MEDIA TIP SHEET

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS BEGIN 2005-2006 ACADEMIC YEAR

Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Louisville will begin the first official day of instruction on August 24, 2005. Although this is the first “official” day of school, some Catholic schools choose to begin on a day other than August 24. Parents are asked to consult their school’s handbook to determine when their particular school will begin instruction.

Catholic elementary and secondary schools outside Jefferson County generally follow the calendar of the public school district in which they are located. Catholic schools in Hardin, Marion and Nelson counties will start in early August due to the alternative calendars of the public school districts in which they are located.

Catholic high schools begin instruction between August 2 (Nelson County) and August 19. Individual start dates are listed below:

St. Andrew Academy and St. Nicholas Academy, new regional schools, open  on August 24. Nativity Academy, 529 East Liberty Street, serving at-risk urban youth in middle school, will begin its third year on August 24 with 44  students in grades 6-8.

There are 51 Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Louisville. Following is information about new initiatives for the coming school year.

Back-to-School Initiatives 2005-06
Opening Gathering for Catholic Elementary Educators

Approximately 1,000 Catholic elementary teachers and administrators will gather to celebrate the beginning of the 2005-06 school year on Monday, August 15, 2005, at the Executive West (Mary Queen of Scots Room). The focus of the gathering is to celebrate the role of teachers and the contributions they make to their students. Archbishop Thomas Kelly will greet teachers and lead them in prayer. Sr. Carol Cimino, an national Catholic education consultant, will deliver a keynote address entitled, “I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did.”

The schedule for the day includes:

Regional Elementary Schools

Two regional elementary schools will open at the start of the 2005-06 school year. They are St. Nicholas Academy, a two-campus elementary school, and St. Andrew Academy. Both schools begin on August 24.

St. Nicholas Academy is located at 7333 Southside Drive (South Campus) and 4335 Hazelwood Avenue (North Campus). St. Nicholas was formed from Most Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, SS. Simon and Jude, and St. Thomas More Schools. 

St. Andrew Academy is located at 7724 Columbine Drive. St. Andrew was formed from Our Lady of Consolation, St. Clement and St. Polycarp Schools.

Reading First

Approximately 250 intermediate-level elementary school teachers (Grades 4, 5 and 6) and special educators will participate in the second year of Reading First initiatives focusing on fluency, reading in the content areas and comprehension strategies.

During the 2004-05 school year, more than 400 K-3 teachers, special educators and principals attended Reading First training. Reading First focused on adopting research-based reading programs, identifying struggling readers early, monitoring student progress and training teachers in appropriate reading instruction.

Curriculum Guides

During the summer of 2005, a team of language teachers gathered to create a World Language Curriculum Guide that utilizes the themes of communication, cultures, connections, comparisons and communities to organize instruction in world languages. In addition, curriculum guides in visual arts, music/performing arts and language arts were revised and updated.

The Archdiocese of Louisville has curriculum guides for each content area that are updated on a recurring basis.

Levels of Technology Implementation (LoTi)

All teachers in the Archdiocese of Louisville (42 elementary schools and 9 high schools) will participate in the Levels of Technology Implementation (LoTi) survey beginning in mid-September, 2005. The LoTi survey measures teachers’ use of technology and higher-level thinking skills in instruction.

The 2005 survey is a follow-up to the initial LoTi survey that more than 1,400 teachers and administrators took in 2003. This year, after two years of participation in professional development and changing practice, teachers will again assess their strengths. In the last two years, teachers and administrators have participated in strategic professional development activities to increase their use of technology and higher-level thinking skills in instruction.

According to research from a dissertation based on the LoTi survey, teachers who score higher on the LoTi survey have students who score better on standardized tests.

Distance Learning

St. Patrick School, Holy Trinity School and St. Nicholas Academy will be using videoconferencing in innovative ways during the 2005-06 school year. All are using video-over-internet to connect their schools to one another and to the world at large. Teachers and administrators from the three schools recently spent an entire day learning the nuances of videoconferencing via videoconferencing from Jan Zanetis, Director of Vanderbilt University Virtual School.

