Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),

Welcome back from the summer break!

I trust that all families in our community had a safe and enjoyable summer. We are all very excited to begin

the 2018-19 school year.

One of the reasons for all of our excitement is the new addition to our school, with students and staff

finally being able to occupy our new facility. Although there are still things in the school that need to be

completed, the new addition looks amazing and it is a nice reward for the patience that our community has

demonstrated throughout the construction process. I would like to also thank our CSPC, especially our two

Co-Chairs (Ms. Casuccio and Ms. Piccininni) who have been involved in a lot of the dialogue and discussions

with the Board, Architects and Planners over these past few years. Their hard work has most certainly paid

off.

With the new start to the school year, we have a few Staff introductions to either remind you about, or

formally announce to the community. Back in June, I was able to introduce two new teachers to our 2018-

19 Staff; Ms. Zapour Radzinski (Grade 2/3) and Ms. Rosalia Fantilli (Grade 4). Once again, we welcome

them to the St. Clement community. We also would like to welcome Ms. Rosie Tsuruoka (FDK) to our Staff.

She has accepted the Kindergarten assignment during Ms. Dionne’s Maternity Leave. As well, we would

like to welcome Ms. Mullins-Sgro (SK/Grade 1) back to our Staff in a full time capacity, while Ms.

Pasquariello will now be only at our school in the afternoons working with our Empower students. Last, but

not least, we would like to welcome Mr. Patrick Keyes as our new Area Superintendent, replacing the

retired Doug Yack.

I look forward to this new school year, re-connecting with families while getting to know the new families

within our St. Clement community.

Regards,

S. Peters

Principal

St. Clement Catholic School

St. Clement Catholic School

4319 Bloor St. West 416-393-5307

September Newsletter 2018

Principal: Stephen Peters Secretary:

Sobita Pereira

Clerk Typist:

Elena Simone

Pastor: Reverend

Msgr. Zimmer

Superintendent: Patrick Keyes

School Trustee:

A. Andrachuk

CSPC. Co-Chairs: Katie Piccininni and Jenn Casuccio

Parish: St. Clement Catholic Church 409 Markland Woods Toronto, Ontario M6J 2P4 (416) 621-4060

CSPC News

(September 2018)

We hope that you all had a wonderful summer and are refreshed and ready to go for another

school year!! Your Catholic School Parent Council (“CSPC”) has lots of activities and fun planned

for this school year, and we thought we’d better get all of September’s info out to you now!

Please see the tentative Fundraising Calendar included in this package for an outline of all of

the events and campaigns that will not only be a lot of fun, but will also help us reach our

fundraising goals.

Hopefully, by the time this is distributed, we will have moved into the newly constructed St.

Clement building addition – something that our CSPC has been working towards for a very, very

long time! Your CSPC Exec will be working with the school and the TCDSB team to ensure that

things run as smoothly as possible as the school gets settled. But as always, in recognizing the

magnitude of the project, your continued patience is appreciated.

The beginning of school usually brings our annual Fall BBQ, but unfortunately, due to the

continued construction and the big task of moving into the new wing, it was determined that

having a BBQ would not be possible at this time. We appreciate your understanding and promise

that we will be holding many other fun community events throughout the year!

This Fall, we are once again running a fundraiser called Fundscrip, whereby you can purchase

gift cards and a portion of each gift card sale will go to our school! Fundscrip offers gift cards

from 200 major retailers in our community. We hope that your family (and your family’s

supporters) will buy gift cards as part of our campaign. You’ll be able to use the gift cards to buy

gifts, make everyday purchases, or give as gifts – and you’ll be supporting your child’s education

in the process! Last year’s Fundscrip campaign was a success and we look forward to another

one! More information is coming shortly.

And let’s not forget back-to-school shopping! Our ever-popular line of “SCS” Spirit Wear

clothing will be sold during the month of September. Keep an eye out for the form, which will

be coming home next week.

