Dear Parents/Guardians,                                                       

Thank you for your partnership in being involved with Parent/Teacher conferences.  Thank you for taking time and strengthening the relationship between school and family.  Partnership or community is an important piece of the Ledger Way.  

Halloween is right around the corner.  On October 29th we’ll be inviting students in grades P3 – grade five to participate in afternoon classroom Halloween parties.  Students are asked to bring in their customs and will change into them in the afternoon.  Grades six through eight will be having a Halloween dance on October 29th from 4:00pm until 6:00pm.  Look for communication from the classroom/homeroom teachers for more information regarding the festivities.   

The first quarter comes to a completion on Friday, November 5, 2021.  Please be mindful of Skyward as our avenue to communicate student progress throughout the quarter and school year between home and school.  It has features to get alerts right to your cell phone as you see fit for your family.

Thank you for your continued partnership with SMSA .  Together we will create a path for tomorrow’s children to achieve amazing dreams. 

God Bless,

Steven Kelnhofer

skelnhofer@smsacademy.org

Elementary Principal, SMSA

Catholic Social Responsibility Guidebook

Last week, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released a new publication for school leaders, reinforcing Catholic Social Teachings and other key resources of the Church in light of their importance to Catholic education.  Specifically, this valuable new resource focuses on four main contemporary challenges and their relevance for Catholic schools today: culture, racism, civic participation for the common good, and economics. The Guidebook is designed to provide educators with clear guiding principles for Catholic social responsibility, Catholic theological resources that correspond to the four contemporary challenges, and alignment of Catholic Social Teachings to current Archdiocesan curriculum, policies, and accreditation standards.

In each age, the Church and its schools have responded to the signs of the times with a renewed proclamation of the Gospel, often adapted to the language and needs of the era.  Parents are invited to review this document, now uploaded to the SMSA Website.  The Catholic Social Responsibility Guidebook will provide all teachers with one stop shopping and the appropriate context for living out their vocation as educators in a Catholic school.  CatholicSocialResponsibilityGuidebookforCatholicSchoolsFinal9.22.21.pdf

First Lego League:  Below you will find a letter from Sany Schwoerer 

Hello from FIRST Lego League! 

I am Sandy Schwoerer, SMSA parent of a 5th and 6th grader.  I, along with my co-coach Mary Jo Rammer, started a new Lego League team of 5th and 6th graders. During this Lego League season, teams are given two missions: 1) build and program a robot to complete lego missions, and 2) conduct research on a topic (this year’s topic is transportation), discover a problem that can be improved, and come up with an invention to help solve the problem.  

While Mary Jo and I are comfortable with research, we are not well versed in coding and programming.  We are looking for someone who might want to help the students in this area. The time commitment is flexible: anywhere from coming to one meeting, to coming to all our meetings.  Anyone looking to help may want to just be available to the students to answer questions and give suggestions on what they are working on, or teach them a specific skill that will help them in their mission. 

Anyone interested in learning about our team, our needs, and ways to help, please email sandyschwoerer@gmail.com.  

Thank you so much for considering this!

Sandy Schwoerer

Important Dates

October 29th – Afternoon Halloween classroom parties

October 29th – Halloween MS dance 4:00 – 6:00 in Baker gym

November 1 – All Saints Day

November 5 – End of the First quarter

November 8 –  No School, Teacher in-service

Standards Based Grading

The objective of the video series is to educate parents in short videos to unpack Standard Based Grading.  The series intends to deliver an education and mindshift to understand Standards Based Grading, why Standards Based Grading is best practice, and how Standards Based Grading functions with the parent and teacher supporting the student’s journey.

Please select the following six links to see the box set of SBG at SMSA.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC85kS-z_Mk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tecnwN4dXLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7ejwOMhkAg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7jww2J7RJs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQO1AVjoMJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jIyS7wso0

All students in grades 6-8 are welcome to attend a Halloween Dance on Friday, October 29th from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. There is no admission, but please let your homeroom teacher know by Friday, October 22nd if you plan to attend. 

