February 2022 Newsletter
Knightly Newsletter
St. Joseph Mission School San Fidel, NM
Hello SJMS community,
The beginning of this year has been met with much reflection on all our blessings from 2021 and our plans for 2022. Our ultimate goals in our classes growing in relationship with the Lord and in supporting each student in love and respect. We see our classroom instruction along with school events as the opportunities to foster this growth.
In this newsletter we will be sharing on the pillars we celebrated during Catholic School Week this year, along with spotlighting our Pre-K Program.
Catholic School Week
Kenneth Tiller, 1st Lieutenant from the Pueblo of Laguna, meeting with the Middle School students. These meetings are an opportunity for the students to learn from and meet their traditional leaders. (pictured from left to right: Jerimiah, 6th grade, friend of school, Isabella, 6th grade)
Che, 1st Grade, receiving the blessing of the throat after learning about the patronage of Saint Blaise.
Secondary students watering pepper seedling plants. These plants will be transplanted in the school garden during our planting season. (pictured from left to right: Amare'e, 4th grade, friend of school, Mikila, 4th grade, Rory, 4th grade)
Shayai Lucero, a distinguished speaker and business owner from the Pueblo of Laguna, visited SJMS to speak on local medicinal plants. She was able to reconnect with her middle school math teacher, our very own Dorothy Thomas.
Each year during Catholic School Week, we emphasize our FACES model, with each letter stands as an acronym for the gifts of Faith, Academics, Culture, Environment and Service. The students and staff are actively involved in the implementation of the pillars of our school. Our FACES model was developed by a late teacher of our school, Mr. Zachary Garcia, through one of our favorite mottos: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
Throughout this year’s Catholic School Week students and staff were encouraged to wear traditional attire all week to celebrate the uniqueness of our school.
Monday: hands-on art activities including creating cards and corn husk flowers for our elders living in the local elderly care center as well as our local senior center(s), and the students learned about Saint Blaise through the blessing of the throats.
Wednesday: each class built a shrine to their Classroom Patron Saint with a blessing of these shrines by our Chaplain and a Tribal Administrator Leader from the Pueblo of Laguna; students learned from the Tribal Leader the reverence for the respective Tribal/traditional canes. (Link to learn more about the tradition of the canes).
Friday: Ms. Shayai Lucero spoke to each classroom on local medicinal plants like Globe Mallow, Blue Trumpet and Cota, each classroom started seedling plants, and students enjoyed a feeding and sharing of various traditional foods.
Thank you to all the SJMS Staff, SJMS Families, and community guest speakers who were imperative in such a successful Catholic School Week.
Did you know St Joseph's has a twitter account? Keep up with on Twitter as we share "Thoughts of the Week" and also news of our school.
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Redefining Pre-K success during COVID through culture, faith and resiliency
By Tonya Louis, interim Pre-k Director
The St. Joseph Mission School Pre-K Program (SJMS) strives to provide the building blocks of cognitive, behavioral, and social skills, and ultimately the basis for long-term success. The uniqueness of our program lies in that we continue to nurture the spiritual and religious growth of our children.
As COVID-19 continues to impact our already fragile Pre-K system of care within the state and nationally, SJMS Pre-K Program has had to pivot as we implement a supportive Pre-K Program. We strive to reinforce a learning experience that not just places our students in front of a computer, during the times where virtual learning was necessary, but to cultivate an interactive in-person learning experience, during the times we are able.
Making and developing meaningful connections is so important to the school and the program, and this connection is something we have defined as our success this year. Some of those meaningful connections stemmed from our local Tribal traditional practices including traditional drumming, song and prayer. This success is a combined effort of the student, teacher, and families. It has been imperative that our curriculum is adaptable to the challenging times during the pandemic therefore, we’ve ensured that a very important and sustaining component has been family empowerment through faith, our deep-rooted rich culture, and traditions, supporting Keres/Spanish language in the home, offline activities for families and so much more. Both faith and hope are crucial elements of resilience and have linked our present circumstances to our vision for the future.
Our Pre-K students dancing in the classroom with their teacher. (pictured from left to right: Eliana, Aviana, Julianna, Gabe Levantonio, Braylen, and Major)
District Spelling Bee
The District Spelling Bee for Cibola County schools was held on February 10th, 2022. St Joseph students, Dalonte, 5th grade, and David, 5th Grade, competed against more than 70 students primarily from public schools in our area.
We take opportunities such as this as an opportunity to engage with other schools and continue to evangelize through their self-confidence. Every opportunity that a student has to go beyond the classroom is an opportunity to engage with the world.
Our SJMS students did not move on to the State SCRIPPS competition, but we know that they will have a chance to do better next year. We are so proud of their accomplishments!
Dalonte, 5th grade, and David, 5th grade, competed in the District Spelling Bee for Cibola County at Grants High School.
Know that you are kept in our prayers every day here at SJMS. Please keep our school in prayer, for continued success in the outreach of our school to to share the joy of learning that happens at St. Joseph Mission School. You can help us in this petition - is there someone you know who would love to learn about our school? Share this newsletter with them!
We thank you for keeping up with our school community! We are grateful to have this avenue to share news on our school and also celebrate each month.
Pax et Bonum,
St. Joseph Mission School
St. Joseph, pray for us.