Good Afternoon Royals Family!
If you happened to be within earshot of your child’s computer today around 11:30am (that is, if you were not one of our senior parents who joined us) you would have heard (or seen) a truly inspirational event. The Mission College Prep Campus Ministry team hosted our senior class, as well as their parents and household members, for an outdoor mass on the back field. It was simply incredible and it was a reminder for all of us who attended, of why we feel so blessed to be a part of this ministry. Thank you seniors, thank you senior parents and families, thank you Mrs. Buresh and Mr. Maman for pulling this event together, and thank you to Katie Cole ’21, Mrs. Svitek, Deacon Tom O’Brien, and Fr. Gabriel Okafor (and countless others).
Just a reminder that tomorrow (Friday, September 18) and next Friday (September 25) are professional development training days for MCP faculty and staff. The office will be closed and there will be no synchronous classes. For students, this is an ideal time to get caught up on any missing or late work, catch up on sleep, get in some exercise, practice some prayer, mindfulness, or reflection, or perhaps some combination of all of these. We are at mid-September but there are many weeks of the semester left, regardless of how our lives unfold over the coming weeks. We all must seek some appropriate balance and both tomorrow and next Friday are ideal opportunities.
Also a reminder that we hope to see every parent at Back to School Night on next Wednesday, September 23rd and parents should look for an email coming next Monday evening that will have all of the information about connecting to this not-to-miss event.
I do want to thank the nearly 200 MCP families who submitted responses to our first survey of the year. All four class levels were equally represented and the data shows some clear trends: Our Synchronous eLearning program is a significant improvement, it is proving to be a very good model for teaching and learning, it is also better in terms of student-connection, but it is far from ideal on that front.
Regarding reopening, 66% of families reported total comfort with our return to campus plans, 13% expressed some reservation, and just over 20% expressed some degree of significant concern regarding any return to campus. Most of the questions about the reopening plans were seeking further information about the eLearning option when campus reopens. I will be gathering those questions together into a comprehensive document and responding to them next week, but let me address one theme: the current plans include the option for students to receive live instruction while away from campus, however, it will be capturing the live classroom delivery of the instructor, who will be teaching primarily to the students in the room. Based on this valuable feedback from parents we are considering appropriate amendments to our current plans and we will conduct another survey in a few weeks.
We have received several transfer students since the start of school and we are fielding calls daily from parents in our community wanting to know more about the incredible MCP experience that they have heard out-in-the-community. Please continue to share the good news of the MCP family with those in your various communities. There is simply no place like our school. That brings me, finally, to Freshmen applications for the class of 2025 (?!) which are beginning to arrive from our Catholic partner schools and parents of current 8th graders can look for more information coming out next week.
We continue to pray for both the wisdom and the courage to confront the multiple challenges we face, and as for me, I can report true strength from our Senior Mass earlier today. With all certainty I declare, that there will be an after to this crisis and WeWill arrive there as a community.
Yours in Christ,
Mike Susank
Principal