Families of St Mary Magdalen School,
I wanted to start off by saying how impressed I’ve been with our student engagement in this new remote learning environment. We know that this is a challenging time for our families and we’ve been so pleased that so many of our students have been actively engaging in school. It is a real testament to our teachers and the hard work they have put in to help ensure a continuity of learning for our students. We continue to work with our staff and respond to feedback about how we can improve our process. Thank you very much to those of you that have provided us with feedback. We want to work with you to support the learning of all our students.
I also wanted to encourage our families, students and staff to be aware of their own mental health. This is an unprecedented time in our country’s history and has added a great deal of change to all our lives in a very short period of time. Please make sure that you’re taking time for self-care. Under ideal conditions, it can be challenging to be a parent. Our school is committed to ensuring a quality education for our students, and to making sure that the education we provide is reasonable for our families. Many of our staff have or are in the process of asking for feedback about your student’s remote learning experience. We encourage you to reach out to your teachers, or to myself if you have concerns or questions. We want to make sure that we are supporting everyone in our community. All of our learners and their families are important to SMM.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to address two questions that have come up. The first one is the transition to new leadership at the school. During this time the parish is working to develop a robust pool of candidates that will take over for me at the end of the school year. As new information becomes available we will be releasing it to our community, but I did want to let you know that there is an active search currently going on for our new principal.
I also wanted to talk about student enrollment for next year. Information has changed daily in many cases, and our goal is to be flexible and responsive. On Wednesday, March 25th we released next year’s tuition rates and an opportunity to begin signing contracts. We have been listening to early feedback about enrollment for next year and we acknowledge that for many families there is a level of uncertainty due to the coronavirus. I think it would be helpful for our whole community if we postpone contract signing until the middle of April when more information will be known. I think this also gives families a chance to adjust before they begin to think about next year. The Office of Catholic Schools is also exploring some additional tools for signing contracts remotely. Over the next couple of weeks will be receiving more information about how this might impact our registration process.
I thank you all for being part of our SMM community. We are praying for you and the safety of all of our families. We also ask that you continue to pray for us and for all those impacted by this disease.
Sincerely,
David Ramseyer,
St. Mary Magdalen School
Principal