March 8, 2015
Dear St. Raphael School Families and Parishioners,
You know it’s Spring at St. Raphael when the Scholastic Book Fair Truck pulls up to the school building and unloads carts and carts of books – Yes, it’s time for our Spring Book Fair! The Book Fair will be open for business in the cafeteria all next week, including on Friday, March 13 ^th during our Grandparents & Special Friends Day. When you support our Book Fair you encourage reading with your children, and you help us to purchase many timely and useful instructional materials for our students. Thanks in advance for your support!
Every student should have brought home invitations for Grandparents & Special Friends Day, and we are hoping for a large crowd again this year. It truly is one of our favorite days! This year’s theme is building a “Grandparent Survival Kit” for our guests, and we have lots of fun activities planned for the morning. Please remember that we dismiss at noon that day, but we will have Check-Out stations at the main entrance and in the cafeteria for Grandparents & Special Friends who want to take their kids home early.
It’s been a great week of academic successes here at school. Our SRA Geography Bee winner, Yano Ganss in 8 ^th Grade, learned that he has advanced on to the State competition for the National Geographic Geography Bee. Congratulations Yano, and good luck in Columbia, MO!
SRA had a terrific showing at the regional History Day competition last weekend, thanks to Mrs. Christy Connor and our 8 teams of hard working students. This year’s theme was Leadership and Legacy in History, and our students created exhibits and performances on Neil Armstrong, Steve Jobs, Stan Musial, Soccer in Brazil, Cardinal Ritter, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Walt Disney. Congratulations to Sydney Karius, Johanna Brewer, Merritt Jugo, Anna Ojile, Joe Cyr, and Marcus Sullenger for a job well done! Congratulations to our 4 teams advancing to the State competition, including Grace Ojile, Mary Nelson, Liberty Kocsis, Kailee Nerviani, Alyssa Schaefer, Ben Khotsyphom, Abby Wingron, Lilly Mitchell, Clare Neal, Hannah Horas, Noelle Hogrebe, and Mary Goeddel. We are very proud of all of you!
One of our History Day teams received Best St. Louis Entry for all age groups, from the Missouri Historical Society: Congratulations to Grace Ojile and Mary Nelson for their exhibit on Cardinal Ritter and this prestigious award!
On a different note…this is a friendly reminder that, whenever you change your email address, street address, or phone number, we really need to know that at school. If our contact information for you is out of date (and we discover this ALL THE TIME) it makes it pretty difficult to contact you in case of an emergency. Please email any and all changes to Mrs. Mechler at [email protected].

Looking Ahead…

• Friday, March 6^th Professional Development Day, No School K-8, Preschool open
• Sunday, March 8^th DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGINS
• Monday, March 9^th Scholastic Book Fair opens
• Wednesday, March 11^th 4^th Grade Field Trip to Art Museum, 12:30-2:30
• Thursday, March 12^th Mad Science, 3:15-4:15 (last session)
• Friday, March 13^th Grandparent & Special Friends Day, Noon Dismissal K-8

SPRING BREAK BEGINS!
Thanks as always for your continued prayers and support.
Peace & Blessings,
Kim Vangel
Principal