The Holy Post

Last month, Holy Trinity staff, students, and families celebrated Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, pandemic style. On Tuesday, students made masks and learned about the celebrations of Mardi Gras and Carnival. On Wednesday, students and staff on campus watched a prayer service and received ashes sprinkled on their heads, rather than pressed on their foreheads. Students who learn virtually were also invited, with their families, to a drive through distribution of ashes. Everyone was very thankful for the ways that the Holy Trinity community has found to celebrate and honor our faith, in a safe way.

The second grade also kicked off their annual school wide Lenten Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl collection. They have reminded us that even in a time of our own need, there is always an opportunity to serve others. Our donations will help to create sustainable food and income sources, like home gardens and chicken coops, for families around the world. You can learn more about the CRS rice bowl collection here https://www.crsricebowl.org/ 

Below you will find some highlights of this year’s Catholic Schools Week. This year, more than ever, we focused on how to serve others, our appreciation for Catholic education and our love for the Holy Trinity community. The week started with a much needed snow day, which parents, students, and teachers all appreciated! On community service day we supported the Jesuit Refugee Service with a TAG day, sign making, and a virtual visit from JRS staff. As the week continued, students and teachers showed their gratitude for parents by doing chores around the house and hosting a liturgy. Parents arranged for breakfast and lunch to show their appreciation for HTS teachers and staff. The week ended with academic day and a house pride free dress day. It was a great week, full of fun celebrations. We look forward to fostering an enthusiasm for Catholic education, all year long!

So far this year we have celebrated Juana House Day and Day House Day. Teachers and students have gotten creative about how to celebrate house days both from school and home. These fun days have reminded us all that even though things may be different this year, there is still so much to celebrate! Here are some pictures of those special days. We are looking forward to celebrating all of our houses and their members this year!

Over the past 6 months, Holy Trinity parents have become experts at managing their students’ at home learning. Here are some of their pro tips for making it work!

1. Pick one area of the house where school happens every day and let the rest of the house be HOME. At the end of the day, close the door to your learning space and don’t look back! Until the next morning, of course.
2. To help students stay focused and motivated, try posting some inspiring quotes around their work space.
3. When you need to pass the time, get creative! Try having a slime race, painting walking sticks, doing a science experiment, or organizing your Legos!
4. When everyone is overwhelmed, take a break and go outside. Even if you only have five minutes. It works wonders!
5. Include the whole family in virtual PE classes. Let the students be in charge and keep track of everyone’s reps and personal bests.
6. Focus on character education through out the day – prayer, manners, honesty, responsibility, compassion, forgiveness – it makes for a more peaceful household and an easier school day.
7. To boost your internet connection with multiple family members working at home, plug an ethernet cable into one device while another works off of WIFI. Keep all cell phones running on cellular data, instead of WIFI, during the work/school day.

Over the past two weeks Holy Trinity has begun welcoming students back into the building. The first day with students back on campus felt like the first day of school, all over again! We have used these two weeks to practice our new routines, to streamline the new drop off and pick up processes, to engage virtual and in person students in classroom learning, and to find ways to have safe, healthy fun while we are all together. This is sure to be quite the journey and we are so happy that you all are coming along with us! Below are a few pictures of our first days back on campus.

In our next post, we will highlight what some students are doing at home to make this year a success!

This year, the first day of school was very different from any other first day of school that we have ever experienced! A first day without family pictures on the steps of lower school? A first day without handshakes from Mr. McShane? A first day without meeting new classmates, face to face? How strange! And yet, we have so much to be thankful for from the first day of the 2020/2021 school year. This really was a first day of firsts!

This year, we were able to eat breakfast while we listened to the morning announcements. We got to teach the honor code and suscipe to our families. We had time to read books while snuggled up on the couch. We were able to have lunch with our siblings and parents. We spent extra time with our pets. Some of us took our classes outside. Some of us wore our house shirts. I bet some of us even wore pajama pants! Yes, this first day was different, but it was great in its own special way! Here are some pictures of Holy Trinity students and teachers, ringing in the first day of school.

Written by Robby DeFrancesco

Becraft house is all about learning, growing, and most importantly persevering together. In Becraft, we do not give up. Perseverance runs deep in Becraft. As members of Becraft we want to inspire our peers as well as the staff and teachers.

Personally my favorite part of Becraft is the fact that we support each other so much. Nobody in the house is alone, because ultimately we can’t accomplish our goals alone. One of Becraft’s most elusive goals is to win the house cup this year (spoiler alert, we did it!).

We look for inspiration from our elders, especially our founder, Anne Marie Becraft. She inspires us with her determination and her fighting spirit. Becraft’s perseverance through racism and sexism in America, helps us to see our own problems and push through. Her memory helps us to keep trying.

