January 2020 at a Glance

2020—2021 School Year New

Registrations

Fundraising Activities

Cold Weather Reminder

Transportation Contact

Terrific Kids

Feeder Schools Visits

Leadership Update

Christmas Concert

St. Brendan Open House

Gr. 9 Farewell Update

Superintendent’s Message

and more...

Administration Team Message Dear Parents, Welcome to the new year and new decade St. Brendan families! I hope that your Christmas and New year holidays were happy and peaceful. Our staff and students continue the journey of the 2019- 20 school year after a well-deserved rest. We are very proud of our school community for raising nearly $3000 in support for several charities during the advent season. Your generosity will help the charities such as the Sign of Hope, World Vision, Stollery and the Youth Empowerment and Support Services. Well done St. Brendan! Thank you especially to our leadership teams for the coordination of fundraisers. We also have received the first batch of our new school spirit wear. It looks great! There will be another opportunity to order school spirit wear in the Spring. A great congratulations goes out to our Senior and Junior Vol-leyball teams who played awesome volleyball and represented our school with class. We look forward to seeing our Elementary volleyball teams in action this month and also our senior basketball teams who begin their season in January. Goooo… Falcons!

Please be aware that the first formal reporting period ends on January 31. You will be able to access and print a “report card” in Power School after that date (Elementary and Junior High). As you know, you can and are encouraged to follow your child’s progress anytime, but the report card will show completed work for the first semester (half) of the year and can be printed. A new semester will start for Junior high in February. Any missed assignments must be in by mid January for them to count for their final Term 1 marks.

We are preparing for our Open House on February 12. You, our parents are our greatest ambassadors. Please encourage your friends and family to consider our school, especially if they are Kindergarten age or heading to grade 7. Present Spanish and Ukrainian Bilingual grade 6 students are very welcome to join us in grade 7!

We hope you all have a Happy New Year in 2020 and that all our students find great success and fulfillment in the second half of this school year. God Bless.

Happy New Year!!!!! St. Brendan Admin Team

Epiphany Prayer O God

Who by a star guided the wise men to the worship of your Son

we pray you to lead to yourself the wise and great of every land

that unto you every knee may bow, and every thought be brought into captivity

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Principal: Mr. Taras Podilsky Assistant Principals: Mr. Eugene Hirniak, Mrs. Larysa Matchak Administrative Assistants: Mrs. Mirka Osuch & Mrs. Lidia Radyo

Next Newsletter January 31st

School Council Meeting Please join us!

Wednesday, January 14, 2020 6:30 p.m.

9260 - 58 Street Edmonton, AB. T6B 3W2 Phone: (780) 466-1281 Fax: (780) 466-6057 Powerschool: https://powerschool.ecsd.net website: http://www.stbrendan.ecsd.net

2020—2021 School Year

New Registrations

The new online registration process will start on Jan. 8 at 9 AM. As soon as families register, they will receive a message that states that their application is not complete until the school receives the child’s birth certificate, baptismal certificate and other documentation and to contact the school’s administration for further instructions. Kindergarten students must be 5 years of age on or before December 31, 2020 to register for Kindergarten. Our Open House for all programs will be held on Thursday, February 12, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. We hope you can join us. Word of mouth is the most effective way to promote our school. We ask that you spread the good news about our wonderful school to your friends and neighbours.

Feeder Schools Visits

On Thursday, January 23rd, we will once again host our annual Grade 6 Feeder Volleyball event. Students from 6 feeder schools will gather to join in some food, volleyball competition and welcomed to St. Brendan. Parents of these students are encouraged to attend and cheer on their children as they participate in this event. The tournament will run from approximately 1:30 –5:00 pm. Come check it out! In addition to this event, we will be hosting each grade 6 class with a tour of the school, begin-ning on January 20th. The purpose of these visits is to familiarize the Grade 6 students with our school, have them see some of the activities and classes, meet some fellow students, and to have them begin thinking about their future as students of St. Bren-dan Junior High.

Sign of Hope “We Care” Fundraiser

St. Brendan School is delighted to share that through the generous donations at both Junior High Band concert and the Elementary Christmas Concert raised a total of $764.25 towards the We Care Campaign. All of these funds went towards Sign of Hope and we will continue to raise money for some of these initiatives throughout the year.

Elementary Volleyball 2020: Students from Grades 5-6 have started practicing in December for two VB tournaments in January! The Grade 6’s will be participating in a tournament on Thursday, January 16th at Father Michael Mireau School while all the Grade 5 and 6 students who have joined VB will be participating in our feeder school tournament here at St. Brendan on Thursday, January 23rd! Practices are being held after school from 3:15 – 4:15 pm each Monday and Wednes-day. Thank you coaches: Miss Babiak, Mr. Masluk and Mr. Bradshaw

Christmas Card Walk Students from the grades 1/2 and 3/4 and Generations classes took an afternoon to make Christmas Cards as a Social Justice project. Students buddied up with each other and used their creative juices to decorate beautiful Christmas cards with stickers, pictures, and decorations. On Monday, December 16, all of the students met once again to deliver the Christmas Cards in the St. Brendan neighbourhood. Students joined with their buddy to put the cards in the mailboxes. We hope this created Christmas spirit in our community!

