Keeping Costs Down

Economics difficulties are hitting most families right now. We see it in our applications for enrollment. We are receiving higher than normal amount of applications for our upper grades from families who may have their children in more expensive private schools.

One of the basic tenets of Catholic school is to provide an affordable Catholic education to families who want it. This is a philosophy I strongly subscribe to and I make it a priority. Some of the ways this has been made possible in past years is to have religious teaching in the schools, receiving subsidies from the parish and having parents do service in the school.

We no longer have religious teaching in most of our schools (none at Holy Angels) most parishes cannot subsidize their schools any more ( we receive financial support form our parish) and parent service has lost its purpose.

Parent service hours is supposed to fulfill roles that we would otherwise have to pay for. This may include aiding in the classroom, supervising at lunch and recess, completing office tasks, and much much more. Some of this still gets done by volunteers, but those numbers are becoming less and less. We have hired staff to do most of these jobs now, and every year the suggestion for many jobs previously done by parents is "Why not just pay someone to do it?". We are fortunate to be able to afford this, but ultimately, it ends up driving the tuition of the school up.
At the same time, we may have thirteen parents volunteer to run a class Christmas party, which may be more than necessary, and, ultimately, does not really serve the purpose for which school service hours are intended (keeping costs down).

We need to decide what we want our school to become. I know what I want it to remain, but it will require our parents to be involved in some roles that may not be as fun or easy as we are becoming accustomed to. Otherwise we run the risk of defeating one of our primary goals.

Technology Ramblings

As we approach the eve of our annual Jog-a-Thon, it struck me that we are currently without an active Technology Committee and thus, our Technology Plan is falling out of relevance. Each year we raise a significant amount of money to enhance the school's technology program, and we are doing an excellent job in keeping the students, the classrooms and the teachers up to date. But technology changes so quickly that sometimes a plan can become outdated within a couple of years, so over planning almost seems futile. Its a true Catch-22.

We have a tremendous amount of parent-genrerated energy taking place at the school right now, and it's exciting to see because this kind of energy will result in the goals getting set and these goals being met. We need to re-energize our Technology Committee to ensure that we set realistic goals and that we meet these goals, rather than just wait for another twelve months to roll around and then decide how we should best spend the money we raise. Additionally, we need to gather individuals who are able to view the future of education and where technology fits in, while also realizing that technology does not just include computers and related products.

Consider signing up to be apart of this committee. Let myself or Mr. Jaco know that this is something you are interested in, and lets continue to build upon the momentum that is driving our school into the future.

Being an Accountable Citizen

We exist in a community that is full of excellent schools. Walk one mile in any direction from Holy Angels, and you will come across several excellent public and private school. It is one of the reason's Arcadia was recently selected as the best city in California to raise a child.

Considering the ample choices for a quality education in the area, the question regarding Holy Angels purpose in the community should be asked. Arcadia does not need another excellent school. However, along with Annunciation, what we do provide that does not exist elsewhere in Arcadia is an excellent Catholic school.

A component of being an excellent Catholic school, which we have included in our schoolwide learning expectations, is developing our students to be accountable citizens. I can say, proudly, that I think we do fulfill this purpose, and quite well. Sometimes I worry that we do not do enough to improve the community that we are part of, but then I take a moment and think back to all that has been accomplished by our parents and students in just the last month, and these worries vanish.

So what have we done? Since the middle of November we have provided a Thanksgiving dinner for 250 senior citizens; while our primary classes put together complete dinners for 18 needy families. We have had students raise thousands of dollars for the homeless and participate in a walk to raise awareness for this crisis in our society. Our parents have committed to purchasing over 150 Christmas gifts for needy children (in just 3 days), while we have students who have opted to forgo a Christmas gift exchange in favor of making gift packs for Maryvale Orphanage. Our CPTA has adopted a needy family in the community to ensure they have a wonderful Christmas.

This is a three week portrait of just some of the activities that are taking place at Holy Angels. While words are good, I have always told our students it is much more important to live our faith than it is to just talk about it. While I sometimes worry that we are too constant in our appeals to our families, we must also remember that helping those who are less fortunate than us should be a way of life, not just a periodic event. I am proud to say our families do this all year long. I think it is one of the aspects of our school that makes us an excellent Catholic school, and it is a strong argument for our existence in such a great community.

On Halloween, Horror and Exposure

Halloween is just about here, and from a teachers perspective, I can tell you it is one of the worst days of the year. It is amazing how an over energized classroom full of kids can drain all the energy out of anyone 25 or older in a matter of minutes. That being said, we also all know what a great day it is for kids and how important it is to have a fun day once in a while.

