October 25, 2024

The weather didn’t quite cooperate first time around, but today it couldn’t have been better for our Assumption community to come together to celebrate the 41st Annual Walk for Assumption where we enjoyed WALKING ON A DREAM! What better way to help fund financial aid for our student body than with this long-standing and much-loved tradition. Even better – we conquered our schoolwide stretch goal of 5,500 by selling 5,680 Rocket Raffle tickets AND raising $142,000.  

Students have earned two incentives this year. March 28 (the Friday before Spring Break) is now an official day off from school, and our students get to wear Halloween costumes to school on Thursday, October 31.  

The Rocket Raffle drawing will take place at Rocket Spectacular on February 1, 2025. Last year, Assumption raised an astounding $610,000 (net) at Rocket Spectacular with all proceeds dedicated to student financial assistance. Currently, over 40% of our student body receives some form of financial support to attend Assumption, and this year alone AHS distributed over $1.7 million in tuition assistance. The Walk for Assumption continues to be a means for all of us to come together in our commitment to keep a life-changing Assumption education within reach for any young woman who wants to be part of our community. We thank you, our parents and guardians, for the many ways you supported your daughters in helping to sell Rocket Raffle tickets and exceed our Walk goals!  

We proudly recognize… 

Our top ticket sellers: 

  • 3rd place: Hannah Lusk ‘25 
  • 2nd place – Kate Jarboe ‘27 
  • 1st place – Maddi Biven ‘26 

The Winners of the Official Walk Design Contest: Olivia Brown ’25 and Lauren Satterly ‘25 

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all our wonderful APO moms, dads, and grandparents who helped with the student walk collection and t-shirt distribution. It was two very busy weeks with collecting Rocket Raffle tickets and walk waivers. We could not have done it without each and every one of you! 

We are thrilled with the results of our Rocket Raffle ticket sales and look forward to reaping all the benefits of the incentives we earned as a community this year!  However, we are most excited about the work our students did to provide support to Rockets of the Future by raising money for student financial assistance.  We’re so proud to be part of this community!  

Halloween Night

Thank you to all of our Rocket parents for their many bags of candy donations for the AHS Halloween Night held last night!  We had an incredible amount of trick-or-treaters attend the event (not including parents, who made for over 1,000 guests in the building) and had plenty of candy for all of our visitors to leave with an incredible experience! It’s because of you that we are able to provide such wonderful hospitality to our alumnae, future Rockets, and our extended Rocket family. We are SO THANKFUL for our amazing students from the Advancement Council and the Recruitment Team who decorated the school, wore costumes, and helped all of our trick-or-treaters have a spooktacular night!   

LEAD & LEARN DAY – Monday, October 28: With the change in our Walk date and to keep our instructional days balanced in our unique block schedule, we have made a change to the schedule for Monday, October 28.  While our faculty and staff will be participating in a professional development day as planned, our students will utilize this day from home in a similar way to our LEAD & Learn Days incorporated last year instead of as a digital learning day.  Students will be trained on how to design their day to position themselves for success in the next part of the semester.  Students will be asked to identify how they can most productively utilize the day to achieve academic and co-curricular outcomes for the semester and may choose to engage in a variety of activities to accomplish these goals. These could include catching up on homework or working ahead on a project, writing college essays or completing college applications, making a college visit, completing service hours, or engaging in standardized test prep. This could also include some time for rest, mindfulness, or exercise. As a final step in solidifying their purposeful use of the day, students will be required to submit their plans for the day by 12:00 p.m. via email through an Attendance Forms Survey. This survey will serve as their virtual attendance for the day.  

NATIONAL ACT FOR JUNIORS: All juniors will be taking the National ACT on Tuesday, October 29.  Juniors will not attend any of their classes on this day and will be dismissed at approximately 12:30. This test is offered at no additional cost to our families and can be used to send to colleges and universities; it also serves as an excellent resource to use as a baseline and goal-setting score for the March 25, 2025 National ACT, also given to juniors during the school day.  Your daughter can practice for this exam using the links which were emailed to her by Colleen Murphy on October 17. Please help your daughter remember to eat a good breakfast, check her calculator battery, and to bring her favorite #2 pencil. 

