Learning, Loving, and Leading through Christ

July 31, 2023

From the Desk of Mr. Johnston

Dear St. Alphonsus Catholic School Families,

I am thrilled to be here to serve St. Alphonsus another year! Although there is still plenty of summer left, we are beginning to gear up for another school year. We have been painting, cleaning, organizing and planning for another fantastic year!

For my family, this has been a great summer to spend time with Reese as we travel to see family and friends. Sarah, Reese and I went to Orlando early in July to spend time with her family and to volunteer at a conference. We also drove with Reese and our dog Lulu down to South Carolina to see my parents and my sister with her family. It was a long drive, but a great trip. I arrived back at school ready to take on the new school year!

We welcome a couple of new faces to our St. Alphonsus Faculty this year. First, our new 3K teacher will be Ms. Alyssa Ratkowski. Alyssa has worked for us before as an Early Childhood Instructional Aide and will now be our 3K Classroom Teacher! Alyssa has always worked so well with our youngest students. We are excited for her to make her mark on the early childhood program this year! We also will be welcoming Mrs. Anne Brennan to our faculty this year in 5th Grade. Anne comes to us with 32 years of teaching experience in the public schools and a love of teaching grade school. I know that her enthusiasm and love of teaching will be a great asset to our school and to our 5th grade class!

Unfortunately, Holly Ligocki will not be with us this year, as she has decided to return to her previous school. We thank her for her time at St. Alphonsus. This means that we are still looking for a 6th-8th Grade ELA and Lit Teacher as well as a 6th-8th Grade Math teacher. I have had interviews for those positions and will keep you updated when we make an official hire this summer. Across the country and over the last few years, we know there has been teacher turnover in all school settings. St. Alphonsus is no exception and we have actually been less impacted than many others. Thank you for your ongoing patience and understanding.

As you may know, we are also working this summer to transition from TADS/Educate over to a new Student Information System called PowerSchool. As part of this changeover, we are getting a new tuition and fee payment system. I know that ordinarily tuition agreements and tuition payments would have started by this point in August, but we are still working on getting those systems in place and set up. My belief is that we will be able to update you by August 4th with more information on this, but for now please continue to send me questions directly regarding tuition, enrollment, etc. I truly want to thank all of you for your patience as we make this transition.

You will hear from us again very soon as we get ready to start the new school year, and I look forward to seeing all of you in person at our Meet and Greet Night on Monday, August 28th from 3:00-7:00 pm! Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Yours in Christ,

Mr. Russ Johnston

Principal

Important Summer Dates to Remember

08/09

Summer Dine Out Night

Cousins Subs

Details Below

08/10

St. Alphonsus Milwaukee Milkmen Game

Details Below

08/28

Meet & Greet Night

3-7pm

08/29

First Day of School

11:30am Dismissal

A comprehensive PDF Event Calendar with various School and Home & School Events listed will be released to parents in August. You can also always find the latest events on our school website.

New Website App!

Want to easily navigate the school website on the go? Check out our new St. Alphonsus Catholic School App!

The app links directly to our website, so anytime changes are made on the website, the app is automatically updated too. Find items you need on our site quickly and easily using our custom navigation buttons! Find the app today in both the Apple and Google Play stores, or scan the QR codes below.

School Supplies

School Supply Lists Now Available!

School Supply Lists are now available on the school website here. Or, access them easily on the go via our new mobile app (see what I did there?!). Make sure you check out the SCRIP info below so you can earn tuition credit while buying your supplies!

You will drop off your school supplies to your students' classrooms at Meet & Greet Night on August 28.

Back to School with SCRIP

Get Ready for Back to School with SCRIP!

It's almost Back-to-School time, so make sure you take advantage by using SCRIP when buying your school supplies! Check out the back to school flyer linked here and take advantage of the bonus rebates.

You can use SCRIP this summer to start adding to your tuition credit for this year! Remember you earn HALF of the percentage rebate for your tuition. AND...if you are still trying to cram in some vacations this summer, Raise Right/SCRIP offers some great rebates on hotels and cruise lines!

For any questions on enrolling or how to order, contact SCRIP Coordinator Vickie at (414) 704-0526. You can also find more information about SCRIP as well as school supply lists on the school website here.

