On Monday we will begin our celebration of Catholic Schools Week and the theme couldn’t be more fitting: “Blessed to be Here”. Over the past six months, this simple phrase has been stated countless times and the “knowing” of it can be observed in the actions of our administration, faculty, staff, and students, daily. Knowing the attributes of our school community and the challenges we faced, allowed us to devise a plan for reopening and with confidence state that we could safely educate our children in-person.

This Sunday kicks off Catholic Schools Week and from now through February 6th you will get the 50% discount off of the $300 enrollment fee. If you re-enroll after Feb. 6th, you will pay $300.00. As part of the registration process you will need to make an account in the online SurePay link at the end of the enrollment process. The account information you save there will be used to surepay your tuition. Here is the link to re-enroll: 2021-2022 OLMC Re-enrollment

Friday marked the 100th day of school – in “dog days” that would be 700 days! For many, this was the week that brought the current pandemic too close for comfort. For the first time, since reopening in August, we encountered situations where persons who tested positive for COVID may have been on campus during what could be an infectious period. Thus, in accordance with our policy of community notification, we began and ended the week sending out notifications of two separate, unrelated, COVID positive cases. This is unsettling for the entire community and particularly troubling for those who were identified as “close contacts”.

Dear OLMC Community:

On the calendar this week is listed as Catholic Schools Week. This is incorrect. CSW begins on January 31st. Therefore, the lunch menu lists this Tuesday, January 26th as a free pizza day provided by Home and School. This is incorrect. The CSW free pizza day will be Tuesday, February 2nd. Please make sure to order lunch or pack a lunch for your child this Tuesday. We will have our regular pizza sale on Friday. 

We are going to begin rolling out our re-enrollment for the 2021-2022 school year. The fee for re-enrollment is $300. If you re-enroll between January 31 and February 5, we will cut the enrollment fee in half to $150.00. Next week I will send home the link to re enroll.

Dear OLMC Families,

I hope you are enjoying your long weekend together as a family. I want to thank you for all of your efforts to continue to keep everyone healthy. Many of you have been overly cautious when your child does not feel well by keeping him/her home. Thank you! At the school, we are continuing to wear our masks, wash our hands frequently and distance when we can. Please continue to encourage your children to wear their masks when needed and to wash hands often! Thank you for this partnership.

Friday afternoon, following the release of our students into the beautiful Arizona sunshine, many teachers headed to a regional “POD” (point of distribution) to receive their first dose of the COVID vaccine! Among the greatest medical advances of the past 100 years, vaccines to prevent viral illnesses have had a profound impact on the health of the world’s population. Very early in this pandemic, it was recognized by those in the scientific and medical communities that any return to “normal” would likely involve some type of widespread immunization. To this end, in March 2020, the Federal government embarked on a mission (Operation Warp Speed) to expedite the development of a COVID vaccine.

Waking up Monday morning, after my “long winter’s nap”, I found myself experiencing feelings of anxiety and trepidation. It is difficult to comprehend how at the very same time we are witnessing the deployment of our best defense against COVID (the vaccine) the number of cases continues to climb, reaching levels not seen before. We must not forget that each one of these “cases” is a person. Some of those people are connected to our school community. This means that some members of our community, who were identified as close contacts of a COVID positive person, could not return to in-person school on Monday. The need to quarantine, no doubt, fills one with anxiety and trepidation. As I spoke to parents, staff and students on Monday, many relayed feelings of anxiety and trepidation.

Dear Families,

It was wonderful to see the children back this week. They really grow quite a bit over the break! 

Third grade has Mass this week. The children will need to wear their Mass uniform. 

Friday is a half day, 12:35pm release. The children may wear a spirit shirt with their uniform bottoms. 

Happy New Year! The new year always brings an opportunity to start over, change behaviors and do things better than we did the year before--out with old and in with the new!

This year, as much as we desire to put 2020 behind us, we must not discard the infection control measures which were instituted at the beginning of our school year. Since Thanksgiving, we have seen increased community spread of the coronavirus and currently Maricopa County is reporting the highest number of cases since the onset of the Pandemic. Additionally, a mutation, or a change in the virus, first noted in the United Kingdom, has been found in people sick with COVID in Colorado, California and Florida. (www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/scientific-brief-emerging-variant.html)

Dear OLMC Community,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a beautiful New Year! As we move into the new year we will begin using the new pick up system with everyone dismissed at 3pm (pick-up map below) . We need the instruction time back in the classrooms and now that we have the hang of the pick up and can do it quickly and efficiently, we are moving the time ten minutes to give us more teaching time. Thank you for working with us!

The Mission Statement for OLMC School reads: “The role of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School is to provide a holistic Catholic Christian environment that serves the soul, mind and body of each child.” Notice it has no qualifiers. No, “if everything is perfect”. No, “when things are normal”. No, “except when challenges arise”. The year 2020 has been anything but perfect, not even close to normal and filled with unique challenges. Yet, because of a strong “Home & School” partnership, our shared commitment to serve our children, and the hard work and sacrifices of so many, we are finishing out the year with our students having had the greatest number of in-person school days for all of 2020!

Dear Families,

We had quite a busy week this week as we continue to prepare for the coming of the Lord! Here around the school you can see beautiful signs of Advent everywhere from the trees decorated to symbolize the candles on the advent wreath (thank you Faith Formation Committee), to the poinsettias in third grade and the many Jesse trees in various classrooms. It will certainly be a very different Christmas this year, but one thing will remain the same and that is our focus on the birth of Christ. 

Throughout the day Tuesday, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the Church bells rang out, bringing pause to the usual flurry of activity and joy to the face of all within earshot. Each peal of the bell reminded me that it is indeed a blessing to be HERE to HEAR and filled me with gratitude for this community!

Here are few updates as we enter the week before break:

Many of us will recall playing the game “Telephone” growing up. A message was whispered in the ear of a person and they in turn whispered to the next person, and so on, down the line. It was usually a great laugh when the last person revealed what they heard. More often than not, it sounded nothing like what the first person said! Though the world has experienced four pandemics in the past 100 years, given the explosion of social media in the past decade, this is the first time in history that the global population has, at the same time, had access to so much information. It is not only the volume of information that is mind boggling, but the speed with which information can be spread can only be called “viral”.

Dear OLMC Community,

Tuesday is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.The weekly Mass will move to Tuesday at 2pm since it is a Holy Day of Obligation. The sixth graders have Mass and they will need to wear their Mass uniform. 

The Dads’ Club is hosting another fundraiser at Someburros on Rural and Apache on Thursday, December 10. Swing by for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner!

Save the date! Wednesday, December 16 will be the Annual Christmas Program. We will send this out via email on Wednesday evening. It will be posted on our YouTube Channel. The children will come home with a little Christmas surprise and we ask that you send us pictures of your family enjoying the show.