St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Online Academy

Dear families,

Happy Monday! We are excited for another fun week of school spirit infused events! This week, you will have the chance to attend curriculum webinar style presentations for your grade level, learn about the results of our parent survey, support your student in sharing their own voice and experiences and engage in yet another fun spirit dress down week!

Please note, the links to register for the grade-level webinars will be sent via email prior to the assigned time.

I wish you a pleasant evening! Enjoy this week’s schedule!

Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi                                 

Principal                      

Dear Families, 

Thank you for a wonderful week and all of your ongoing feedback! We look forward to sharing the results with you next week! I’ve attached some helpful resources to our email including a current copy of our November schedule, a “How To” sheet if you are interested in ordering physical additional texts for your 4-8 learners and a copy of today’s Coffee Talk presentation. I hope you enjoy – I wish you a blessed weekend!

Coffee Talk – Keeping the Faith

How-To-Order-Physical-Copies.pdf

November-2020-Calendar

Best,
Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi                                 
Principal                      

Dear Families,

Happy Tuesday! I hope you found the recording and resources for today’s Coffee Talk useful! Information on tomorrow’s events is listed below as well as a quick update regarding our Religion Program – My Catholic Faith Delivered.

My Catholic Faith Delivered
This is the digital program we are using for religious instruction this year in grades K-8. Your child was sent an account invitation via email – many ended up in the spam folder so I would check there first if you do not see it in your child’s inbox! As a note, there is no physical text for Religion, however, teachers will be enriching lessons with hands on activities and writing assignments, as well as what students are learning and completing in the program.

Events for Wednesday 10/28/2
Class Colors Day! Your class votes on a class color to wear – If you didn’t get to it today, no worries! You can wear Fall Colors!

Coffee Talk 8:30-9:00 – Live Webinar
Communication in the Digital Age – How to create connections and be heard: Register at the link below!

Dear Families,

Happy Friday! I hope you had a wonderful week and a rejuvenating weekend. We are very excited to announce and invite you to our Back To School series starting next week, with a Spirit Week kickstart full of themed dress down days and short, drop-in Coffee Talk series with the principal in the mornings!

In our Monday update, we will send more information on how to register for the events and where to find the recordings if you are unable to attend them. We can’t wait to share with you all that we have planned! Over the next few weeks, we will be continuing our series with more information on our curriculum and programming, introduction to our new opportunities for community building and engagement, and more!

I want to thank you all for your ongoing commitment to Catholic education and for your partnership in our program! Blessings to you and your family!

Sneak Peek for the Week Ahead!

Dear Families,

Welcome to Wednesday! In tonight’s update, I wanted to reach out and express my gratitude and appreciation for the entire St. Thomas Aquinas community – for our teachers and staff, for you and your children – we are blessed to be together as a community of faith in the light and love of God. For tonight, I would like to share with you a prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas and dedicate it to each and every one of you, who have committed to an education in God’s grace and love. Thank you.

O merciful God, grant that I may ever perfectly do Your Will in all things.
Let it be my ambition to work only for Your honor and glory.
Let me rejoice in nothing but what leads to You, nor grieve for anything that leads away from You.

Good Evening Families,

Happy Tuesday! Please keep your eyes on your inbox this afternoon and evening for your child’s Wednesday small group schedules. This evening’s updates are below.

High School Admissions
All eighth grade families should be sure to connect with their home academy guidance counselors regarding high school admissions. Please also note, an important reminder that this Friday TACHS registration closes. You can register for the test here: https://www.tachsinfo.com/home.aspx

Teacher Contacts
Linked here you will find a current sheet with all teacher emails. You may note we are continuing to hire in some areas in a continued effort to reduce class sizes. We will continue to update this list and information as we welcome new members to our team!

Grades and Progress
You should now have full access to your child’s grades and progress in the Rediker Plus Portal Account.

Materials and Devices

We are in the process of confirming the final two distribution sites and will share with you the dates and times when they become available to us. In the scheduling of these times, we are working in direct partnership with representatives of those sites to ensure proper guidelines in safety are met, so as soon as this information is made available to us, we will make it available to you.

Have a blessed evening!

Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi                     
Principal              

Good Evening Families,

I hope you had a restful weekend! For tonight’s update, we have two key announcements to share with you.

Grades and Progress
Starting tomorrow morning, you will be able to access your child’s grades and progress through your Rediker Parent Portal Plus. For now, grades and progress are available in Google Classroom and Realize.

Devices and Materials
We are currently in the process of scheduling and securing two final pickup dates and locations for families still in need of materials and devices. Information will be shared with you as soon as it is confirmed with us.

IReady
This week, our teachers will begin getting set up in their iReady accounts in order to prepare for a full roll out to students and families in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

Have a pleasant evening!
Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi                                 
Principal              

Dear Families,

Happy Friday! Even though it was a short week, our students accomplished many things including connecting with their Realize accounts through Google Classroom, receiving access to their Religion distance learning program, My Catholic Faith Delivered, and beginning the first rounds of benchmark assessments and readiness assessments.

As we move into next week, keep your eyes on your inbox for updates on the roll out of our iReady program, ongoing communication and updates regarding devices and books for our K-3 families and updates to your Parent Plus Portal account on Rediker, including how you will be able to access your child’s grades.

For those families who still need to connect to their child’s Realize account through Google Classroom, I have provided a short screencast tutorial here: DIGITAL TEXTBOOK ACCESS

I hope you have a blessed weekend!

Sincerely,
Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi
Principal

Good Morning Families,

Inthis 10/15 update, we would like to provide a few important announcements regarding high school admissions and device and material distribution.

High School Admissions
This is a gentle reminder that parents should be working with their home academy or parish school for all high school applications and records, including TACHS and the NYC DOE My Schools applications. As an educational program we do not have administrative rights to create accounts for our 8th grade students. This must be done with your host school and deadlines are fast approaching. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this process.

Materials and Devices
Today we completed another round of material and device distribution at our Queens distribution center – we were able to distribute over 600 Chromebooks to our upper grade students and distribute workbook materials to our K-3 families.

Good Evening Families,

Happy Wednesday! We have only a few items to bring to your attention this evening.

Savvas Realize K-8

Savvas Realize is the program we are using for our curriculum and instruction. Students enrolled in the academy have access to a full suite digital license for every core subject in this program and the license includes access to two versions of their textbooks – an eBook and Interactive Digital Textbook.

How do you access these features?

Teachers will post assignments in Google Classroom that are linked to the student’s Realize account. By clicking on the assignment in Google Classroom and the link to Realize in Google Classroom, students will be taken directly to the task. There is no separate log on information or invitation that you need in order to access this content. Your child only needs to be enrolled in Google Classroom and access Realize by following the link in their assignments.

Instructional Leadership

Our new Assistant Principal Maria Lamattina has moved on to a different role outside of St. Thomas Aquinas and we are currently in the process of hiring and training a replacement for her position. For now, please continue to direct any school related emails to principal@stthomasaquinasbq.org. Please continue to use the ticketing system for any technology needs by going to https://stthomasaquinasbq.org/technology-support/

Physical Workbooks for K-3

Any family who has not received the K-3 instructional materials can pick them up at the Immaculate Conception Center, located at 7200 Douglaston Parkway, Douglaston, NY 11362, tomorrow, Thursday, 15 October, from 11am–2pm.

Have a Blessed Evening!

Manuela Adsuar-Pizzi

Principal