Greetings St. Ignatius Families,

All week long the students have been so happy to be back in school, and it has been a joy to welcome them back as we kick off 2022! Our kindergarten class created a beautiful Epiphany prayer service for us this week, and our first graders paraded down the hallway reminding us of the wonderful Feast of  the Epiphany. Thank you for helping our students to follow our uniform expectations, so we can celebrate with a theme dress day in the coming weeks.
 
January brings Open House season for Catholic schools. We have made a couple of adjustments to our event. This year, we will host a virtual Open House information night on Thursday, January 27th from 6:30 PM -7:30 PM. After the 10:30 Mass on Sunday, March 6th  families interested in sending their children to St. Ignatius School may tour the school from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM. Spread the word to your friends and family about our loving school community! We have recently created a LinkedIn page for our school. Please consider ‘following’ our school on LinkedIn.  

January 31st is the FACTS deadline to apply for tuition assistance for the 2022-2023 school year. If your family would like to be considered for tuition assistance, please update your information in FACTS and apply for financial aid for the 2022-2023 school year.  

Please SAVE THE DATE of Saturday, February 26th for our “Love In Deed” Fundraiser.  This virtual, interactive event will help us build community while fundraising for our school budget into the next year. If you are interested in being a sponsor for this event, please let the office know.
 
In late January and early February, we will offer some after school program options for families with middle school students. As of now, we will offer two Saturday Academy classes: Digital Photography and Lego Robotics. We will also offer a Chess America class. Muse Band may return to our campus as an afterschool program as well. Each after school program provider sets a minimum number of registered students for afterschool programs to operate. With our students largely vaccinated and likely boostered by then and vaccinated instructors, this will provide a possible option for our older students allowing parents a later pick-up time and students to engage in a variety of interests. Our after school programs will follow the same layers of mitigation we have in place during the school day. 

We have two reminders for our families. The first reminder is to please refrain from parking close to our school beyond the cones before 5:00 PM. Our preschool and aftercare programs use the playground and the area between the building and the playground until 5:00 PM most days. The second reminder is to refrain from playing on the grass by the parish offices. With COVID protocols, the windows of the parish office are open during meetings which take place in the room closest to the grassy area between the church and parish offices buildings. Thank you for your assistance with these two items.   
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As the COVID cases surge due to the Omicron variant, guidance for how to respond to positive cases in our schools is in a perpetual state of change. Thank you for your patience as we weather this round of the pandemic together. The Oregon Department of Education is actively working with various local health authorities on updating quarantine guidance for close contact exposures along with some other possible suggested changes to current protocols. As new ODE recommended guidelines are released, our COVID team will meet to discuss recommendations and determine possible changes to our school’s protocols. Any changes to our protocols or quarantine guidance will be shared with families as soon as possible. Please remember proper masking and maintaining social distancing are the best ways to keep our community safe both in and out of school.  

May we take time this weekend to welcome Father Mike at his installation Mass on Sunday, January 9th at 10:30 AM.  “After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him.” John 3:16 
Carol Pausz 
​Principal