HURRICANE RELIEF EFFORTS DONATIONS UPDATE: Compassion inspires at Assumption! Our community raised $3,520 from the dress-down day we held on Friday, October 18 for hurricane relief efforts through the Archdiocese of Louisville.  Thank you to all who sent in donations! 

ASSUMPTION PARENT PRAYER: Our parent prayer group will meet on Tuesday, October 29 from 8:15-8:45 a.m. in the AHS chapel.  Please park in any open space and enter the school through the main entrance.  We will be praying for the Charleville family juniors and seniors.  Please join us for any or all of these opportunities. 

ALL SAINTS DAY AND ALL SOULS DAY:  The Assumption community will celebrate All Saints Day with a Mass at St. Raphael on Friday, November 1. Archbishop Shelton Fabre will be our celebrant. At this Mass, we will honor the saints who have come before us as well as those in our own lives.  Because November 2 is All Souls Day, we will also prayerfully recognize the family members of anyone in the AHS community who have died during the past year as well as ALL Assumption alumnae who have passed on at any time during a prayer service in students’ theology classes the following week. We will ask students to share the names of any family members they may have lost this past year so they can be part of this special remembrance, and we invite you to do the same. If you have lost a family member in the past calendar year, please email that person’s full name to Gail King at Gail.King@ahsrockets.org by October 28. 

PRAYER INTENTIONS: All Assumption parents and alumnae are invited to share prayer intentions. Periodically, we will include the line of “prayer intentions posted online by AHS parents and alumnae” as part of our morning prayer over the P.A. Likewise, feel free to include the intentions you find there in your own personal prayer. To participate, please follow this link.  

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage month, which ran September 15-October 15, our Diversity Club decorated our Marshall Family Atrium and main hallway with beautiful displays of tradition and festivity.  Several of our students brought in their Quinceañera dresses for display throughout the month as well as papel picado banners and pinatas suspended from the ceilings. They created educational posters of famous Hispanic Americans who have impacted current society and displayed them on our cafeteria entrance for all to read.  Currently on display in our Atrium is a traditional ofrenda set up by our Spanish National Honor Society in celebration of Día de Muertos (day of the dead) on November 1.  Their display includes the research these students did to make sure the symbols of a traditional ofrenda are honored and recognized.  We are proud of the work our student groups are doing to recognize and appreciate the diversity in our world.  

HALLOWEEN COSTUMES ON OCTOBER 31: We are so proud of the student body for not only meeting but exceeding our stretch Rocket Raffle ticket sales goal for the 41st annual Walk for Assumption—and thus earning the privilege of wearing Halloween costumes to school on Thursday, October 31. As with every privilege, this one comes with some responsibilities! Students will be expected to follow the costume rules, which will be emailed to each of them, posted on student SharePoint, and reviewed via announcements during the days prior to our Halloween Dress Up Day. Some key highlights of these rules include: 

  • Students must be in full costume or full uniform. 
  • Costumes need to be “real” costumes. 
  • No big, inflated costumes will be allowed: They get too hot to wear all day, they make it difficult to walk up and down the steps safely, they are impossible when a student needs to go to the bathroom, and kids seldom can sit in a desk when wearing one. They were fine for the Walk for Assumption, but they will not work on a day when students are going to be having a regular day of school and going to classes. 
  • Students may not wear costume masks over their face or eyes (minimal face paint and makeup/accessories are okay, though). 
  • Costumes must be appropriate for a Catholic school and must cover the student “from neck to knees.”  No bathing suits or undergarments may be worn over clothing, and tights/leggings/yoga pants may NOT be worn unless they are worn under a skirt or shorts. 
  • Costumes must be respectful, should not support stereotypes, and should not offend or make anyone feel uncomfortable because of their sex, race, ethnic background, or cultural heritage. 
  • Our regular school shoe policies apply (for safety reasons).  

