Year Two!
Year Two began with a welcome to new members of the Father Francis McSpiritt community, as our population rose from 320 in the first year, to 360 students. New students continued to be a mix of established families and new immigrants.
Welcome back, Mustangs!
On behalf of the faculty and staff at Father Francis McSpiritt, I extend a warm welcome back to all our students and their families – and a special welcome to the 40 new students and their families! I hope you have had a wonderful summer – filled with beautiful memories!
What's new this September?
We have many new students and a few new staff members too. Joining the staff this year will be: Mrs. Harris, in grade 2, Mrs. Sheehy, in the library, Ms. Dias, half time in Kindergarten, Ms. Brown, our E.R.W., Mlle Lambe, F.S.L., and Mr. Dicenso, part-time Special Education in the junior grades. Mme Butera will be coming back from leave, and Mrs. Barbosa will be going on leave to enjoy some time with her new baby, who arrived in November. Some of our "old" faces have new names: Miss Forward is now Mrs. Farrar, Miss Sherwood is Mrs. Masters, and Miss Musielak is Mrs. Morales.
What's going on?
As usual, lots! We are continuing many of the activities begun last year, and adding some new ones. We still have sports teams, and dance teams and reading clubs. We took part in the Terry Fox walk again, and had our second annual Hallowe'en Dance-a-thon fundraiser. This Christmas, once again we will have a food & coat drive, and "adopt" a needy family. We also have started a "Hot Lunch on Thursdays" program.
Be informed!
Read your monthly newsletter and check and sign your child's agenda each night. Newsletters are always posted here on the school website as well, along with photos of some events.
Second half update:
Welcome back from leave Ms. Pritchard.
Congratulations to Mrs. Barbosa and her family on the arrival of their new baby boy, and Mr. Amodeo and his family on the arrival of a new baby girl and Mrs. Farrar and her family on the arrival of their new baby girl! Goodbye Mrs Morales, and welcome back from leave Mme Pierro!
And finally...
Toward the end of the second year, we completed our mission statement, and celebrated with a special liturgy as Father Papais blessed and placed our time capsule -full of first year memorabilia- in the wall of the school. In a school board shuffle, we became part of a new family of schools for next year; we are now in the Brampton North East family.
And we said goodbye to people: a number of staff went on maternity leave -Mrs. Cheung, Mrs. Papineau & Mrs. Butera; Mrs. Cassar went on a year's educational leave; Mr. Amodeo was promoted to vice-principal, Mrs. Sheehy returned to full time at her other school, and Mrs. Laura DiGiambattista, the first principal of Father Francis McSpiritt, was transferred to St. Louis School for the next school year. We know we will miss them all next year.
As we close out the year, here is the Principal’s message from the June 2009 newsletter:
The 2008-2009 school year is coming to an end. Soon the students will be enjoying the warm, lazy days of summer – while staff prepare for the 2009-2010 school year.
Our second year here at Father Francis McSpiritt has been a very productive year. Our school population increased by several families and all indications are that we will continue to grow into next year!
This year the staff and students were able to accomplish many great curricular and extra curricular opportunities for the Father Francis McSpiritt school community. Our teachers were involved in initiatives which focused on achievement in Primary Math Literacy. And we had two teams of teachers – Primary/Junior and Intermediate – which focused on best practice with respect to character development of students, restorative justice, discipline and behaviour.
Our students participated in all extra-curricular sporting activities – achieving board level standing in: Primary/Junior Dance; Intermediate Dance; Junior Girls’ Basketball; and 4th in the Board finals for Cross Country.
Our school diversity team participate in the Diversity Conference at D’Youville, and our Youth Faith Ambassadors attended the Youth Rally.
Our School Council undertook many initiatives under the guidance of our School Council Chair- Karen Dalcin – and this year we completed our School Mission Statement.
We had many occasions to invite our School Superintendent Cathy Saytar and our Trustee Joyce Anderson into our school – we thank them for their visible presence and their ongoing support.
Father Papais has been instrumental in all activities here at the school – as an advisory body together with his spiritual guidance of staff and students.
Fond Farewells – we do extend a fond farewell to our grade 8 students who go onto to Cardinal Ambrozic or St. Marguerite D’Youville. We wish them continued success. We have several staff who will be off on leaves next year: Mrs. Butera; Mrs. Papineau; Mrs. Cheung; and Mrs. Cassar.
We wish them well for the 2009-2010 year – and look forward to their return Sept. 2010.
Mrs. Sheehy will return as full-time librarian at Our Lady of Providence – and we thank her for her dedication to our library and our young readers this year!
Mr. Amodeo has been appointed Vice-Principal at St. Sofia School – we thanks him for his contribution to Father Francis McSpiritt School.
We also thank Mrs Saytar our Superintendent of Schools who has been transferred to Mississauga South and we welcome Mr. Tucciarone our new Superintendent for the Brampton North East Family of Schools.
We welcome Mrs. Vitale as our new librarian in Sept. 2009! MORE BOOKS…. Please!!!
Special welcome to Mrs. Karen DiPasquale, the newly appointed Principal to Father Francis McSpiritt School- starting September 2009.
At this point, classroom organization is tentatively completed and that information will be provided to the students when they arrive back to school Sept.8/09 – with the students lining up in the gym.
Bus information will be posted the week of August 31/09.
And finally....
On Thursday, June 25, the entire student body gathered to say farewell to Mrs. Laura DiGiambattista, our first school principal at Father Francis McSpiritt - and the students chanted...
"We're going to miss Mrs. D.
We are all your rabbits you see!"
We whole-heartedly thank Mrs. DiGiambattista for her incredible dedication to the school for the last two years and wish her the best of luck in her new position.
