Saint Francis Fall Newsletter 2019-2020

SAINT FRANCIS Welcome everyone to the 2019-2020 school year. This school year is off to a great start. Our school population has increased, and we have hired 3 new teachers. We welcome Mr. Wickham, Mr. Vizina and Mrs. Bauman into our school community. Saint Francis has approximately 1630 students, with 552 grade 10 students, 492 grade 11 students and our graduating class of 2020 has 585 students.

The Saint Francis administrative team remains the same for the second year in a row. It consists of Mr. Berger, Principal, and Vice Principals, Mrs. LeBlanc, Mr. Dudar, Mr. Hill and Mrs. Lingelbach. If you have any concerns or suggestions please feel free to contact the administration team for assistance.

Over the summer, the construction crews completed the Cafeteria, Culinary Arts kitchen, the Chapel, and the north stairwell entrance. Work still continues on the Northmount front entrance and the new Fitness/Drama Studio. We are still waiting to gain access to the Brown Gym, STEAM Lab and washrooms located in A Hallway. Hopefully, we will have access to these areas in the upcoming weeks. Flooring and painting will continue throughout the school year, and we hope that the solar panels will be installed before the start of Semester 2.

This is the first year that our students and staff have enjoyed student prepared meals from our new culinary kitchen. The food is affordable ($5 and less), nutritious and delicious. We are truly amazed with the large number of students and staff who are purchasing meals during the lunch hour on a daily basis. It has been a real treat not having to make our lunches! We wish to thank Mr. Neil, Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Woolnough for their hard work and efforts towards opening the culinary arts kitchen this year.

We are in the process of reviewing our Diploma and Accountability Pillar results. On October 11, Professional Development Day, we will facilitate this process. At Saint Francis we strive to improve our results and our school community—we have much to celebrate. Our school’s Three -Year Goals and Annual Educational Results Report (AERR) will be published on our website mid-November. This information will be presented in detail at our School Council meeting on November 19 at 5:00 p.m. Our council parents are passionate about Saint Francis and our students. We invite parents to join our council and attend the meetings.

During the opening address to students, we focused on how the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis promotes love, kindness, and the virtues of mercy and forgiveness. We are fortunate to be part of a school community blessed with a long history that is rich in tradition. Students were informed of the supports the school community offers to ensure their success. Our students know the qualities of what it means to be a Saint Francis student, or as we say a “Brown”.

Our Fine Arts department is focusing its efforts on fine tuning the fall production, “Annie”. The play will run November 26, 27, 28 and December 3, 4 and 5, the Gala is on December 4. The Fine Arts Gala is a perfect opportunity to showcase the artistic talent of our students in music, drama, dance, culinary and art.

Our fall sports activities are in full swing, they include: junior and senior volleyball, junior and senior football, swimming, girls’ soccer and crosscountry running. So far, we have experienced great success at all levels in our sporting events.

Students are advised to check our website, D2L and our Daily announcements for all events and activities.

Final Word Saint Francis is a community that is committed to learning excellence. We set high expectations for ourselves and our students. Our staff will deliver outstanding educational programming for your son or daughter to help them achieve their full potentials. To do so, we require the assistance and feedback from all stakeholder groups. Parents are welcome to volunteer their time to support our many programs and events.

Please feel free to contact the school and let us know how we are doing.

The Staff of Saint Francis