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Diocesan Catholic schools kick off new school year

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
(Email Katie)

Catholic schools in the Diocese of Sioux City are combining spiritual, educational and social activities to start off the 2011-2012 school year.

In Christ Alone
Gehlen Catholic School in Le Mars has a variety of activities planned to kick off the school year. On Aug. 22, students, parents and the community will gather to celebrate fall sports and highlight the music programs.

The next two days feature informational meetings for students and parents as well as an open house for the elementary students, explained Lisa Niebuhr, development director at Gehlen.

The fine arts back to school breakfast will be held on Aug. 28. They will serve scrambled eggs, bacon and cinnamon rolls from 8:30 a.m. 12:30 p.m. at the school.

Gehlen chooses a Gospel value for each school year. This year the value chosen is “In Christ Alone.”

“Everything we are going to do this year we are going to do in Christ alone and to make sure that our focus is on Christ,” said Niebuhr. “Whether it is inside or outside of the classroom, we need to remember to do things in Christ alone.”

The Gospel value is incorporated into the liturgical seasons and components of the value are brought out during the months of the year.

“We bring it to life through our morning and afternoon prayers, our different liturgies and our activities. We focus on it all nine months,” said Niebuhr. “If we can’t live the mission of the church, then we are no different than any other school. This gives us an opportunity to say, ‘We are Gehlen Catholic, a proud school of 130-plus years and our focus is truly on Christ.’”

She extended gratitude to the parishes, community of Le Mars and the many benefactors for their support.

“We could not have our wonderful school and our students would not be able to live their life and have the academic and co-curricular activities without the support of our community,” said Niebuhr.

Building cohesiveness
At St. Mary School in Humboldt the beginning of the school year was a time to bring the teachers and staff together before the students started on Aug. 17.

The entire staff went through First Aid and CPR training on Aug. 12. Cindy Edge, St. Mary’s principal, said this is something they haven’t done before.

She said part of the reasoning for having this training was the story of her sister who saved her husband’s life. Edge’s sister had learned CPR at work and when her husband went into cardiac arrest, she performed CPR for eight to ten minutes until the ambulance crew arrived.

“She kept him alive,” said Edge. “As a school, I think it is wonderful for the staff to have for the kids. We are all family members, parents, children or siblings. Many of the teachers have said, ‘Thank you. I have wanted to do this on my own, but haven’t gotten it done.’”

Someone from AEA came in to work with the teachers on classroom management skills. The staff also went to Pocahontas on Aug. 15 for Roman Missal training.

Through donations and through the gala, the school was able to purchase and install promethean interactive boards in all of the kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. On Aug. 15 the teachers and staff were trained on how to use the interactive boards.

Edge said that having the trainings for staff before school starts “helps build cohesiveness, spiritually and academically, so that we start stronger with all the same targets in mind and with the same understanding of what our mission is.”

“When we can spend that time together as a staff, it makes us stronger to go out and give that same consistency, spiritually and academically, to our students,” she said.

Hoopla
The Bishop Heelan Catholic Schools System kicked off the school year with the Heelan Hoopla on Aug. 13 at Memorial Field in Sioux City. Eight hundred students, families, friends, alumni, faculty and staff were in attendance.

This year the evening started with the Heelan Football “Soda” Scrimmage. According to Angie Heller, director of marketing and public relations at BHCS, attendees brought bottled water and Gatorade as admittance into the scrimmage.

Bishop Walker Nickless presided at a 7 p.m. Mass with priests from Sioux City concelebrating. Following Mass, the attendees enjoyed hot dogs, chips and pop. Cookies were handed out by the Bishop Heelan High School Dance Team. There was a bouncy house and a rock climbing wall for the kids to enjoy.

“This is a unique way to kick off the school year,” said Heller. “It is a good time for everyone to see each other after a long summer and have fun in a relaxed setting before school starts.”

Another part of the beginning of the school year was open houses at Holy Cross, Mater Dei and Sacred Heart Schools on Aug. 16.

The first day of school for BHCS was Aug. 18. A tradition at Bishop Heelan High School is that the first day of school is freshman only – Freshmen Unity Day.

Clean slate
On Aug. 19, the faculty and staff of both Remsen St. Mary’s and Spalding will participate in a retreat. The day will begin with breakfast in St. Mary Church basement followed by reconciliation and Mass.

“We are really kicking the school year off with a clean slate in connection with reconciliation,” said Mary Arens, theology teacher and spiritual life director for both schools. “I feel we have to start with that first.”

After Mass, the retreat will be held in a meeting room at the new Wells Ice Cream Parlor in Le Mars. There will be two sets of speakers for the day.

The first speaker will be Jim Verlengia, who has been in school systems for several years and now works with AEA. Arens said she has heard that he is a great speaker.

“I always want to combine the importance of the sense of service in our lives. I always want it to be education and spiritual, but to really tie in that service component,” she said. “I always stress that component with the students, but I think it has to start with the adults.”

The second presentation will be by a couple, Steve and Kathy Vermulm, who will talk about “listening to God in our lives and stepping out of our box. They are going to talk about how adoption has affected their life,” said Arens.

The day will end with the distribution of T-shirts proclaiming the theme for each school for the year. The theme for St. Mary’s is “Do this in memory of me.” The theme for Spalding is from the book of Colossians, “For higher things we strive,” with an emphasis on the “t” which will be the crucifix.

“I really want to focus on what the themes are this year for both schools and tie that into the whole day of the retreat,” said Arens. “It (the retreat) is really going to focus on our Catholic identity through Mass and reconciliation and how we are called to do service in our lives.”

Not only will the theme be on the T-shirts, but it will be part of different aspects of the school year. Arens said the theme helps have a focus for the year and “both themes really do call us to remember that Christ is the reason for our Catholic schools.”

Each of the schools will have opening liturgies in the evening with a picnic afterward. School starts at Spalding on Aug. 23 and at St. Mary’s on Aug. 24.