December 7, 2014
Dear St. Raphael School Families and Parishioners,

Last week I had the pleasure of spending a day with Sophie DiMartino, one of our students in 6 ^th Grade. Sophie’s family bid on the Principal for a Day item at the Black & Gold Auction and won. Sophie had a great day as Principal, declaring a “Dress Up Day,” sponsoring movies, providing movie theater popcorn for everyone, and supervising free play time in the gym. It was quite a day! Thanks to Sophie and her family for a fun experience and for supporting our school!

With the colder weather, I have noticed a number of parents who come to school during the school day are driving through the cones on the parking lot and pulling up to the main entrance. I ask you to PLEASE respect our efforts at keeping children safe, and park in the parking lot area that is not coned off as the safe area for students.

I would like to share some information with you about Preschool and our Math program; there is much good news here, and I hope you’ll help me spread the word. First, our Preschool structure changed a bit this year, going from 3 classrooms to 2 classrooms. However, our enrollment in Preschool this year is actually HIGHER than it was last year! We have 61 children this year, compared to 59 children last year. How are we doing this? We have two fantastic lead teachers, Abby Sarich and Chris Federspiel. And we have an extraordinary staff of teacher aids who float from room to room. It’s been a wonderful change for us, and our Preschool program is in such high demand that we now have a Waiting List for the first time!

Second, we have great things happening in Math all around the building. You may remember that we hired a Math Consultant last school year, generously funded by the PTA, to help us identify weaknesses in our overall Math program. We rewrote the Math curriculum, and have implemented many of the teaching strategies suggested by our consultant. Two of our math teachers, Mrs. Polson and Miss Imo, are participating in the Urban Math Institute, a 3-year training program for elementary math teachers, learning new and challenging methods for teaching math. We’ve increased the amount of math instruction time for all students in Grades 4-8, in some cases actually doubling their math time. Our students in K-8 use a daily Math review and challenge system called Simple Solutions, which has been very well received this year. And Mrs. Berns has partnered with Saint Louis University to provide free math tutoring after school, twice a week, with SLU student volunteers for SRA math students in Grades 6-8. That’s a lot of attention to math, but we feel it’s a worthwhile effort. We do not expect “miracle” results, but we do expect an increase in math performance over time. Just fyi, our students are currently scoring at or above the National and the St. Louis Archdiocesan averages in Math. I will continue to keep you posted on this progress.

Our featured teacher this week is Mrs. Jennifer Runiewicz, our 8 ^th Grade Homeroom Teacher. Mrs. Runiewicz holds a Bachelors Degree in Social Sciences and Psychology from Eastern Kentucky University, and is Certified in Elementary Education. She teaches 8 ^th Grade Religion and both Standard and Challenge Literature to all students in Grades 6-8. Mrs. Runiewicz has single-handedly transformed our Literature program in the upper grades from using the old fashioned reading books to a program of reading exclusively high quality novels. Our students are experiencing classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Of Mice and Men,” and “A Wrinkle in Time.” She has every student in Grades 6-8 reading and UNDERSTANDING Shakespeare by the end of the school year. I love visiting Mrs. Runiewicz’s classroom where I always hear lively discussion about some of the world’s greatest literature. In her “spare time” Mrs. Runiewicz is our Student Council Moderator, running one of the most active Student Councils in the entire Archdiocese. Her passion for teaching and for her students is extraordinary, and we are so glad she is here with us at SRA!

Don’t forget about our upcoming Advent Prayer Service on December 17 ^th at 6pm in church – please make plans now to attend!
Peace and Blessings,
Kim Vangel
Principal