Tuesday was World Down Syndrome day. Some of you may know the people from New Prague and Northfield who produced the video below.  Most of us have been touched once or multiple times in our lives by a Down Syndrome person, and we need to spread the good news of the joy and dignity they promote in the lives of others.

Job Announcement: Congratulations to Victoria Rivera, who has just accepted the position of Children’s House guide at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Excelsior. Victoria has developed a passion for the Montessori philosophy and wanted to pursue it at a Montessori school (this had been in the works for a month or so already).  I had just nominated Victoria for the St. Joan of Arc Halo award for a person who exemplifies St. Joan of Arc's charisms of 'taking action and initiative' in a school community. Her role in developing the new preschool offering with a Montessori-style and her passion in working with all of our students to enhance their faith formation is exemplary. We’re going to miss her. Thank you, Victoria, for all your hard work and accomplishments here at Holy Cross!  

Job Openings: With regard to job openings at Holy Cross, we now have 4 (if you break up the marketing and music duties of Mrs. Eilen--they're all referenced on our website).  As I've been mentioning, there is a teacher shortage out there so we're going to have to rely on our extended network of contacts to find that great candidate out there who wants to find a beautiful home here at Holy Cross Catholic School. Desperate times, calls for desperate measures (I knew it would come down to something like this, but as an example, the St. Paul public schools are offering $10,000 signing bonuses for new teachers that sign on). We couldn't do even modest bonuses for our new teachers (when our priority is to keep our experienced teachers we have and we will offer the best we can for them in terms of benefits. But working at a Catholic school such as Holy Cross has its intangible benefits which you can sell to your friends and neighbors (AND relatives). Let me know if you have any leads!

Stations of the Cross at the Parishes: Our priests are asking us to encourage our students who belong to the parishes to participate with the parish families in Friday Stations of the Cross at the parishes. Some students balked at going again Friday night because we pray them here on Fridays during Lent.  We still want to pray the Stations of the Cross as a school community, so we did them Tuesday this week. I realize that without a Church area where we can actually see the Stations as we pray them, there is something missing. At Church yesterday I thought to myself wouldn't it be great if we could do our Stations there during Wednesdays in Lent. That does have scheduling difficulties that we may or may not be able to work out for next year. In the interim, please try to participate in your parish's liturgies (I told the students that our priests are missing us on Friday nights; we're a part of the parish family). I will also not pray the Divine Mercy on Friday's at 3:10 for the remainder of Lent for the same reason (we need to be in the parishes Friday night praying Stations).

Jim Grogan

Principal