Submitted by VCMS Vice Principal and Science Teacher June Poling

What: SSMO Service Project helping at the Oregon Food Bank West

When: Saturday, Feb. 11 from 12:30 – 3:00 p.m.

Where: 1870 NW 173rd Ave., Beaverton

Number of slots: 15 volunteers

Sign-up: Permission slip is required; turn in to school office by Feb. 8

First 15 permission slips received will be invited to attend this service event.
Permission slips are available from religion teacher or front office.

Submitted by VCES Parent Volunteer Laura Schultz

The evening of the Family Mass & Banquet began with a Mass in the Convent Chapel. Thank you to Sr. Denise and the Marian Singers for the beautiful music that accompanied the Mass. The dinner that followed in the Eagles’ Gym was a success due to the wonderful participation of the Elementary School Student Council, Dan Schauffler and the High School Jazz Band, and, of course, all of our parent volunteers. Laura Schultz, the event coordinator, would like to thank you all for attending and making the Family Mass & Banquet a great community event.

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Submitted by VCHS Students Hollynd Boyden and Julia Anderson

We would like to introduce Equipment Across Continents, and tell you how you can all take part in this February clothing drive.

Equipment Across Continents has partnered with Coaches Across Continents to provide new or gently used sports equipment and clothing to children in developing countries all around the world.

In the US there are over 42 million youth athletes who participate in sports each year. But in worldwide, there are over 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 per day that will never be able to buy sports equipment or clothes even though they enjoy it as much as we do.

So here at Valley, we are hoping to gather any old sports equipment or clothing and donate it to Equipment Across Continents.

During the month of February, there will be boxes in each of the schools for donations.

Donations can range from running shoes, cleats, t-shirts, shorts and even equipment such as soccer balls or basketballs.

Starting next week there will be boxes for donations to be collected in, so please help and support all the children who cannot afford the equipment they need to enjoy their favorite sport!

Thanks!

Submitted by Middle and High School Personal Counselor Kelsey MacIntyre

The Respect Rallies will be held next Wednesday, Feb. 8 and Thursday, Feb. 9 in the Valiants’ Gym.  Seventh- and eighth-grade students will have their rally on Wednesday from 8 to 11:20 a.m.; the freshmen rally will be on Thursday from 8:45 a.m. to 12:10 p.m.

The Respect Rally is an interactive experience that allows students to work together in order to learn how to make self-respecting choices, create healthy relationships, set and strive for goals, and end cycles of disrespect in their world. This program was originally designed for girls but in recent years was modified to reach out to boys as well. As a result, a group of our teachers and students were trained to be leaders in 2009 by the founders of the Respect Rally. Since then it has become a mainly student-led program.

The past two years we have provided the experience to seventh- through tenth-grade students. This year we will have a rally for the seventh- and eighth-grade students and another one for the freshmen. Another change we made this year (and the reason the sixth-grade students won’t be at the middle school rally) was to host a “rally/retreat” at the sixth-grade Outdoor School. High school students went to Camp Howard the night before and hung out with the sixth-graders, and then led the retreat in the morning, ending it around a reflective bonfire.

The rallies are really meant to teach students awareness. We want to help them realize that there is disrespect all around them and they have the power to put a stop to it, so we teach them skills to recognize and combat this disrespect. My hope is that the rally will help them to care about one another and stop to think before they act in a way that could hurt someone else. I also hope this brings them a sense of self-respect.

Submitted by ES and MS Science Teacher Stephanie Shields

Portland State University Science Outreach volunteers spent an afternoon in seventh grade science on Jan. 31. The four volunteers are all part of a science based graduate program at PSU and volunteer at schools in the area. The program is designed to excite students about science. These volunteers were great role models to our students and showed them that they can continually learn science even as adults. The presentation consisted of studying electrons and the relationship to the light spectrum as well as movement of electrons (resulting in static electricity). Overall, the afternoon was very interactive and we are very thankful to our volunteers who gave up their afternoon.