St. Nicholas Academy (4333 Hazelwood Avenue and 5501 New Cut Road) will be using videoconferencing for daily announcements since the two St. Nicholas campuses are more than two miles apart. Every child on both campuses will receive the same announcements in real time via the television in the classroom. Plans are also underway for teachers to gather students on both campuses to share educational as well as informational experiences.

Holy Trinity School (423 Cherrywood Road) will be using its videoconferencing system for academic field trips for students and to provide professional development for the staff on a variety of topics. Teachers will be learning to incorporate this interactive tool into classes throughout the year.

Videoconferencing at St. Patrick School (1000 North Beckley Station Road) is not new. However, there is a renewed interest in how this tool will be used to connect St. Patrick with other schools in the local area and beyond. Teachers are planning projects that will allow students to do stream studies and compare results with other students who have done their own stream measurements.

Irene Casey Award

The recipient of the Irene Casey Catholic Inclusion Award for 2005-06 is Bev Forst, a sixth-grade teacher at St. Gabriel School (5503 Bardstown Road). The Irene Casey Catholic Inclusion Award was established in 1999 to honor the spirit of Irene Casey, an elementary school teacher who was dedicated to meeting the diverse learning needs of students in Catholic education. It is presented to an educator, counselor or administrator who exemplifies this deep commitment to inclusive practices. The award will be presented at a school liturgy on Wednesday, August 24, 2005, at 8:15 a.m. at St. Gabriel Church.  There will be a reception following the liturgy.

Bev Forst has been a teacher in Catholic schools for 25 years. She is the first classroom teacher to be awarded the Irene Casey Catholic Inclusion Award since previous recipients have included special educators and school administrators. Bev teaches to her students’ strengths and recognizes their learning styles and differences. She utilizes technology to enhance learning and models collaboration by engaging in dialogue with partner teachers, the resource coordinator and past teachers to continually look for ways to assist and support students.  Bev, herself a lifelong learner, strives to instill the love of learning in all of her students.

WHAS Crusade for Children Grant

The Archdiocese of Louisville received a WHAS Crusade for Children grant in the amount of $61,965 for Fast ForWord for high schools and classroom sound field systems. Fast ForWord, designed by Scientific Learning Corporation, is a computer-based training program to develop the language skills necessary for reading.  Based on 25 years of brain research, Fast ForWord utilizes a patented technology to train the brain to process language more effectively.

Through the generosity of past WHAS Crusade for Children grants, the Archdiocese of Louisville was able to purchase Fast ForWord for use with elementary school-age students.  Elementary students participating in Fast ForWord have made significant gains in phonological awareness, receptive language, reading and writing. In addition, anecdotal information received from parents and teachers indicates improved grades, increased class participation, greater motivation, enhanced self-esteem and enhanced ability to follow directions.

The literacy needs of adolescents differ from those of elementary students, but they are just as important and are vital to academic success. High school students are expected to read, comprehend and respond to increasingly complex material, but many students do not have the basic skills to adequately access this material at a rudimentary level, let alone at the level of sophistication expected of them. The Fast ForWord program addresses the needs of high school students by rapidly building language and reading skills such as phonemic awareness, listening accuracy, phonics skills, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, working memory, syntax, grammar, sequencing and other critical skills necessary to becoming a good reader.

Classroom sound field systems provide amplification to the teacher’s voice by way of speakers positioned in the classroom. The Archdiocese of Louisville has purchased 10 sound field systems with previous WHAS Crusade for Children grants and provided them to classrooms with high populations of special-needs students. In anecdotal comments, teachers have indicated increased levels of attention in the classroom and less need to repeat instructions, as well as a decreased student reliance on assistance from the teacher or peers when instructions were given. With the purchase of 25 additional sound field systems, the Archdiocese of Louisville will be able to place one sound field system in each of its elementary schools.

Workshop for Elementary School Board Members

The Archdiocese of Louisville will host a workshop for elementary school board members on Saturday, August 20, 2005, 8:30-12:00, at Flaget Center.  Elementary school board members will gather to hear a keynote entitled, “Your Board and Your School: A Partnership in Learning,” given by Rev. Joseph Atcher, Executive Director of the Office of Lifelong Formation and Education.

In addition, elementary school board members will attend several breakout sessions focusing on such areas as school planning, budgeting/finance, legislative advocacy, board by-laws and the responsibilities of board chairpersons.

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