB v. Spanish Fort 7:30pm

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MS Girls Basketball Tournament 8:30am 8th Grade Boys BB League Tournament 9:00am BVBB v. Foley 5:30pm

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Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday 8th Grade Class Trip 16-19 VGBB @ Citronelle High School 4:30pm BVBB v. Citronelle 6:00pm

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Boys V/JV Tennis Tryouts 17-19 3:30pm

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VGBB v. Faith Academy 6:00pm BVBB v. Faith Academy 7:30pm

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All State Band Tryouts 8:00am

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Ms. Dyess’ transitional kindergarten class visits the Mobile Carnival Museum GV Tennis Tryouts 3:30pm GV Soccer @ St. Paul’s Skillet

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VGBB v. Spanish Fort 6:00pm BVBB v. Spanish Fort 7:30pm

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3rd Grade Field Trip Senior Cap & Gown Portraits 8:00am Senior Lunch 11:45

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VGBB @ McGill-Toolen High School 6:00pm BVBB v. McGill-Toolen 7:30pm

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VB & JVB golf qualifying Dec. 30-Feb. 3 12:10pm

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Online Reenrollment Due 1:00pm VGBB v. Theodore (Senior Night) 6:00pm BVBB v. Theodore 7:30pm

How to Get Around On St. Paul’s New Website St. Paul’s Episcopal School recently launched a beautiful new website. Here are some tips on how to get to where you need to go on the site.

Login The first thing you need to do upon reaching the new website is log in. To log in, mouse over to the top right corner and click the white word that says Login. This will bring you to your login page where you will type in your username and password. Your username and password will be the same one you used for NetClassroom.

My Page Once you have entered your username and password, you will be brought to your My Page where you can access information specific to your relationship with St. Paul’s.

From your My Page you can find information about your children, update your contact information, edit your privacy settings etc. If you want to get to your child’s block schedule, click on your child’s name and then click on the tab that says schedule.

Master Calendar The Master Calendar is where all the school’s events and deadlines are located. You can find a link to it on the left side of your My Page. Each user may choose how to make the Master Calendar best meet your needs. You may look at a single day or a specific date range. Hovering over an event will reveal more information and clicking on an event will show all details. On the left side you will also see Announcements for school news.

AROUND CAMPUS Community Service is a Big Part of Spirituality St. Paul’s Episcopal School is committed to helping others through our Community Service Program, Service Leadership Courses, and Philanthropy Ambassadors. When we say we want to help others, we really mean it. Every grade at St. Paul’s is involved in community service, and we have a different project going on all the time.

The community service hours for first semester provids an example of the amount of time and dedication St. Paul’s gives to the community.

According to Laura McGee, St. Paul’s students have completed 14,114 service hours. Keep in mind that this total is only for the first half of the year. Based on the 2010 service rate, St. Paul’s students have given $310,475 to the community.

Seniors delivered gifts to the Prison Fellowship drop off location.

The projects noted here highlight only a fraction of the projects students were involved in last December.

Loading Angel Tree Gifts St. Paul’s students, faculty, staff, and parents adopted 219 angels for the holiday season. The names and wishes of the angels were provided by The Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Program, Mobile Police Department’s Family Intervention Team, Roger Williams Day Care, and Wilmer and Semmes Elementary School.

Sixth grade students loaded 2 buses with the gifts.

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Seventh grade students loaded 2 buses full of gifts for the Roger Williams Day Care and the Mobile Police Department’s Family Intervention Team clients.

Philanthropy Ambassadors

On Friday, Dec. 16, 7th grade Philanthropy Ambassadors from St. Paul’s visited the Roger Williams Daycare Center and helped Santa distribute 64 stockings for children ages 6 months to 11 years old. The Philanthropy Ambassadors group began planning in September. They had a fundraiser at school to pay for the stockings, the decorations, and the gifts. Santa distributed the gifts at the Christmas party.

AROUND CAMPUS

Let There Be Light!

Lida Cotton’s first grade class recently completed a study on electricity. Students had to make a complete circuit from a battery and piece together the items correctly to make their light bulb light up and make the electromagnet (nail wrapped with wire) become magnetized. According to Mrs. Cotton, “The children enjoyed our investigations on electricity!”

Pig Dissection Dr. Lyn Franklin taught the ninth grade class all the 11 systems of the human body during the second quarter including: nervous, skeletal, muscular, integumentary (skin), digestive, endocrine, excretory, respiratory, lymphatic, circulatory, and reproductive.

The pig dissection was a hands on learning experience for the students. Students worked in pairs to dissect the fetal pigs. The dissection was an extraordinary way to visualize the 11 systems they studied. According to Dr. Franklin, “All the students really appreciated this opportunity and enjoyed the lab.”

Dress as Your Favorite Greek God In Linda Garver’s freshman English class last semester, students chose their favorite character from Greek mythology and dressed the part. Students then had to present the character they chose while in costume. In order to see more of the outfits that the students came up with, check the photo gallery under academics on the St. Paul’s website.

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AROUND CAMPUS SPS Players Make All Region Football Team

St. Paul’s Swimmers Shine at State Meet The St. Paul’s Men’s and Women’s swim teams competed in the 2011 AHSAA State Swim and Dive Championships at James E. Martin Aquatic Center in Auburn University. The Lady Saints team led the way with a Third Place team finish following Hoover and Grissom - both 6A schools. All 5 of the female qualifiers will return next season for a run at the Women’s State Championship.

In the Women’s 200 Freestyle Relay, the Saints earned a Silver Medal and State Runner Up. Another key swim for the Saints came in the 400 Freestyle Relay. The team of Brown, Whiston, Everett, and Molyneux also earned a Silver Medal and State Runner Up, narrowly missing the previous state high school record.