Bring your costumes to school and get ready for an evening of music, games, and pizza!  All students who attend are expected to stay until 6:00 p.m. unless a parent has contacted Christa Lewis at clewis@smsacademy.org or Lisa Holz at lholz@smsacademy.org to arrange plans.

We are excited to bring back this SPOOKY event!

Big Money Raffle – Blue And White That’s Right!

The new “Blue and White Big Money Raffle Tickets” have been distributed and are available for purchasing! Please be sure to throw away the pink tickets and only sell the blue and white BMR tickets for the January 14, 2022 drawing!

We appreciate your support in selling and/or purchasing the new blue and white tickets and returning them to school on or before Friday, January 14, 2022. Your participation is vital to the success of this fundraiser and reaching our goal of raising $100,000 for our school. We cannot wait to pull the $20,000 winning ticket on Friday, January 14, 2022 at noon.

Additional tickets may be purchased at the North, South and Scrip offices at SMSA or you can contact Kristin at kzitlow@smsacademy.org or 920-322-8006.

Trunk or Treat is back! We are very excited to celebrate Halloween with our SMSA family in a safe and fun way! Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 28th from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. This event will take place in the upper green parking lot. Students will dress up in their Halloween costumes and trick or treat to each car. Make sure to bring lots of candy and decorating your car is encouraged.

Click here to view the flyer.

Please watch for more information on this fun dress up day!

Tuesday, December 14th at 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm in Hutter Gym

Wednesday, December 15th at 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in Hutter gym

The Principal’s Pen is an opportunity for teachers to recognize students who consistently demonstrate The Ledger Way with a focus on faith, learning, respect for leadership, community and responsibility.  The students chosen will attend a special breakfast with Mr. K and Mr. Fisher, receives a certificate with a brief sentence on how they followed The Ledger Way, and a principal’s pen. 

The following students were honored at the Principal Pen’s breakfast this week:

Annabelle Seel – 8th grade – for being an all around great student, following all core values, and going above and beyond. 

Ryan Holder – 8th grade – for always doing the right thing, doing things without being told to, being helpful to all, and a hard worker.

Tate Baker  – 8th grade – for being helpful, polite, always doing what is asked of him and for being a great leader.

Adelynn Schwoerer – 6th grade – for demonstrating the core values of Respect and Learning.  For saying “Thank you” every day as she leaves the class and taking pride in her learning. 

Sophie Schneider – 7th grade – for always listening in class, raising her hand to speak, speaking kindly and listening to others. 

Zosia Gill – 6th grade – for demonstrating the core values of Learning and Responsibilities.  For taking pride in her learning and being a responsible student.  For approaching school with a “commitment to excellence” mindset.

WOW! Thank you Ledger families! You blew our previous All for Books collection (pumpkin donations) out of the water! We were able to collect $1,195.00 that was immediately used to purchase books for our library as well as books for our teachers.

Congratulations to our winning People’s Choice Award to Ms. Flatt’s 4th Grade Class with Roscoe Riley Rule #1 Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs.  They win the pizza party!

Congratulations also to Mrs. Lund’s Kindergarten Class with Rainbow Fish, who won the Administrators’ Award and will be treated to a popcorn party!

A huge kudos to all classrooms that participated; amazing creations and great teamwork; you can all be proud!

Thank you for helping to make our Fall 2021 Book Fair a huge success! If you didn’t get to stop in at our fair or couldn’t find that one wish list book that you were looking for, our ONLINE Book Fair is still active until October 24, click here to order today!

See you in Spring (May) 2022 for our BOGO Fair!

Click here to read the October Specials Newsletter.

None at this time.

No news at this time.

Would you like to get more involved as a parent at SMSA? On supply drop off day, you will be receiving a Parent Connectors Volunteer Form. Please fill out this form with the ways you would be interested in helping and return it to school by Friday, September 17th. You will then receive emails regarding upcoming events and ways to assist throughout the year. Thank you so much! We couldn’t do this without our amazing volunteers. If you have any questions, please reach out to Andrea Nuss, alnuss@charter.net.