Living, Loving, and Learning Our Faith

Welcome back to a new year, January 2022! We were excited for the students to return and we hope all our students and families enjoyed the winter holiday break.

We are now in the winter months (BURRR) and cold, cold weather is upon us! Thank you for ensuring that your child has the proper winter wear gear for going outside during recess and lunch recess times. We do follow our policy noted further down in this newsletter regarding inside recess. We have a nice rotation for students to utilize the gym and/or play board games in a classroom.

A couple of shout outs for our first week back:

Mr. Geoff for keeping our floors dry during such slushy weather.
All of our brave outside classroom and lunch recess duty staff for supervising our students outside AND bundling each child up before the students to go outside.
Ms. Tami for covering as a full day sub!
All of our students for their first snow day pictures that turned into an awesome video. Please check out St. Rita’s FB page and enjoy (LOVE) the video. It is really precious!
All of our grade 7 and 8 students who are providing mentoring and tutoring to our younger students during mass and in our new reading program at the end of the day.
All of our primary staff who spend time zipping, unzipping, wrapping scarves, putting on gloves and making sure each student is warm!
THANK YOU!

Stay healthy and warm!

Blessings,

Dr. Sue

St. Rita's Mission

Living Loving and Learning Our Faith: Living as members of our Catholic Faith Community; Loving God and all of His creation; Learning for our future on Earth and Heaven.

St. Vincent Depaul's Food Drive

What: Stuff the Bus for Catholic Schools Week

Who: All St. Rita’s staff and community

Where: St. Rita’s School

When: Starts January 10 and ends February 4

Please find the chart below of what your child's class will be collecting.

4K's Snow Day

Ms. Bev's class brought the snow inside! The students put on mittens and used shovels and containers to make Snowballs and snowmen.

3rd & 4th Grade Making a Snow Fort

St. Rita Students Having Fun at Recess!

Snow Day Video

In case you missed it on Facebook, here is Dr. Sues View.

We had so much fun out in the snow!

Siena Catholic Schools: Inclement Weather Policy

As we approach winter, we wanted to remind you of our procedure for closing schools due to inclement weather. Siena Catholic Schools of Racine follows the decision of RUSD with regard to weather-related closings, delays, and cancellations. When school is canceled, all scheduled athletics/activities and before/after school care are also canceled. All families will receive an email, phone call, and a text message announcing the closing; these announcements will also be posted on all school facebook pages. Depending on the forecast, decisions about closures may be made as early as the afternoon before or as late as the morning of. Please monitor local television/radio/news sites for any announcements.

As far as instruction goes on any snow days, students in grades 3K-8 will have true snow days. While teachers or principals may have a fun activity planned that students can participate in from home, there will be no instruction. Students at St. Catherine’s High School will have one snow day. Should the weather cause school to close more than once, high school students, faculty, and staff will switch to virtual learning. This is due to the hours of instruction required by the State of Wisconsin.

What doe this mean for St. Rita's?

For St. Rita's, no one with the possible exception of maintenance is expected to report to work. Staff will receive an all users communication from Siena/Ms. Kimberly Gardner.

Handbook Language we will follow:

The school will be closed including CARES supervision, on days when Racine Unified School District is closed. Closings are announced over local radio (WISN 1130, WTMJ 620 / 94.5, WRJN 1400), television (FOX 6, TMJ4, CBS58, WISN 12), and their media websites. Parents/Guardians will not hear our school name announced on public media unless there are specific circumstances affecting only our school or only all Catholic schools.

School closings will be announced in the media as Siena Catholic Schools of Racine. Staff will receive an email from Ms. Kimberly Gardner. Rarely used, but if a delayed start is announced for Racine Unified School District, St. Rita will follow the same schedule and delay the start to the day.

Parents may use their own discretion to decide whether to keep their children at home for safety if at anytime a closure is not called and school is in session but believe it is too dangerous or hard to get to school due to the weather circumstances. This absences will be recorded as an excused absence.

PARENTS-It is important to ensure that we have your correct email and cell phone in our system for weather alerts. Please log in to your PowerSchool account and verify.

Need your child during the school day? Picking up for appointments and emergencies or when sick?

Please remember to call Ms. Lopez in the main office at 262-639-3333. We handle all student departures during the school day. THANK YOU!

How to Keep you Chromebook Healthy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H8jGt__rtc

Facebook

Be sure to check out our Facebook page and all the great videos we post! We need you to "LIKE" us!

https://www.facebook.com/stritaschoolracine

Catholic Social Responsibility Guidebook

Please see the newly released Catholic Social Responsibility Guidebook from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee under the direction of Dr. Kathleen Cepelka. It is available at https://www.archmil.org/Education/Catholic-Social-Responsibility.htm.

COVID NOTICE

Hello Siena families,

As we committed to do throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have needed to respond to the changing needs of our students, families, and staff and want to ensure the safety and health of all. Our leadership team recently met in order to reassess Siena’s COVID communication procedures to ensure that families are well informed.

In addition to communicating directly with families who experience a positive case and those who are considered close contacts, a letter will now be shared with the entire school community when we are made aware of a positive case in our building. We hope that this additional layer of information, along with our COVID dashboard, will help families keep a closer eye on any symptoms your child(ren) might be experiencing.

Please regularly monitor your children for COVID symptoms, including fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell, fatigue, headaches, diarrhea, etc. If anyone becomes symptomatic, please keep them home and call your healthcare provider to inquire about testing.

Thank you for your partnership in keeping our school communities safe!

Sincerely,

Kimberly Gardner

Chief Advancement Officer

Siena Catholic Schools of Racine

COVID REMINDERS

We do want to ensure that each child that comes to school is healthy and ready to learn.

Please review the following:

If a vaccinated person is a close contact of a positive individual, they do not have to quarantine UNLESS they have symptoms.
Masked individuals who are close contacts of a positive individual who was also masked during interactions will not have to quarantine per the CDC.
Quarantined individuals will be able to get tested six (6) days after exposure and will be allowed to return seven days after exposure with a negative test UNLESS the County Health Department shares something different with the family.
Students who TEST POSITIVE or who are considered close contacts will receive a letter from the school.
Siena Catholic Schools also has a dashboard updated weekly showing where numbers are by school.
IF your child is in quarantine and/or positive, please work with your child's teacher regarding classwork.

Inclement weather on school days

In rainy or subzero weather, students need appropriate outerwear. Students are outdoors several times a day. A hooded sweatshirt for example is not as adequate as a winter jacket. If the outdoor temperature is 10 degrees or below, wind chill factor of “zero” degrees or below, hard rain or blizzard like conditions, recess is most likely to be indoors. The decision is up to the Principal and at times in collaboration with supervisory staff. While outside, if any playground supervisor determines that the weather is too severe for outdoor recess (as our weather changes often), the outdoor supervisor is authorized to bring the students inside.