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catholic schools
October 7, 2014
St. Lucy Students love Family Groups Day!
St. Lucy School students love Family
Groups day! A St. Lucy Family Group
meets monthly throughout the school
year and consists of one student from
each grade, from Kindergarten - 8th
grades. The 8th grader acts as the leader
of the Family Group, and designs an
activity for each monthly meeting.
To prepare for September’s first Family Groups meeting of the year, the 8th
grade Family Group leaders worked
over the summer to write their own
prayers as well as design a group activity. All portions of the meeting focused
on the monthly school theme, which is
“Do Something” for a friend.
It is especially touching to see the
older students escorting and guiding
the younger ones during Family Groups
day. This connection across grade levels
is intentional and helps build a warm
community at St. Lucy School.
Principal Sue Grover shares that
“One of my favorite moments is watching 8th graders working side by side with
their family groups. They really model
family!”
Homeroom teacher Christina Polini
shares that “it’s a great opportunity for
our 8th graders to take on leadership
responsibilities while being role models
for the younger students. It also gives
them a taste of what it is like to be the
teacher in charge.”
St. Lucy School principal, Sue Grover, right, tours St. Lucy School with the Diocese of San
Jose’s Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Kathy Almazol. The Kindergarteners gave their
special guest a very warm welcome!
T
he Valley Catholic
St. Simon launches
Web-Based Learning
Management System
When school started this year,
families at Saint Simon Parish School,
in Los Altos, welcomed a new learning management system (LMS) to help
organize course materials and increase
collaboration between students, teacher and parents.
Schoology, implemented over the
summer, is a cloud-based system that
allows teachers to deliver assignments,
documents, videos and photos to
students as well as administer on-line
tests and quizzes. Students in turn are
able to submit homework electronically, participate in interactive discussions, and ask questions and receive
feedback from teachers.
In addition, each student has an integrated personal calendar that shows
assignments across all subjects as well
as after-school activities such as robotics and sporting events.
In conjunction with the rollout of
Schoology, Saint Simon purchased
additional laptops for classroom use.
Now, every student in fourth though
eighth grade has his or her own laptop
in the classroom, while kindergarten
through third grade students share
additional sets of laptops and iPads.
WANT TO
CHANGE THE WORLD?
START HERE.
JESUIT
960 West Hedding Street
San Jose, California 95126-1215
408.294.9224 • www.bcp.org
www.valleycatholiconline.com
OPEN HOUSE
Sunday, October 26th • 10am – 1pm