Thursday Note Home

Dear Visitation Families,

We have certainly hit the ground running this week. We were pleased to host the Visiting Team for our Accreditation self-study. The team included teachers from All Saints (Puyallup), St. Mary (Aberdeen), Assumption-St. Bridget (Seattle), St. Catherine (Seattle), Holy Family (Auburn) and our Chairperson from School of Our Lady in Santa Ana, California.

The final determination of how many years we are accredited for (which could be up to six) won’t be known until the end of July or August.

However, I can say that they were very impressed with our self-study, our school, our priests, and especially, our parent community. Thank you to all who came to the Parent night on Monday. You showed, by your words and attitude, what makes our school community so special. Thank you to all of the parents who helped by bringing food to our visitors. Thank you, especially, to Celeste Ayton and Heather Liufau. Your food was so tasty!

Our staff worked very hard on their evidence binders and presentations and they are very proud of them. Please take the opportunity to look at these as they are displayed in the hallways until Friday.

Thank you, finally, to Mary Ann Woodard and Elizabeth Harburg-Petrich who did an incredible job as the Leadership Team!!

CHANGE OF CALENDAR: There will be no PK and K visiting day; consequently there WILL be school on May 4th for Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten at both sites. Parents of new students to those two programs will be contacted soon to set up appointments.

DON’T FORGET: Monday, April 23rd, is a 12:30 dismissal. Also, if you are asking for in parish tuition, be sure that you have a current time, talent, and/or treasure card on file with your parish.

ONE MORE REMINDER: Parents, if you are signing your child into morning Extended Care before 7:45 AM, you will be charged the hourly fee of $7.50.

CONGRATULATIONS: To Catherine (6th) whose art work has been chosen to be put in a book published by the Saul Haas Foundation. Congratulations, also, to Brendan (2nd) who received his First Communion on April 15th at St. Rita’s Church.

TESTING PREPARATION: Our testing schedule will begin on Thursday, April 19th and extend to Friday, May 4th. Especially, please do not schedule doctor appointments for students in grades 3, 4, 6, or 7 that would be during the school day between those dates. Also, be sure that your child gets a good night’s sleep as well as a good breakfast during the testing weeks.

CLEANING UP: A community clean up is scheduled for Saturday, April 28th, 2007 from 10 AM to 2 PM. The gathering spot is Edison Elementary.

PRAYERS PLEASE: For Joe Palmquist, father of Marta Palmquist Cady and Virginia Brewer, and grandfather of three of our students. Continued prayers, please, for Alex’s grandfather who is fighting cancer. There is good news that his cancer hasn’t spread and he is tolerating chemo well.

INVITATION: The next meeting of the Visitation Parish Stewardship Commission will be at the Collier Center on Tuesday, April 24th from 6Pm – 8PM. There will be three divisions to their agenda: Prayer and Reflection; Discussion of ACA; Discussion of Hospitality as a tool of stewardship. They will be drafting action plans for their 2007 Visitation ACA and of a stewardship plan for evangelization through hospitality.

Peace and the Blessings,

Sheila Harrison