Written by Daisy Overmyer

Being a part of the Romero house is great. (Especially because we are currently in first place.) My house founder, Oscar Romero, inspires me because he lived in a country of violence and injustice and tried to stop it. He grew up in El Salvador, living in a small home, with a big family, and sleeping on the floor. While this was happening, he demanded peace and raised awareness about the amount of people that had died or “disappeared”. Before he died, he saw the past weeks previous death toll and said to the policemen, “I beg you, I implore you, I order you… in the name of God, stop the repression!” Then the next day, while he was saying Mass, Oscar Romero was shot dead by a paid assassin. That is why Oscar Romero inspires me. I hope people will know who our founder is and how he, (Oscar Romero) showed Justice throughout his life. Romero’s house trait is justice. I think that that is the best trait out of all of the other houses because justice is fairness and righteousness which is a very important thing to show around school, around your family members, around work, in public, and you should really show it wherever you go. Anyone can display justice. You can do it at school by sticking up for your friend, or tell a teacher that you cheated on a test if you did but didn’t want to tell anyone. In your own home you can stick up for your younger sibling when your older sibling is being unfair or you can help your mom for your other sibling with the dishes. You can show it at work by helping your colleague when they need help or with someone who is new to the job. On the street, if you see a homeless person, you should stop by, and give a friendly greeting to them. There are many different ways to show justice on many different occasions and at many different places too. The house system is a really fun upgrade to my eighth grade year and I love how we can earn points along with it. I have seen that the points system has really encouraged students to be kinder in the classroom and hallways eager to earn points. It’s fun to have competitions in class for house points and to see who wins in the end. (Except when the person that is given points is in a different house.) My favorite thing about the house system is the competitions that we play against each other. We have played a whole school dodge ball game, had fundraising competitions, and, of course, the house point system. I am really looking forward to Romero day which is on March twenty fourth. We have some fun things planned and are excited to share them with the school. 

Written by Jacob Oh, Eamon Randall and Olivia Tirol

Last week, Eamon Randall, Jacob Oh and Olivia Tirol interviewed Mr. Devlin and Mr. Rosenberger about the house system. We chose to interview the two of them because they were the two teachers who started the house system at Holy Trinity. Our house system is made up of 6 houses: Xavier House, Day House, Juana House, Romero House, Arrupe House and Becraft House. The house system breaks students and teachers up into 6 competing groups, but we still think and act as one. We found this interview to be very interesting and we learned a lot about out house system. 

First, Eamon interviewed the teachers about why they started the house system. I wanted to know if they researched house systems at other schools. It turns out, they looked at the Ron Clark Academy in Georgia and other schools with house systems, to see how others do it. Some teachers have gone to Ron Clark Academy to see their school and they thought it was a really active school with a good sense of community. Mr. Devlin and Mr. Rosenberger thought that the competition would also be fun, so they wanted to bring it to Holy Trinity. I also asked them how they chose the house names. Each house is named after a famous Catholic or Jesuit person. They thought that the house founders would be good role models for us. 

Next, Jacob interviewed Mr. Devlin and Mr. Rosenberger about how to share our house pride with people outside of HTS. They had lots of ideas. Mr. Devlin suggested wearing our house shirts and taking pictures of ourselves doing our activities outside of school. We can send the pictures to our house captain. He also thought we could watch fun videos of our house mascots when we have free time. Mr. Rosenberger says we should try to live out our house traits over breaks and everyday, have house get togethers and plan out service projects or other events for the rest of the year.  Both teachers thought that we should tell our families about the house system. We can explain the house system to them and describe our strategies for taking down the other houses!

Finally, Olivia wanted to find out more about Mr. Devlin’s and Mr. Rosenberger’s vision for the future of the house system. I wanted to know if they saw any problem with rewarding students for kind things that they should be doing anyway, without expecting a reward. Mr. Devlin said that at first students may do kind things only to earn points, but eventually we will start to do kind things because that is who we are becoming. Mr. Rosenberger hopes that the points will make students think more about their decisions and that they will focus on how good it feels to do the right thing, not just on the points. Both teachers also hope that students are being competitive, but also respectful of their opponents. They think that we need positive competition, just like in sports, to bring out the best in us. Their vision for the future is that we continue to celebrate each house, represent our houses, become more ambitious with service projects, open more options for house themed clothes and build student leadership.

So there you have it, the entire vision for the house system. Past, present and hopes for the future, all thanks to Mr. Devlin and Mr. Rosenberger. 

Thoughts on House Xavier by Thomas Szymkowicz

Our house founder is St. Francis Xavier. St Francis was a friend of St. Ignatius, who started the Jesuits. He was one of the very first Jesuits and his life inspires me to look for God in new ways. St. Francis was very courageous to join the Jesuits and to be a missionary. He traveled all over the world and needed to have courage when meeting new people or taking on new tasks. Because of this, courage is our house trait. I hope that everyone knows that we are courageous, people for others.  Out house mascot is also related to our trait. Our house mascot is a Lion. Lions are a good fit for us because they are the kings of the jungle and a king needs to have a lot of courage.

Students, staff, and parents at Holy Trinity can show courage by stepping up to the plate and doing the things that they are afraid to do. You will never regret being brave and powering through, but you might regret backing down and being afraid. For example, if you are really scared to give an oral presentation, you should just commit to doing it rather than trying to avoid it. If you are courageous and just do it, you will get a better grade than if you don’t.

So far I have really enjoyed the games that we have played as a whole school, especially the dodge ball game. It it fun when all of the houses are together. I think that when we are all together we get a lot of different ideas from people in other houses. I am looking forward to the last day of school to see what kind of celebration we have for the winning house. I think that day should be mostly fun, with not a lot of school work and we should really focus on the winning house. 

Written by Aly Bradshaw

Our house founder is Pedro Arrupe. He inspires me because of his positive spirit. His positivity could fill an entire room. He always looked on the bright side of things and found ways to help people and to be compassionate. That is why the Arrupe house has compassion as our house trait. I hope people know that the Arrupe house is always determined and compassionate, ready to help whenever we are needed. Compassion is our trait and the students all around the school show that by caring for others. Our house day is February 5th and I can’t wait to see how everyone celebrates. As a school we will practice being compassionate and we will connect with Pedro Arrupe’s legacy in a special way.

My favorite thing about the house system is that we are all one family. Even though everyone is sorted into 6 different houses, at the end of the day we are all one. We cheer for each other, celebrate all of the other houses, and we should all try to embody each of the house traits: Compassion, Perseverance, Gratitude, Humility, Justice and Courage.