State of the school 2021-2022

St. Mary’s Mission, State of the School

2021-22 was another successful school year for St. Mary’s Mission. We started the year excited about having a regular school year with our students. COVID changed our plans when numbers spiked after a week of no School for MEA, and Tribal Covid Checks dispersal. We switched to Distance Learning for November and December. We returned to school in January, but we struggled with attendance October- April making traction on some of our initiatives difficult. Despite the challenges, our teachers were able to respond to the needs of our students and we had a successful end of the school year. We were able end the year by holding our Pow-Wow for the first time in 3 years. Here are a few highlights on progress towards our strategic plan.

Progress on individual Strategic Plan Initiatives

Prioritize Learning Objectives

During August Inservice, St. Mary’s teachers identified 10 essential learning targets in Science and Social Studies and were able to finish our goal of having essential learning outcomes in Science, Social Studies, Math and Language Arts. Our teachers also tracked mastery in each of the learning targets on an essential learning target Tracking form. We look forward to a full year of learning next year for the first time in 3 years.

 

Staff Development Plan

As part of our staff development plan, we focused on Trauma informed Instruction. Our teachers were able to participate in a book study for the book, What Happened to You. The goal of this was to help teachers better understand how trauma impacts brain development and learning. Teachers also had Professional Development time to work on Identifying Essential Learning Targets. Conversations were also had about student behavior interventions; a plan was made with the diocese to bring in Responsive Classroom training to our teachers on two separate occasions next school year. Our teachers took lots of time and effort to ensure they are providing our students with the best possible education available to them.

Improve Academic Supports

St. Mary’s was able to utilize EANS funding to hire a Math Interventionist, and a reading interventionist. This enabled us to provide students with one-on-one, and small group interventions on math skills. Our specialist utilized STAR testing in order to identify student to pace in these programs. St. Mary’s also had an intervention period built into its schedule to support reteaching essential learning targets to the students.

 

Employ Attendance Supports

This school year, St. Mary’s Received an attendance grant from Beltrami County. As a part of this grant each teacher worked with their students to create classroom attendance incentives to be earned by the whole class, with the hope that being apart of an attendance reward will encourage some of our students to go to school more often. This worked well in September, with a few classes quickly earning incentives. Covid numbers spiked in October, and we had difficulty encouraging some families to come to school. Distance learning also was a major challenge for our attendance numbers. When we came back to school in January our teachers worked hard to encourage attendance and the attendance incentives. We didn’t really get back to normal attendance until the end of March. We look forward to building off of this attendance incentive next year.

Implement an Early Childhood program using Montessori Philosophies

St. Mary’s Continues to look for a Montessori Pre School teacher.

Promote Physical Education of our students

St. Mary’s has an Open PE Teacher for the Fall of 2019

Improve Technology Resources

St. Mary’s was able to purchase 140 touch screen chrome books utilizing EANS, Covid Relief Dollars. With new, chrome books, and Promethean boards in each classroom, ST. Mary’s had the technology to seamlessly switch to distance learning this school year.

New Buildings to Meet St. Mary’s Physical Space Needs

St. Mary’s was able to Break ground on the new church. The last update we got was that we will be able to have a grand opening in August completing Phase one of our building process. Our Direct mailing campaign was successful in raising funds for the building. We look forward to extending the Direct mailing campaign to school operations, and eventually Phase two of our Building plan.

Assessment Results

Covid-19 learning loss really impacted our students a lot. Our students came into the year having lost 3 months of face to face instruction last year, and we lost 2 months of face to face instruction this year. While our overall proficiency numbers were 20%f for Reading and 1 % for Math. Each Classes average score increased considerably over the year. We look forward to being able to utilize STAR assessments to monitor individual student growth next school year.

Financial Report

St. Mary’s Mission and School relies totally on outside funding. Our Sunday collection averages $200.00. We generated a total of $6000 in tuition. Our excellent development Team

works hard to raise nearly a million dollars to keep the school thriving, as well as another million a year towards building a new Church; our former church of 139 years was destroyed by fire December 2017. The funds for the new church are being raised totally by appealing to donors across the country. As a result, our donor base has grown from 3,000 to over 18,000. We believe that our relationship with these donors is such that after the Church is built, they will continue their support of the Mission. We have just started a direct mailing campaign to assist in the schools operating funds. The Direct Mailing company believes we will be very successful transitioning our campaign from building the Church to operating and eventually replacing the school.

Meeting the School budget has been a challenge with Covid. We lost potential income once again because Father Jerry could not preach in the co-operative Mission program ($85,000), nor were we able to have our annual spring Gala ($50,000). Donations were also down. Yet we survived. Our donors are generous. We were also extraordinarily successful in meeting our Grant budget. The Tribes subsidy ($125,000) has also been a blessing and the response to our Newsletter and various Appeals has been humbling. We are on solid ground. We really feel that our future direct mailing campaign has the opportunity help expand our donor base even more.