Leadership Update

Huge thank you all students for collecting non-perishable food for students in need in our school community. We collected over 20 huge boxes of food that were donated to many families in need in our community. Congratulations to Grade 8A who was the top class who collected over 150 items following Grade 7A with over 140 items. As tradition Candy Grams was on sale before Christmas. They were sold out by the end of the week! A profit of $150 profit was made in Candy Grams sales! All proceeds will go towards the Stollery Hospital. Privilege Day took place on Friday, December 13. During this special day students were allowed to wear hats, eat snacks, listen to music and use their phones in class among other things for a donation of $5. This is a very popular fundraising event among students at St. Brendan and because of that, students raised $940.50 in donations. Raised money from all these events will be donated to the Stollery Hospital and World Vision to purchase medicine and other medical supplies for those in need around the world. Congratulations St. Brendan students. The leadership team is planning a Valentine's Dance on Friday, February 14. It will be a semi-formal dance with students wearing something red! Boys, it can be as simple as wearing a tie and dress shirt. Girls, it can be as simple as wearing a glittery top with your favorite jeans! Happy New Year! Your leadership team teachers, Mrs. Sukhy and Ms. Richards

2019-2020 St. Brendan Golf Academy

The students in the St. Brendan Golf Academy have been working very hard this year on their golf skills with the help of our new CPGA instructor: Alan Gallyer at the new Evolution Golf location in Sherwood Park. Plans are also underway on the annual spring golf trip which will be taking place this year from June 1 -3 2020 at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge and Course where students will have the opportunity to use their skills they have learned throughout the year. Kevin Mazur, the co-ordinator of the St. Brendan Golf Academy, would like to pass on an open invitation to new or current students that wish to enrol in the Golf Academy for the 2020-2021 school year. Spots are limited and are first-come, first-served. If you require more information about the Golf Academy, please contact Kevin Mazur at either 780-466-1281 or kevin.mazur@ecsd.net.

Christmas Concert 2019 Thank you to all of the parents, families and friends who joined us for our December 19th concert. Thanks to our dedicated music teacher, Mrs. Ilkiw, our beautiful and talented students and the St. Brendan staff for the amazing concert. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to prepare the school for events like this and we appreciate all of the helping hands in our school. Thank you to the School Council who prepared the treats for students, and hosted the hospitality tables.

Cold Weather Reminder Please make sure that your child has warm clothing, boots and mitts so that they can enjoy the winter weather. It is also very helpful if mittens and hats are labelled with your child’s name. Students are expected to go out for recess every day except during severe inclement weather. We monitor the temperature and use -20 as a benchmark to determine if students will be kept inside the school at recess and during the noon hour.

TRANSPORTATION ISSUES Please call transportation

office 7:15 AM – 5:00 PM

780 441 6078

New Administrative Assistant

We would like to extend a huge welcome to Mrs. Miroslawa Osuch (Mrs. O) who is our new Administrative Assistant! (Head Secretary) Mrs. O has taken over from Mrs. Brown as of December 9th. We look forward to her leadership with the St. Brendan community.

Knights of Columbus Basketball Free Throw Competition ~ CORRECTION

We would like to make a correction to the names of the winners of the K of C Basketball Free Throw Competition. The following students have qualified to move onto the next round of competition which will be scheduled for some time in Spring.

Category Student Name Position Boys 9 Sebastian Cerra First Place Girls 9 Tamara Ngo Ngan First Place Boys 10 Ethan Desforge First Place Girls 10 Celina Paszkiewicz First Place Boys 11 Kobe Shewchuk First Place

Terrific Kids

Terrific Kids is a character-building program that recognizes students for modifying their behavior. The program encourages kids to become the best version of themselves. Kids determine what being terrific means to them, then develop their own goals and use peer mentoring to hold themselves account-able for the actions they take each week. When a participant achieves their goal, her or she is recognized for being a Terrific Kid. We will be beginning this program in January for the Elemen-tary students at St. Brendan. The link to the program is: https://kiwaniskids.org/en/KKids/Resources/TerrificKids.aspx Here is what TERRIFIC stands for: T – Thoughtful E – Enthusiastic R – Respectful R – Responsible I – Inclusive F – Friendly I – Inquisitive C – Capable Each month, 1-2 values will be emphasized and teachers will recognize students in their classes who are practicing the above virtues. Details are still being ironed out but a ceremony or recognition assembly will be created to recognize students.

