March 15, 2015
Dear St. Raphael School Families and Parishioners,
Thanks to everyone who helped make our 2015 Grandparents and Special Friends Day such a success! A Big SHOUTOUT of thanks to Mary Guenther, Missy Weber, Stephanie Amsler, Chris Federspiel, and Mark Schisler for all their leadership and coordinating to make this a wonderful experience for all.
We have reached the end of our 3 ^rd Quarter and are now heading into the final learning period for the school year. It’s been a year of big changes to our grading and reporting system, and we are all feeling much more comfortable with it now than we were at the beginning of the school year. We’ve learned a lot about how we evaluate kids, and how we can improve our processes. I want you to know that school parents will be receiving a survey in the coming weeks so that we can get your feedback on the first year of our new system. We are talking with students all the time about grading, and we find that once they understand the grading system, their feedback is positive. Students have noticed things like, “Now I know that I’m not bad at Math, I just need to work on Decimals,” and “It’s cool that you don’t fail because you didn’t understand something right away,” and “I like that the 4’s really mean something special.”
We may make some small tweaks and changes to the grading and reporting system, based on feedback from parents, students, and teachers. Our goal is to make our grading system as clear and accurate as possible, and to make sure that our system encourages learning instead of discouraging it!
School is on Spring Break this coming week, so the halls will be quiet while teachers and students take a well-deserved rest from school. Please help us to keep students focused on learning when they return for the final weeks of the school year.
Looking Ahead…

• March 16-20……………………….Spring Break for K-8, Preschool will be in session
• March 21^st………………………….Mouse Races fundraiser for 8^th Grade Mystery Trip
• March 25^th………………………….Special School Mass, Annunciation of the Lord,

Peace & Blessings,
Kim Vangel
Principal