I do not agree, at all, with the individuals who view Halloween as an "evil" day or satanic in any way. In fact, the day is very strongly rooted in Christian tradition (see the related article) and is nothing more than a fun day for kids. I vividly remember how absolutely magical Halloween was, dressing up as a hobo or a marine, and going out trick or treating. I never once thought of invoking the devil or summoning evil spirits. It was all about fun.

What I do have cocerns with regarding Halloween is the age appropriateness of some of the costumes children wear. The other day, I was privy to two second grade students arguing the merits of Michael Meyers, not the comedic actor, but the killer from the Halloween movies. I was horrified that these kids not only knew who he was, but knew him well enough to debate him. I refrain from making judgements about parental decisons because I know how difficult and crowded a day can get. Sometimes fast food may be the only option for a meal or a child may see a program that is not "child-friendly." But in this case, I did judge the parents. How is it that children seven years old are allowed to watch multiple "slasher movies" to the point of knowing dialogue? I find it inexcusable.

I never wanted to dress as a killer for Halloween because I was not exposed to killers as a child. I wanted to be a hobo because I read books about hobos (and infact,it was a career goal of mine for many years). Marines were heros and thats who I wanted to emmulate. Now it seems common place for young children to come dressed as some of the most brutal characters ever created for "entertainment purposes". They must be choosing the characters because they are familiar with them. The question then becomes, how are they familiar with them?

Parents can not relinquish their responsibility to monitor media for appropriateness. Children will be exposed to plenty of inappropriate material even with the most vigilant parents. I certainly think in the society in which we currently reside, it becomes more important than ever to limit exposure than we can limit and not glorify that which should not be glorified. It is often these same parents who just don't get it when their child acts out in a n aggresive or violent manner, since they never see that at home.

Truth about Halloween

Halloween:
The Real Story!
Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.,

We’ve all heard the allegations. Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped Church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety.

It’s true that the ancient Celts of Ireland and Britain celebrated a minor festival on Oct. 31 — as they did on the last day of most other months of the year. However, Halloween falls on the last day of October because the Feast of All Saints or "All Hallows" falls on Nov. 1. The feast in honor of all the saints in heaven used to be celebrated on May 13, but Pope Gregory III (d. 741) moved it to Nov. 1, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter’s at Rome. Later, in the 840s, Pope Gregory IV commanded that All Saints be observed everywhere. And so the holy day spread to Ireland. The day before was the feast’s evening vigil, "All Hallows Even" or "Hallowe’en." In those days, Halloween didn’t have any special significance for Christians or for long-dead Celtic pagans.

In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in Southern France, added a celebration on Nov. 2. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. This feast, called All Souls Day, spread from France to the rest of Europe.

So now the Church had feasts for all those in heaven and all those in purgatory? What about those in the other place? It seems Irish Catholic peasants wondered about the unfortunate souls in hell. After all, if the souls in hell are left out when we celebrate those in heaven and purgatory, they might be unhappy enough to cause trouble. So it became customary to bang pots and pans on All Hallows Even to let the damned know they were not forgotten. Thus, in Ireland, at least, all the dead came to be remembered — even if the clergy were not terribly sympathetic to Halloween and never allowed All Damned Day into the Church calendar.

But that still isn’t our celebration of Halloween. Our traditions on this holiday centers around dressing up in fanciful costumes, which isn’t Irish at all. Rather, this custom arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. Late medieval Europe was hit by repeated outbreaks of the bubonic plague — the Black Death — and she lost about half her population. It is not surprising that Catholics became more concerned about the afterlife. More Masses were said on All Souls’ Day, and artistic representations were devised to remind everyone of their own mortality.

We know these representations as the "Dance Macabre" or "Dance of Death," which was commonly painted on the walls of cemeteries and shows the devil leading a daisy chain of people — popes, kings, ladies, knights, monks, peasants, lepers, etc. — into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was presented on All Souls’ Day itself as a living tableau with people dressed up in the garb of various states of life. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween; and the Irish, who had Halloween, did not dress up. How the two became mingled probably happened first in the British colonies of North America during the 1700s when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. The Irish focus on hell gave the French masquerades and even more macabre twist.

But, as every young ghoul knows, dressing up isn’t the point; the point is getting as many goodies as possible. Where on earth did "trick or treat" come in?

"Treat or treat" is perhaps the oddest and most American addition to Halloween, and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.

During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England, Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds of priests were martyred.

Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a Catholic uprising against their oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot was foiled on Nov. 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot fizzled.

Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes’ Day, became a great celebration in England, and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes for their celebration: trick or treat!

Guy Fawkes’ Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. But, buy the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun to give up, so eventually it moved to Oct. 31, the day of the Irish-French masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.

The mixture of various immigrant traditions we know as Halloween had become a fixture in the Unites States by the early 1800s. To this day, it remains unknown in Europe, even in the countries from which some of the customs originated.