12

The Holy Spirit and Timing in a Busy World By Fr. Glenn McDonald, CSB

Parents and students are busy people. They often ask me,

“Where is God in my life?”

With this article I would like to share about the timing of the Holy Spirit and God’s love in over-loaded schedules.

I first noticed that timing was an aspect of God’s love when I started celebrating baptisms. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but when I first became a priest, I wasn’t always keen on celebrating a bap-tism during a Sunday Mass. A baptism makes the Mass more complicated, and when I feel over-whelmed, I like to make things as simple as possible. The Holy Spirit, however, had other plans.

It took me awhile to clue in, but I eventually noticed that every time I celebrated a baptism, no matter how complicated it made the Mass, I loved it. I cannot exactly describe why -- I just did.

The mysteriousness of God’s love was raised to the next level when I would get a request to cele-brate a baptism outside the regular parish Mass schedule. For example, a family would ask for a baptism on a particular Thursday evening in six months' time, because that is when the grandparents would be in town. Little did I know that in six months’ time that baptism would occur during the most insane week of the year, and an extra baptism would be the last thing I had time to do. And yet, no matter how exhaust-ed I felt, the baptism lifted my spirits. Eventually, I recognized that the Holy Spirit cared for me by placing a baptism into a week when I felt exhausted or low, as a way of restoring me.

I share these experiences with you because people live very busy lives these days. Despite how hard we might try to find even five minutes for quiet and prayer, it can prove to be impossible (can I get an “Amen” from all the parents with young children?). The Holy Spirits understands that our lives can be crazy-busy, so the Holy Spirit inserts into our day experiences of refreshment and renewal. For me, the Holy Spirit uses baptisms. What does the Holy Spirit use in your busy schedule?

January 2020

So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the

shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her

heart. (Luke 2:16-19)

In the spring of 2003, Edmonton Catholic Schools chose Mary, the Mother of God as our Division Patron Saint. We honour Mary because, through her active co-operation in God's saving plan, she both wrapped the divine in human flesh and dignified humanity in the sight of God. This past September, ECSD proudly shared our new Division Prayer which honors Mary, the Mother of God, with our schools and departments. You can find this beautiful prayer at www.ecsd.net under ‘What’s New in the Division’. ECSD is pleased to once again offer Diploma Exam preparation sessions in English and in French Immersion through our Alternative Education programming. The cost is $75 per subject and includes student resources. You can find more information by visiting our web-site and clicking on the January Diploma Preparation Sessions banner. The new year marks the time when we begin registering students for the 2020-21 school year. You can learn about the many program options that are available to your child by ex-ploring the ‘Programs’ section of our website. As part of our Walking Together Towards a Glorious Future plan which has, as its goals, to improve school utilization rates and operat-ing costs by efficiently and effectively locating focus, language and alternative programs in our Division, there will be a few shifts in programs that are offered at various sites. If you have students who are entering 100 Voices, Kindergarten, or who are moving to a new school next year, you will find the information under ‘Programs’ to be tremendously useful. If you have children, friends or family registering with Edmonton Catholic Schools for the first time, we are pleased to share that all our new registrations will be done completely online beginning January 8, 2020. For families that do not have computer access, each of our schools will have a kiosk set up for convenience. As you know the calendar year begins with the celebration of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. I leave you with a thought from Pope Francis’ Angelus on January 1, 2019: “(We) celebrate the Holy Mother of God. Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, we remain with our gaze focused on her and on the Child she holds in her arms. And in this way, by showing us Jesus, the Saviour of the world, she, the mother, blesses us…in this year that is beginning, and that will be good precisely in the measure in which each one will have welcomed God’s goodness which Jesus came to bring into the world.” Have a blessed New Year! Sincerely, Joan Carr Superintendent

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

5

6 D1

School resumes

Ukrainian Christmas Eve

7 D2

Xристос Hародився

8 D3

9 Day 4p

10 D4 Hot Lunch Order

Deadline

11

12

13 D5

Grade 9 Farewell planning

meeting @6:30 pm.

14 D6 Ukrainian New Year

SAC Meeting 6:30 p.m.

15 D1

Hot Lunch Day

16 Flex

Fr. Michael

Mireau Elemen-tary Volleyball Tournament

17 D2

18

Щедрий вечір!

19 Водохреща Йордан

20 D3

21 D4

22 D5

23 Day 5a Feast of Jordan

Blessing of Water 9:00 am.

Feeder school

Volleyball Tournament

24 D6

25

26 27 D1 28 D2

29 D3

30 Flex

AOB Basketball Tournament

31 Day 4

Semester 1 ends

Elementary & JH Report Cards

go live

1 2 3

4

JANUARY 2020

Tuesday, February 4th. Faith Development Day No School All Students

CTBS for gr. 6 & 9

CHRISTMAS BREAK

CTBS for gr. 6 & 9