Read this story on the SSMO Foundation website.

Read this story on the SSMO Foundation website.

Read this story on the SSMO Foundation website.

The middle school will be having a spring dance Friday, May 11 from 7-9 in the Elementary School cafeteria. We are currently looking for parent chaperones for the evening. We will need chaperones to arrive at 6:45 for a short explanation of their responsibilities during the dance. If you would like to chaperone please email Ms. Shields.

This note was emailed to Valley Catholic School K-12 Families on April 27, 2012

Joel Sobotka joins Valley Catholic High School as its Athletic Director/Boys Basketball Coach in June 2012

Dear Valiant Families,

We are very pleased to announce today’s hiring of Joel Sobotka as Valley Catholic’s new Athletic Director and Head Boys’ Basketball Coach. Joel’s name will be familiar to many of you. For the last six years he has been lead assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Portland. Before coming to UP, he was an assistant for two years and then head coach for four at Portland State University. For three years during his head-coaching tenure at Portland State he served as college and NBA analyst for 1080 The Fan.

Here’s a little more detailed information about Coach Sobotka’s career:

• Joel played basketball and baseball at Horizon High School in Scottsdale, Arizona and graduated from Arizona State with a major in Management.
• His first coaching job was as an assistant at Eastern Oregon University. He then became an assistant at Arizona State before accepting a position at Portland State under head coach Ritchie McKay. When Coach McKay left in 1998, Joel was named PSU’s head coach and, at 28 years old, became the youngest Division I head coach in the nation. He served for four years as the Vikings’ head coach before leaving to accept an Assistant General Manager position with the Harlem Globetrotters in 2003. While with the Globetrotters, he managed an $8-million budget and coordinated logistics for all domestic and international tours . . . useful experience for an athletic director.
• He then spent three years at Cal State Northridge before moving to University of Portland where he’s been Eric Reveno’s top assistant, recruiting coordinator, and post coach (the Pilots no doubt receive plenty of post coaching: Coach Reveno started at post for Stanford). In 2010 he was honored as one of the top two assistant coaches in the West Coast Conference.
• Joel has also been generous in community-service work: he was on the board of directors that helped found the Oregon/Southwest Washington Chapter of the ALS Association, an organization he still serves; for three years he volunteered as Camp Director for Chris Dudley’s Camp for Kids with Diabetes; he has also worked with the Beaverton Special Olympics Youth Games, and he was selected by Oregon State Senator Ron Wyden to serve with the Backboards and Blackboards program, which educates children on academic and basketball goals and opportunities.

Joel will finish his work at UP on May 30th and begin his athletic director’s and coach’s duties at Valley in June. We are thrilled to add to our staff a person of Joel’s great experience and accomplishment.

Ross Thomas
Principal
Valley Catholic High School
rthomas@valleycatholic.org

Submitted by VCES Parent Laura Kuhner

The scrip team is accepting this month’s orders until Monday, April 30th at 8 a.m.

Order your McMenamins gift cards through Scrip to use at the VCS Family Dine-Out on Monday, May 7 at the McMenamins on Murray and Allen and you will give back twice to VCS!

Columbia Sportswear promo is back! Purchase a Columbia $50 gift card and you’ll receive ONE pass to the Columbia Sportswear employee store. It is good for the buyer and four family members or friends—PLUS a PIN # for online purchases. Passes are good for one visit any time until Sept 2012. The $50 gift cards may be used at: the flagship store in downtown Portland; PDX; outlet locations; at their online store; and at their employee store.

Scrip orders will be delivered to your child by Friday, May 4. Deliveries will be made to all three school buildings; please include the delivery information on the order form. Drop your completed forms, including payment, at the VCEMS office or email your order to scrip@valleycatholic.org. Download the new 2012 VCS Scrip Form here or pick one up in the VCEMS office.

Thank you so much for your continued support to the scrip fundraising program!
The Scrip Team

Submitted by SSMO Ministries Communications Photographer Casey Braunger

For those of you who weren’t able to attend our Middle School and High School Spring Concert, please enjoy this slideshow highlighting the evening!

Having trouble viewing the slideshow? Click here.

Submitted by Director of Campus Life Mary Donovan with Communications Speciallist Danielle Tomich; Photos by SSMO Ministries Communications Photographer Casey Braunger

Thursday, April 26 marked Fr. John Kerns’ last Mass for Valley Catholic High School. Father Kerns has been assigned to a new parish, Our Lady of the Lake in Lake Oswego, beginning July 1. His new parish has a K-8 school that will preclude him from ministering at Valley Catholic School. For the past nine years, Fr. Kerns has been ministering to parishioners of St. Juan Diego, a parish established in 2002 that does not have a parochial school.

In many ways, Father Kerns “adopted” Valley Catholic School; he has been an important part of many events here. He has been celebrating Masses with us for many years and has always been a ready advisor to be sure that our Masses are conducted according to Church instructions. There have been many, many Penance Services that he has taken part in over the years and he has been very giving of his time for our Junior Encounters by giving up Friday nights a couple of times a year to drive all the way out to the Molalla Retreat Center to be there for reconciliation. He always ended those nights with a special song that he teaches the retreatants. This song has become a time-honored tradition for encounter. Valley Catholic High School students have come to love and respect Father Kerns and look forward to his visits to campus and their encounters.

In past years he has even been instrumental in fundraising for our school, by donating his musical talents to us in the way of auction items.

Father Kerns has been a constant source of inspiration and enthusiasm for our students and staff, and he will be greatly missed in our community.  He will hold one more Mass on our campus, for the elementary school, on June 13.

We wish him many blessings in his new parish.

Can’t view this slideshow?  Click here.

Submitted by VCES Music Teacher Sr. Denise Klaas, SSMO

The 2012 Campus Music Jamboree will be held Friday, May 4, at 7 p.m. in the Valiants’ Gym.

The Campus Music Jamboree is an evening of wonderful music featuring the music ensembles of Valley Catholic Elementary School, Valley Catholic Middle School, and Valley Catholic High School.  It’s a great opportunity to experience the progression of music in all three schools on campus.

The VCES Youth Orchestra, Hand Bell Team 5, Marian Singers, and Fourth Grade Violin classes will also be participating.

Students are asked to be in the Valiants’ Gym at 6:30 p.m.

**After the concert, students and parents are needed to transport all equipment and instruments to the VCES Music Room. Thank you for your help and assistance.

If there are any questions, please contact Sister Denise.

Submitted by VCMS Student Activities Board President Peter Seger ’16

Two weeks ago, the middle school students had the opportunity to reflect on how their class treats each other and how they could improve it.

After lunch time, the classes were split into different classrooms. In their classrooms, teachers and staff of the middle school told personal stories of how they might have been bullied or times in their life when people didn’t believe in them. At the end of the “mini-retreat,” all grades headed to the Valiants’ Gym where the Middle School Student Activities Board (SAB) held a closing session about bullying.

Members of SAB stood up and told true stories of times when members of their classes were bullied. These stories had been submitted by members of their class anonymously one afternoon during a community group meeting. Members of SAB then started to stack boxes with “tear-down” words written on them, which started to build a wall between two of their classmates. After all the boxes had been stacked, and all the stories had been shared, SAB members concluded by explaining that the tear-down words had built a wall between their classmates and that we as a community needed to break down walls built by tear-down words. Finally, SAB members symbolically knocked down all the boxes and let all the middle school students spread out in the gym and have a few minutes to reflect on the things they had learned that day.

Hopefully now the middle school students can continue spreading the word about the harmfulness of tear-down words in their classes and stop the building of walls between their classmates. Overall, it was a very powerful afternoon of learning to stop using tear-down words.