Submitted by VCMS Vice Principal and Science Teacher June Poling

Last Saturday, Jan. 28, 15 middle school students represented Valley Catholic at the BPA Regional Science Bowl. The three teams of five competed valiantly against middle schools from all over Oregon and Southern Washington. This year there were over 400 students competing. Participants from VCS included:

Eighth-graders: Tristan Jong, Austin Ketterer, Max Nepokroeff, Adithya Srikanthan, Iain Byrne, Christopher Douglass, Alex Zdanowicz and Joshua Cheng

Seventh-graders: Lakshya Bakshi, Kunal Bhattacharjee, Raymond Man, Steven Yang and Brandon Baunach

Sixth-graders: Aditya Sharoff and Adelin Alfred

Valley Catholic came close to making the cut into the afternoon round of 16 schools. Despite the loss, the teams were rewarded by a presentation from special guest speaker and NASA Astronaut Stanley G. Love, Ph.D. Dr. Love shared video and stories of his mission aboard Atlantis in 2008. After the presentation, Dr. Love fielded questions from the audience about topics ranging from his scariest moments aboard the International Space Station to how toilets work in space.

If you have questions about life in space, the VCMS Science Bowl team will be happy to share the stories they heard.

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Dr. Love and students from VCMS.

Getting ready for competition.

Submitted by VCMS Math and Science Teacher Stephanie Shields

Catholic Schools Week
Fun Middle School Activities:

Compiled from submissions from VCS school administrators by Communications Specialist Danielle Tomich

Catholic Schools Week is celebrated annually by Catholic schools across the nation. From preschools to universities, Catholic schools will spend the week of Jan. 30-Feb. 4 focusing on and celebrating aspects of Catholic education that set it apart from the rest.

This national program is coordinated by the National Catholic Education Association, founded in 1903. This year the theme is, “Catholic Schools: Faith. Academics. Service.” According to the NCEA website, “The theme focuses on three priorities that Catholic schools establish that make them stand out from other educational institutions. Children are taught faith—not just the basics of Christianity, but how to have a relationship with God. Academics, which in Catholic schools are held to very high standards, help each child reach his or her potential. Service, the giving of one’s time and effort to help others, is taught both as an expression of faith and good citizenship.”

At Valley Catholic School, many activities are planned to celebrate our school’s faith, academics and service.

In the Early Learning School, students will participate in the three themed areas of faith, academics and service. All week they will be collecting food for Oregon Food Bank, and on Tuesday and Wednesday the Wildflowers will visit residents at Maryville Memory Care. They will also hold a prayer time, do special projects in the classrooms, and enjoy a visit from their sixth-grade friends.

In the Elementary School, the focus will move from “Faith, Academics, and Service” in students, in our nation, and in our vocations, faculty, staff and parent volunteers. The week will be packed with special activities; here are just a few examples: 

• Students will write letters to St. Malachy School in South Central Los Angeles explaining why they attend Catholic school and what they like about their school. They will also ask questions of the St. Malachy School students.
• Sisters will visit the classrooms to talk about the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon. Students will discuss vocation and ways to serve God.
• Students will write thank you notes to various volunteers, faculty, staff or priests.

The Middle School will be revisiting their year-long theme of “Create in Me,” (Ps 51:10) in light of the Catholic Schools Week theme and how it ties to the Sisters’ mission. They will be holding various activities and special dress themes. In addition, the students will be prepared to share the idea of “Create in Me” and the tie into the “Faith. Action. Service” when they share this with their intergenerational groups (VCELS, Sisters, and Maryville residents). They will also be collecting clothing for the Beaverton School District in conjunction with the High School.

The High School is sponsoring a clothing drive through Catholic Schools Week for gently used school clothing for low-income high school students in the Beaverton School District. These clothing items will go to the Beaverton School District’s Clothes Closet, who will distribute the school clothes to needy students.  Students in the Faith in Action class are making banners for each school to carry at the all-school Mass on Wednesday that will go to each individual school to display for the rest of the week.

The all-school Mass, which will be celebrated Wednesday morning, will be the highlight of the week with many students of all ages taking part.

