St. L Open House

Dear Logan,

Continuing with my series of blog posts regarding the open houses, the next one is St. L. This Catholic school is the closest to our house. This school actually goes up to high school. The campus isn't and as all Catholic schools, the campus is on the older side.

We were first escorted by a member of the student council to the Extended Care room. But for the first 15 minutes, I thought that was the Pre-K room. Then it dawned on my after questioning the teachers for a while that it's not! The extended care room is pretty big, but the toys that they had there were all very old. Granted, Aidan still had a good time playing with the cars and trucks that he saw.

When we went to the Pre-K room, we saw a few bunnies outside. It's nice to see live animals, especially when you're teaching about them in science class. There are actually two rooms for the one Pre-K class. One of the rooms is open to other students, and the little ones get to interact with the older kids. However, they only offer a half-day Pre-K class from 8-11:15 and the rest of the time, Aidan would have to be in extended care. That's already a "NO" in my book. That's just not enough class time, and too much downtime. They have Music class (Mon), Library time (Tue/Th), Mass every Wed morning, and PE (Th).

The teacher said the first half of the day is spent on Math, putting numbers in order, learning dates of the month and their birthdays. The second half of the day will be reading and learning the alphabet, and associate words with the letter. The teachers acknowledged that students come in at different level, and they will work with students with different abilities in different groups, so the advanced ones won't be bored. They also accept Open Enrollment throughout the year, provided there's a spot for the student.

We toured the garden at the back where the students have planted carrots. The teacher said the Boy Scouts helped with the project.

We then headed over to the KG room. We saw brand new computer screen where the chalk board was. The teachers said they just got this SMART screen last week. It did some really cool stuff. We also saw some "fake snow" that a couple kids were playing with. I couldn't tell from the texture what kind of snow that is. We didn't notice they have the whole Penguin theme going on in the classroom. There were 5 laptops there, and Aidan of course sat himself down and played with it. The teacher was nice enough to log on and let Aidan play, while I asked more questions. The students use the laptop for reading and math programs, and they do assessment on the kids using them.

There are about 31-36 students in the class with 3 teachers. Actually, I think the room is a little small for that many students. Class is from 8-3, and then extended care until 6. There's a kitchen in the school, where students could order lunch the day of. The teacher also said there's a volunteer who comes in on Fridays to teach a cooking class. There are other classes taught by outside teachers, such as Spanish, Music, Art and PE. There are 3 field trips a year (see a play, pizza parlor, park). On the teacher/class website, it will show what they are doing for the week, and the teacher welcomes emails or talk in person. There's homework to be given out every Monday, and they're expected to complete them and bring back to school on Friday. Informal assessments are done every month, and a report card 3x/year.

Students are expected to be able to read and write 3 sentences, and be able to do addition and subtraction by the end of the school year.

I get a good vibe from all the teachers, but I just don't like the Pre-K is only half day. The campus also seems a little small with all the students around. However, I do like that they invested on technology with the new SMART screen in all the KG and Grade level classrooms. I think the middle school kids all get a laptop as well.


Love you,
Mommy