Please save the date of Wednesday, November 21st in the evening to join your fellow parents for

a special CSPC/Ontario Ministry of Education Pro-Grant Presentation by Paul Davis on the topic

of "Social Networking Safety". Students in our Intermediate and Junior grades will also receive

age specific/appropriate presentations during that day from Paul and his team. Please look for

more detailed information throughout the Fall.

Last Spring, St. Clement School and the TCDSB began having parents use a cashless online

system for school-related purchases. Please note that, at this time, this new online system is

still for school-related purchases only, not for CSPC. Such purchases include school trips and

in-school performances. For the time being, all CSPC fundraisers (e.g. lunches, raffles, Movie

Night, etc.) will still be run as they have in the past with order forms and cash/cheque payment

options only. Your CSPC Exec has been trying hard to engage the TCDSB to provide training and

information, but we have not yet received the necessary resources. We hope to be using the

cashless online system as soon as possible during this school year.

Pizza Lunch will resume at the end of September and Subway Lunch will resume starting in

October – look for the forms to go out shortly.

We encourage you to attend our first meeting on Monday, October 1st at 7:00pm in the new

school library. In addition to regular CSPC business, elections will be held. While some of our

current Exec Team plans to run again, anyone is welcome to run for any CSPC position. Please

consider that our current Treasurer will be graduating from our school at the end of this year

and so we will definitely be in need of a new treasurer for 2019-2020 – and now may be a good

time to shadow the role. The following Executive positions are available: 2 Co-Chairs, 1

Treasurer and 1 Secretary. The Representative positions available are: 2 parent reps, 2

community reps, 1 parish rep, 1 Special Needs Rep and 1 OAPCE (the Ontario Association of

Parents in Catholic Education) Rep. If you’re interested in running or nominating someone for a

position, nomination forms are available in the school office. The nomination period will end

on Monday, September 24th at 3:00pm.

Please note that CSPC meetings for the rest of the school year will (tentatively) take place on

the following Tuesdays: October 2nd, October 23rd, November 20th, January 15th, February 19th,

April 16th and May 28th.

We encourage all parents to come out to our meetings to get involved in your child’s education

and make St. Clement the best it can be!

As always, if you need to reach us, please email us at: cspc.stclement@tcdsb.org.

Sincerely……………Your CSPC Team

Jenn Casuccio & Katie Piccininni, Co-Chairs

Lisa Lippa, Treasurer

Heather Marczynski, Secretary

We Belong

Virtue of the Month – Hospitality

School Mass – Monday, September 17th (Grade 8’s hosting)

CSPC Elections – Monday, October 1st

Curriculum Night – Thursday, October 4th

PA Day – Friday, October 5th

Thanksgiving – Monday, October 8th

School Info Welcome/Welcome Back Once again, an official welcome to the new families to our St. Clement School community, as well as a welcome back to all families returning from the summer break. I am truly looking forward to another great year here at St. Clement. With the new addition to our school, I know I speak for students, staff and parents when I say that the excitement is off the charts!

Cashless Payments For School Events For safety and efficiency reasons, the Toronto Catholic District School Board has introduced a system that will reduce the amount of cash & checks coming into our school. Thank you to those parents that have already registered on-line and have begun paying for school events and trips through this on-line system. If you are a new parent to St. Clement, or If you have not already registered, it takes less than 5 minutes to do so. Please click onto the link below, then click “Get Started Today”, then follow the few easy steps to get your child(ren) registered.

https://tcdsb.schoolcashonline.com

First School Mass Our school’s first Mass, celebrated at St. Clement Church, will be on Monday September 17th at 9:30 am. These monthly school Masses are a wonderful opportunity for our school to celebrate the Eucharist all together as a school community. Parents, guardians and family members are always encouraged to attend if they can. This first Mass will be hosted by our Grade 8 students.