The final activity of the week will be Community Night at the HS basketball games on Friday, Feb. 3 in the Valiants’ gym. Come to cheer on the HS basketball teams and participants from our ES and MS CYO teams who will play at halftimes of each game.  The girls will play at 6 p.m.; boys at 7:30 p.m.

Submitted by Communications Specialist Danielle Tomich

The auction committee celebrated their kick-off at an early morning party Tuesday in the Elementary School cafeteria.  Auction and Events Coordinator Sharla Tinsen moderated the event, and speakers included VCS President Bob Weber, SSMO Ministries President Sr. Adele Marie Altenhofen, SSMO Foundation Development Director Sharlayne Buuck, Auction Co-Chair Kathy Debnath and auctioneer JillMarie Wiles.  The committee members were introduced and given many thanks for their hard work.  The auctioneer, JillMarie Wiles, got right to work by auctioning off a night at the Embassy Suites Hotel at Washington Square, and in the process gave a lesson in auctioneering to a volunteer who came onto the stage with her.  Three door prizes were also drawn.

The committee stayed true to its Mardi Gras theme, All That Jazz, in both decor and cuisine.  In addition to colorful beads, masks and decorations, a delicious home-baked king cake was served—a Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans—complete with a hidden “bebe” inside.

Missed out on the fun?  There is plenty more to be had!  Contact Sharla Tinsen to sign up to volunteer, and/or attend the auction on April 14 at the Embassy Suites Hotel at Washington Square.

Auction reservation information will be coming out soon.

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Dear Valley Catholic Parents,

As we prepare to start our second semester of the 2011-2012 school year, it is already time for us to turn some of our attention to 2012-2013. With this in mind, I have been working with school administrators and the Finance department in preparation for next year’s school budget. While additional fine tuning is still being done on the budget for next year, we have reached a point where we can officially announce our tuition rates for the 2012-2013 school year.

We are pleased to be able to announce these rates to our current Valley Catholic School parents today, and will be announcing the new rates this weekend at our PreK–8 Open House to prospective parents.

The rates listed below represent a 4.3 percent increase for the upcoming year.

TUITION FOR 2012-2013

These tuition amounts will be posted on our school website Monday, Jan. 23.

We chose not to list the Early Learning School tuition here due to the varying levels of rates depending on the age of the child, but they will also have the same rate of increase. You may contact them for more specific information.

In determining our tuition rates each year, our goal is to keep the increase as low as possible while still making sure we are able to continue to provide the very best educational opportunities for your children. In order to make this happen, I oversee our schools and their administrators. Together we make sure that we are acting as good stewards of our resources and managing our expenses to the best of our ability.

As is always the case, the revenue from tuition will never completely cover our operating expenses. To make up the difference between these amounts, we rely on additional assistance from our parent community. This additional assistance from parents often comes in the form of “Gap Gifts” which help us bridge the difference between the true cost of education and tuition. It is one way that we can continue to make a top-quality, Catholic education accessible for families.

The amount of that gap this year will be finalized as we complete our budgeting process in the coming weeks and information will be forthcoming during our re-enrollment process this spring. In the past, many of our families have generously helped us bridge this gap by making a pledge above the tuition rate. We are very grateful for any and all gifts of this nature.

We are in the middle of our first year of allowing parents to pay their tuition through TMS (Tuition Management Solutions) and despite a few bumps along the way, I believe this has been a positive transition for our families. I fully expect that our second go-around with TMS and registering parents for monthly payment options (as well as other payment frequencies) will be an even better experience for our families this year.

Finally, I want to thank all of our parents for continuing to choose Valley Catholic School for your child’s education. We are proud of the programs we have here on campus and excited about what the future will hold for Valley Catholic School. We know none of this would be possible without the support of our entire school community.

I realize there are many choices when it comes to educating your child and we are grateful that you have chosen Valley Catholic. On behalf of all of the staff and faculty, we look forward to continuing our relationship with you and your student—next year and beyond.

Please call or email me if you have any questions or concerns about this information or anything else that relates to Valley Catholic School.

Respectfully,

Bob Weber
President
Valley Catholic School