Untitled Document

Letter Regarding Student Achievement:

Dear families of Holy Family Catholic School,

It is my pleasure to inform you of Holy Family Catholic School’s success this year on state assessments. While the official results of assessments will not be in for a while yet, it is safe to say that our school has improved our scores tremendously this year! In many classes students have improved their individual scores as much as 30%! At least 90% of our students improved their scores from last year. This type of gain is remarkable. In fact, improvement at this level is extremely noteworthy and on the verge of unbelievable. Our students are awesome!
The teachers, students and staff have worked diligently the entire year. I have been so proud of all the students and teachers this year! The school atmosphere has been extremely positive. The students’ attendance and discipline have been wonderful this year and much improved from previous years. Holy Family Catholic School is a great school! We are so proud of our school.
Parents, thank you for your commitment to Holy Family Catholic School! It is with your support and diligence that all of this is possible. While I realize Catholic education is an investment, I also know that it is the best investment you will ever make in your child’s future and in the future of the Church and your parish! A Catholic student at Holy Family Catholic School is more than twice as likely to remain a practicing member of the Catholic church as an adult. Our children are the future of your parish. It is important that we continue to excel in our academics, grow in our spirituality, and develop our students in all areas of their life. It is a great day to be a Mustang!!!

God Bless,

Mr. Schmidt
***************************************************************************************************

Letter regarding State Standards Achievement:

Dear families of Holy Family Catholic School,
Once again it is my honor and privilege to bring wonderful news of the accomplishments
of Holy Family Catholic School to you in this letter. Our students, your children, have
performed remarkably well on state assessments this year. We have dramatically improved our
assessment scores from previous years. Last week at conferences I sent home a letter reporting
we had improved significantly. Now that we have received the preliminary results, I can be
more specific about just how much we improved.
Third through eighth grades take the reading and math assessments each year. Fourth
and seventh grades take the science assessments each year. The idea of “No Child Left Behind”
is that each year the percent of children that must pass in order to make Annual Yearly Progress
(AYP) increases by about 7%, until 100% of students in the United States pass each year.
Therefore, each year the bar rises for schools to be able to “meet standards”. Even with this
“ rising of the bar” Holy Family managed to make leaps and bounds in our achievements over last
year.
Twenty percent more students passed the reading assessment than last year and 35%
more students passed the math assessment! This is a huge increase! I would guess there have
never been other schools in Kansas to have ever made increases and improvements of this
magnitude! Over 90% of our students have improved their scores from last year. This year
grades 3, 6, 7, 8 made AYP in reading and grades 3, 6, 7, 8 made AYP in math. Grades 4 and 5
were within just a few points of reaching the benchmark and they showed vast improvements in
their scores from last year!
This type of progress is a tribute to our teachers, students and parents’ commitment to
Catholic education at Holy Family Catholic School. It is reflective of the hard work and
devotion to education by the entire school community. I repeatedly tell the students they should
be proud of what they have achieved. It is a much greater accomplishment to improve scores the
way we have than it is to simply maintain scores as some other schools have. We should all be
proud of our school and to that end I would like to reward the children’s hard work with a half
day party on May 18th. We will have a picnic lunch outside at around 11 and the remainder of
the day will be filled with fun and games. The students have earned this treat with their success
on assessments. It is a great day to be a Mustang!!
God Bless,
Mr. Schmidt