Uniform Closet & Health Room Supply Drive Updates

Alas! Our Summer at St. Al's event & collection drive for our health room had to be canceled because it was TOO summery (aka HOT!).

Not to fear though: we are still hosting a supply drive for our Health Room this fall. As a reminder, we are looking for brand new underwear and socks in sizes from 3T through 2nd Grade (7/8). We will also be collecting gently used, clean joggers & sweatpants for those same sizes.

Have you also been saving your older, gently used uniform pieces for our Uniform Closet? We will be collecting those ahead of Back to School Night as well!

We will share the drop-off dates for both sets of items in one of our back-to-school newsletters.

#MyStAlsSummer

Have you been following our school Instagram account this summer?

We've been sharing lots of cool stuff that our teachers & staff have been up to, like beekeeping, water aerobics, vacations, and more! Use the hashtag #MyStAlsSummer and tag us in your Instagram posts and stories so we can re-share.

Home & School Happenings

Join St. Alphonsus at the Milkmen Game!

Mark Your Calendars for Thursday, August 10 at 6:35pm.

St. Alphonsus Catholic School is sponsoring the Milwaukee Milkmen baseball game on August 10 at 6:35pm. We hope you can attend, watch a great game and support St Alphonsus Catholic School!

Please use this link to buy your tickets and we’ll see you at the ballgame! Feel free to spread the word & share this with your family and friends.

We are looking for volunteers to help us out at this event. We need enthusiastic people to help us sell 50/50 raffle tickets and man our table at the field. You can sign up here!

Don't Forget to Sign Up For Box Tops and help earn cash for our school!

Have you downloaded the Box Tops app yet? It is easy to scan your receipts and get Box Tops rewards for our school.

There are hundreds of Box Tops Products to choose from--check out the full list of products here.

For more information or assistance with Box Tops, please contact our Box Tops coordinator Carrie Jurgens via email here.

Only One More Summer Dine Out Night left!

Please mark your calendars for our last Summer Dine Out Night at Cousins Subs, on Wednesday, August 9 from 3:00 to 8:00pm at the 7700 S. Lovers Lane Road location. 20% of the sales will go to support St. Alphonsus School.

Be sure you save your receipts from these special Summer dates so your student(s) can be out of uniform on specially selected dates in September. Watch for these dates in August's newsletters, and be sure to keep those receipts.

Thank you for supporting Dine Out Nights! We are excited for our new Dine Out Nights for the 2023-2024 School Year and will be announcing them soon.

Parish News

St. Alphonsus Parish & School Celebrates 85 Years!

This July, St. Alphonsus Parish & School is celebrating our 85th Anniversary right alongside the Village of Greendale!

St. Alphonsus Parish was established in July of 1938 as a Mission Parish and namesake of the Archbishop Samuel Alphonsus Stritch (later Cardinal Stritch). After the beginnings of the community, the parish built a church and celebrated its first Mass in the new church on Easter Sunday 1950 with 230 people; the parish has since grown to over 2500 families.

The School Sisters of St. Francis came to St. Alphonsus in 1949 to begin their work staffing the new parish school. For the first 30 years of the school, the principal of the Day School was always a religious sister. In 1979 the school hired its first lay principal.

Also in 1949, the parish built a convent for the sisters who were teaching in the school, where they lived until the middle of the 90s. Likewise, the parish built a rectory–several priests lived there until 2002. In 2018 the old rectory was torn down to the foundation and rebuilt as the new Parish House; the Parish House now provides apartment style living space for 3 priests, a guest apartment, and houses the Greendale Food Pantry and the Parish Benefit Auction work room.

In the 1980s, plans were developed to build a new worship space which could better serve the needs of the growing community. The first Mass in the new church was celebrated on December 15, 1985. Later, the new millennium introduced numerous changes to our parish buildings. In early summer of 2002, the former convent was converted into pastoral and support staff offices, instructional rooms, and various program offices; it is now known as the Parish Ministry Center, or PMC. At the same time, the church and school were made handicap accessible with the addition of an elevator and ramps and many additions were made to the church & school to make them the buildings we worship & learn in today!

Do you have items for the newsletter? To submit them or for questions and submission guidelines, please contact Amy Schermetzler.

Please note that submissions are due by 5:00pm Wednesdays.

Back to School Newsletters will kick off in mid-August.