Juniors Cooper Brown and Grace Molyneux set the pace for the team in the individual competition with Top 5 finishes in each of their events. Cooper Brown was the Silver Medalist in the Women’s 200 Freestyle. Both of Brown’s events were lifetime best times, and the 500 Freestyle was a City of Mobile swimming record.

Grace Molyneux swam the Women’s 100 Freestyle and achieved another Junior National time and earned a 2nd Place finish.

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On the Men’s side, the team’s relays finished 7th in the 200 Medley Relay and 5th in the 400 Freestyle Relay. Freshman Slater Whiston was the State Bronze Medalist in two events: the Men’s 200 Freestyle, in a time of 1:44.36, and also in the Men’s 500 Freestyle. Whiston’s finishes were the highest by a St. Paul’s male swimmer since 2009 State Champion and current Auburn swimmer Spencer Kerns.

We are pleased to announce that the following members of our football team have been recognized for their outstanding performance this past football season. They have been chosen for the Mobile Press Register’s 4A-6A All Region Football Team.

First team: Defense - Jack Gilmore, LB; Trey Williams, DB; Kylen Towner, ATH. Second team: Offense - Jordan Huff, RB; Josh Casher, OL. Second team: Defense - Bryan Slater, DL. Honorable Mention: Jared Holloway; Ostin McPherson.

These young men have represented our school well, and we are extremely proud of them.

Basketball Updates

Varsity boys are currently 18-2 for the year and ranked #2 in the 5A Alabama Sportswriters State Basketball poll. The next game will be on the 13th at 7:30 pm at Spanish Fort High School.

The Varsity Girls Basketball Team is currently 11-4 (1-1 in 5A Area 1). The next game will be on the 13th at 6:00pm at Spanish Fort High School.

AROUND CAMPUS

3D Design Paper Airplane Contest

First Light Kid’s Marathon On January 8th, a large group of St. Paul’s Lower School Kids participated in the “Five Points of Life” Kids Marathon downtown. Our Lower School P.E. teachers encouraged participation by sending home flyers for registration and helping the children log the miles they walked/ran in P.E. prior to the race.

According to the Five Points of Life website, “The goal of the Kids Marathon is to promote good health and physical fitness by giving kids the opportunity to run or walk an entire 26.2 miles, just like marathoners.

To participate kids, Kindergarten through 8th grade, complete 25 miles, one at a time, during the months prior to the marathon, logging each mile on the log sheet. To finish the full marathon kids ran the last 1.2 miles on January 8, 2012 at 1:30 p.m. at the NW Corner of Bienville Square (St. Francis and Conception Streets).

All participants recieved a Kids Marathon Mobile race packet, race number (must be worn on race day), t-shirt and finishers medal.”

Julie Kogon’s 7th grade 3D design classes created paper airplanes focusing on one of two categories: aerodynamics and aesthetics.

Avery Lancaster: best flying plane.

Last semester St. Paul’s presented the powerful documentary “Finding Kind” that is part of a kindness campaign that deals with mean-girl issues. This week St. Paul’s is proud to partner with UMS-Wright to offer it again on Wednesday, January 11 at 5:30 at the UMSWright theater.

On January 12 we will also be holding a presentation for 11th and 12th grade girls at 8:20am at St. Paul’s along with a presentation for 5th-10th grade girls following at 9:45 am.

Jeb Milling: best artistic design.

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Parent Council Houndstooth

The Art Of Giving Saints’ Night Out March 16, 2012

This month’s Parent Council’s meeting notes and event pictures will appear in the February edition of the Parent Press. As always, St. Paul’s appreciates the work done

by Parent Council members, and we express our thanks to those who volunteer their time.

Annual Fund Update

Sponsored By Saints’ Night Out is excited to welcome and thank SPRINGHILL TOYOTA as its sponsor for The Art of Giving 2012. Please remember to thank the owner of Springhill Toyota, Tal Vickers and his wife Julie, for their generous support of St. Paul’s Episcopal School. Tal and Julie are the parents of Sims (10th grade), Dobbson (7th grade) and Sage (4th grade). The Vickers family are truly embracing the art of giving!

You, too, can embrace the giving spirit now by participating in the new BUY IT NOW section of our auction! On January 19, seven exciting packages for trips around the nation will be available for purchase on the St. Paul’s website. Look for family trips to Washington D.C., Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, and an Indystyle racing trip! Couple trips included in BUY IT NOW include a romantic and delicious trip to Charleston, South Carolina, a Ritz Carlton stay in a major city, and a shopping trip to Chicago. Don’t forget Spring Break!

There is a fabulous skiing trip to Lake Tahoe for four! No bidding is necessary, just simply click the BUY IT NOW button and the experience is yours! Act quickly, because once someone purchases the package, it is gone! BUY IT NOW will be available from January 19 until January 29. Be sure to check the website for more details about each exciting package!

We currently have pledged $293,173.99 as of 1-192012. Our goal is $375,000 by May 31, 2012. We are currently 78% to goal.

Our goal is 100% participation from all current parents and 50% participation from all Alumni 1974-2005.

One Gift, One Time a Year, No Matter what the Amount.

Every gift makes a dramatic difference in the way we teach your children and our students!

It helps us to develop Engaged, Inspired and Prepared Students with Character, Integrity and Respect.

Logos: Crest

Please submit Alumni Success stories, news, and spotlights to Carey Golden at cgolden@stpaulsmobile.net.

Engaged, Inspired, and Prepared with Character, Integrity, and Respect.

It’s what we teach.

It’s what we learn.

It’s what we live.