But what about witches? Well, they are one of the last additions. The greeting card industry added them in the late 1800s. Halloween was already "ghoulish," so why not give witches a place on greeting cards? The Halloween card failed (although it has seen a recent resurgence in popularity), but the witches stayed. So, too, in the late 1800s, ill-informed folklorists introduced the jack-o’-lantern. They thought that Halloween was druidic and pagan in origin. Lamps made from turnips (not pumpkins) had been part of ancient Celtic harvest festivals, so they were translated to the American Halloween celebration.

The next time someone claims that Halloween is a cruel trick to lure your children into devil worship, I suggest you tell them the real origin of All Hallows Even and invite them to discover its Christian significance, along with the two greater and more important Catholic festivals that follow it.

Essay on Parenting

For the last twenty years of my life, I have made a living teaching and telling parents how they should raise their children. I was very well schooled in theory and felt like I had a very logical answer for virtually every problem that arose. Slightly over 18 months ago, that all changed when my daughter was born. While I think I have always known this deep down inside, theory is great, practice is a bit more difficult. This new found philosophy was recently confirmed upon taking my daughter to her pediatrician. She too has recently had her first child, and I asked her how rigidly she was able to adhere to her own and advice, and she grudgingly admitted it was not always so easy to do.

As a young teacher, I would get offended when people told me that I didn't understand certain situations and practices, because I did not have kids. It did not deter me, however, from reiterating the theory I was already espousing, and letting them know that what I had to say was really what was best for their child.

Their is an emotional factor to parenting that can never truly be separated from the decision making process. We all want to do what is best for our child, but we also all know that what your child suffer through a bad decision, hurt themselves as they investigate, or sometimes, just the desire to do things the "easy" way cause us to interfere or make bad decisions, even though we know it is not what is in the child's best interest. Other times, we may be so intent on them learning a lesson that we let the lesson override what we know we should do as a parent. Most of them time, it is hard to decipher what is the right thing to do in any situation.

So while I understand, now more than ever, the reality of being a parent, I also hope that my child has some of those theory-driven teachers who can point out to me what I can do to best help my child. I want the teacher who does not let emotion beat out common sense when it comes to my child's development, and I want the teacher who is not afraid to tell it to me like it truly is. I hope I am the parent who is able to listen with an open mind and truly understand that my child's teacher has her best interest at heart. I hope that I am truly able to comprehend that if I truly want what is best for my daughter, I will try to apply the suggestions of that teacher and work with her teachers to ensure that she succeeds. I hope my mind is not closed when I hear things that are difficult to hear about the child I know is wonderful and then I hope I will do everything I can to help make her an independent, successful child. Lastly, I hope I will be compassionate when my child fails and understand that these failures should be turned into the most valuable learning experiences of her life.

And then, on the way home, I will probably buy her an ice cream before dinner and tell her not to tell her mom.

A School for All Ages

Despite its continual decline in quality and content, I still thoroughly enjoy the Los Angeles Times. I used to consider it the best paper in the nation, whereas now, I think its a good paper. In contrast to my assessment regarding its perceived decline, I am fairly happy with one area of coverage that seems to have increased in recent times, that being articles that pertain to educational issues.

One of these articles recently spoke about a movement in the public schools to eliminate junior high schools and have the schools include grades kindergarten to eighth. As anyone who has been involved in Catholic schools is aware, this has always been our model and a relatively successful model at that.

The irony here is that we have had numerous discussions over the last several years, both at the school level and in principal meetings, about the difficulty of providing programs that cater to all these grade levels. To solidify the point a bit, try considering how you would plan a birthday party that would keep a 5 year old and a 14 year old entertained. The same challenges that you could foresee in this scenario are prevalent in a school environment. We want our school to be inclusive and communal, but the reality is an assembly about Martin Luther King cannot possibly keep all the age groups enraptured to the same degree or teach the same lesson to all these students.

We have discussed the benefits of regional schools, including junior highs and pre-kindergartens and it may be a direction the schools in our area eventually go; but then again, it may never happen. That does not solve the dilemma we are currently faced with in a PK-8 school.

Fortunately, in our meetings prior to the start of school, we as a faculty finally addressed the elephant that has always been in the room. We cannot possibly do everything for every age group and do it well. Some of what we plan for the year may only be appropriate for children of a specific age group or grade level, and that's ok. It will not cause us to lose the community aspect of Holy Angels, thanks in part to programs like our school families. By allowing the children to gather several times a month, as a "family", we will continue to keep our commnity strong, teach leadership and responsibility to our older students, and allow our younger students interaction with older kids who are cool simply because they are older.

As with anything that is kid-generated and run, we will have some bumps in the road. We are aware of this and we prepare for it. By critiquing instead of criticizing, and providing guidance instead of directives, we will help all of our students to grow and become the responsible citizens that are highlighted in our school wide learning expectations.