As noted above, detailed rules will be shared in advance for the students’ planning purposes. If your daughter has questions after reviewing the rules, please encourage her to email either THERESA SCHUHMANN or KAMARIA WESLEY 

SCHOOL PORTRAITS UPDATE: Make up school pictures will be sent to parents and students through text and email that will be available for ordering online in the next week. If you are having any issues accessing your daughters photos, please contact our school photographer, Michelle Haas Hutchins at info@mhaasphoto.com     

REMINDER ABOUT DELIVERIES: To teach our students about being accountable for their own belongings as well as to limit the number of visitors to school during the day and effectively monitor those visitors coming into the school, we have a policy that does NOT allow for student deliveries. Parents, please do not bring items (lunches, homework, bake sale items, sports equipment, presentations, papers, etc.) to school to drop off for your daughters. Our main office staff and athletic office staff have been instructed not to accept those deliveries. Thank you for your cooperation with these efforts. 

SOCIAL SECURITY CARD:  Please make sure we have a copy of your daughter’s Social Security card on file so we can properly submit each student’s end-of-year grading info to the Kentucky Higher Education Association, which provides scholarship monies (KEES money) to students who qualify.  There is a time when it becomes too late for us to submit the KEES report, so making sure we have the copy of the student card on file now ensures the proper documentation can be submitted before a student graduates and the deadline runs out.  Please contact registrar KATHY FLEISCHER with any questions or to confirm or verify information we have on file. 

ROSE THEATRE PRODUCTION: This fall, Rose Theatre Company is proud to present Jesus Christ Superstar with an all-Assumption cast. This thrilling rock opera, which imagines the last week of Jesus’ life through Judas’ perspective, has captivated audiences for over 50 years. With memorable hits like “What’s the Buzz?,” “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” and “Superstar,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical explores themes of love, sacrifice, and the challenges of faith and discipleship in a celebrity-driven world. Performances run Friday, November 1 through Sunday, November 10, and tickets can be purchased at www.cur8.com by searching “Assumption High School.” If you or anyone in your party needs assistance with handicap accessibility, please reach out to us at rose.theatre@ahsrockets.org. For more information about our Wednesday, November 6 school performance for eighth-grade audiences, please check our Theatre Arts page on the Assumption website. 

PUTTING STUDENTS FIRST – KENTUCKY CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT 2:  The Archdiocesan Office of Catholic Schools has asked us to share:  On November 5, 2024, Amendment 2 will appear on the ballot, offering a critical opportunity to expand educational resources to all Kentucky students, no matter their zip code or background.  Supporting Amendment 2 will provide financial support for students in addition to public schools, so every child has access to the education they deserve and allows parents the right and ability to make better choices surrounding their child’s education.  This amendment has the potential to benefit students throughout Kentucky but especially in Louisville.  To learn more about the Amendment – visit www.Kentuckystudents.org or Putting Student First materials here.  

APO UPDATE – Walk for Assumption 2024 and Rocket Raffle: The Walk was a great success! Your support of the event is so appreciated. Thank you to all our parent volunteers who helped make our walk collections a success. It could not have happened without you! We reached our schoolwide goal and will receive the day off of school on Friday, March 28, 2025. Please note that Rocket Raffle tickets will continue to be available until the drawing at our Rocket Spectacular Benefit Dinner and Auction that will be held on February 1, 2025. Tickets can be purchased through Rocket Raffle – Assumption High School (ahsrockets.org) 

ROSE AWARD NOMINATIONS: When you think of an Assumption employee who is a role model and positive influence on our community, who comes to mind? Please take a moment to nominate a current administrator, faculty, or staff member who has made a significant difference in your life or your daughter’s life.  The Rose Award is a $5,000 grant endowed by an anonymous donor to recognize an Assumption employee who serves as a role model and is a positive influence in our community. Past winners are Sandy Maxted, Katie Hughbanks, Cindi Baughman, Kelly Kirwan, Kathy Fleischer, Dawn Deweese, Angela Lincoln, Barry Haworth, Jackie Metry, Judi Erskine, James Sutherland, Mary Ann Steutermann, and Janet Adkins along with several other retired faculty and staff members.  These individuals aren’t eligible to win again. Nominations may be submitted HERE and are due by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, October 28.  Nominations must include a detailed description (two-paragraph minimum) supporting your nomination.  The award will be presented at the Thanksgiving Celebration on Tuesday, November 26.  If chosen, your nomination submission may be read at the prayer service. 

COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID NIGHT: The U.S. Department of Education recently announced that the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will be available to all students and families after December 1. In the meantime, students and parents are required to register for an account made up of a username and password. This account is used to access certain U.S. Department of Education websites, including the FAFSA. These credentials are used to confirm your identity as well as to electronically sign federal student aid documents. In most situations, one parent will be required to create an account as the student’s contributor. The following site has information regarding the FAFSA, who should be a contributor, college costs, and more: https://studentaid.gov/resources/prepare-for-college/parents. As a result of the FAFSA delay, Assumption’s College Financial Aid Night has been moved to Wednesday, November 13 and will be held in our theater. The presentation will begin at 6:30 and will be both livestreamed and recorded. Please reach out to Kimberly Habich or Leigh Jackson if you have any questions. 

NATIONAL ACT FOR JUNIORS: All juniors will be taking the National ACT on Tuesday, October 29.  Juniors will not attend any of their classes on this day and will be dismissed at approximately 12:30 p.m. This test is offered at no additional cost to our families and can be used to send to colleges and universities; it also serves as an excellent resource to use as a baseline and goal-setting score for the March 25, 2025 National ACT, also given to juniors during the school day.  Your daughter can practice for this exam using the links which were emailed to her by Colleen Murphy on October 17. Please help your daughter remember to eat a good breakfast, check her calculator battery, and to bring her favorite #2 pencil. 

GOVERNOR’S SCHOLARS PROGRAM: Juniors should have received an email in September inviting them to sign up for information about Governor’s Scholars Program (GSP) applications on Microsoft Teams. Students were invited to attend a meeting during RTI time about the application process. Student profiles are due via Microsoft Teams no later than Monday, November 4 at 3:00 p.m. Please contact COLLEEN MURPHY regarding any questions about the application.  

SHOUT OUT FROM SERVICE LEARNING: Many thanks to the freshman class for their service work! Home of the Innocents and St. Joseph’s Children’s Home received over 350 Halloween treat bags to help their clients and residents celebrate Halloween. During their theology classes before Fall Break, all the freshmen learned about these organizations and then decorated and filled bags with treats from their donations. We are proud of their generosity and enthusiasm for serving others!  

Senior Caroline Pringle for being the recipient of the 2024 Young Volunteer Award from Down Syndrome of Louisville (DSL) for her extraordinary service to the organization! 

Senior Ainsley Brown for being the 2024 recipient of the WLKY’s Bell Youth Service Award for her work volunteering and teaching students at Minors Lane Elementary School about the importance of kindness.  Ainsley also serves as a RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) Louisville Student Board member.  

Penny Peetz, AHS dog friend and animal rights advocate, for being selected as one of five American Hero Dog finalists.  She won her category of Emerging Hero/Shelter Dog and is now in the running for the top title.  Penny and her mom, faculty member Lindsey Peetz, will travel to New York to do a media circuit soon and then attend the awards gala later this year! 

Congratulations to:

  • The Field Hockey team for winning the Regional tournament. 
  • The Volleyball team for winning the District tournament. 
  • The Cheer team for starting their season by placing first in three categories: Game Day Grand Champions, Medium Varsity and Super Large Game Day.  

Next Week:

Saturday, October 26 

  • Cross Country Regionals @ Seneca Park 4:15 p.m. 
  • Field Hockey State Semifinals @ Christian Academy TBD 

Monday, October 28 

  • Volleyball Regionals First Round TBD 
  • Field Hockey State Finals @ Christian Academy TBD 
  • JV Flag Football vs Central @ Mercy 6:30 p.m. 

Tuesday, October 29 

  • Varsity Flag Football vs Central @ Bullitt East 7:00 p.m. 

Saturday, November 2 

  • Cross Country State Championship @ Kentucky Horse Park