CSPC Elections Our school’s Catholic School Parent Council (CSPC) is very active and supportive of many events, fundraisers and initiatives throughout the school year. The first meeting for the CSPC will be on Monday, October 1st, when elections will be held for this year’s Council. More information will be sent your way soon through our CSPC Executive. All parents are welcome to attend these monthly meetings.

Anaphylaxis Students It is very important that we are all on board with the foods we are bringing into the school environment, ensuring that

all of our students and staff are protected.

Specific information will be sent home on the first day of school alerting parents to the allergies that are present in

their own child’s class. We continue to ask all parents to respect and follow this request to not make lunches, or bring

in food that may contain these food items.

Just a reminder to those families that have a child that uses an epi-pen, please make sure your child has the one that

needs to be on their person, as well as the epi-pen for the classroom and the one for the office.

Parents Walking Through The School As much as St. Clement School is a very inclusive and open environment, there are some guidelines and rules that we need to do a better job of adhering too. One of these areas is minimizing the amount of parents that are walking through the school during school hours. Whether it is dropping off a lunch or running to the school to leave some item that your son/daughter forgot in the morning, there should be no reason for a parent to be walking through the school during school hours. That includes dropping items off for your Kindergarten-age child as well. Please check in at the office first and let the office know what your need is, then they will call the child down to the office or let your child’s teacher know to pick it up for them. We do not want our students feeling that every time they see an adult, especially one they don’t recognize, that adult must be a parent.

Kiss ‘n Ride Volunteers As many of you are already aware, we have a pretty efficient Kiss ‘N Ride System at our school that is operated solely by

parent volunteers from our community. The Kiss ‘n Ride operates both before and after school. If you feel that you could

donate your time to assist with this great system, please contact Collette Pearson at Pearsongirls@gmail.com and let her know

about the times you are able to volunteer.

Curriculum Night – October 4th

This year’s St. Clement Curriculum Night will be held on Thursday, October 4th. Curriculum Night is an opportunity for parents and teachers to get a chance to meet one another, with the teacher being able to walk parents through the expectations, events and curriculum that your child will be introduced to throughout the coming school year. The night also provides parents an opportunity to meet your CSPC Executive, to hear from St. Clement Church’s Pastor (Msgr. Zimmer), as well as a few words from the Principal. Obviously this year will provide parents the opportunity to view our new addition as well.

Toronto Public Health Our school is connected with Toronto Public Health through many initiatives. We also have a Toronto Public Health Nurse that is assigned to the school if there is a need for clarification on any issue, or if the school would like to have an in-service about a particular concern. Our Toronto Public Health Nurse is Joanne McKinlay, and she wanted me to pass along some general contact information to our community, in case families would like to inquire about various concerns. Toronto Health Connection: 416-338-7600 Immunization Information Line: 416-392-1250 Communicable Disease Reporting: 416-392-7411 TB Program: 416-338-7600 Dental and Oral Health: 311 If you have any other concerns, please contact your child’s teacher or the office. We can communicate with Joanne if clarification is required.

Athletics

As many of you already know, St. Clement has a very strong school sports program. We are very fortunate to have a passionate Staff with regards to athletics, volunteering their time to Coach many of the Sporting events that our Board has to offer. We will communicate to families about upcoming events as soon as we can to let parents know when these events will be occurring.

Softball 9

Girls and Boys Softball will be the first sporting event for the school year. Students in Grades 7 and 8 (and sometimes Grade 6) will have the opportunity to try out for these teams very soon. We do not have the exact dates yet for the tournament, but they are normally either towards the end of September or beginning of October. Please have your son/daughter listen carefully for announcement if they are interested in trying out for this sport.

Cross Country

Cross Country practices will be starting soon too. Although we still don’t have an exact date for the Meet, it is normally

in October. Which means training needs to begin soon to ensure that our student athletes are ready for the competition.

Cross Country is open to boys and girls in Grades 3 to 8. Students interested need to try out when they hear the

information regarding Cross Country during morning announcements.