Friday, March 19, 2021
Dear Parents/Guardians,
It is with both deep sadness and deep love that the community of Assumption marks the passing of a phenomenal leader in Catholic education, Mary Lee McCoy. Mary Lee served Assumption High School with passion and commitment from 1980-2006 as teacher, English department chair, assistant principal, principal, and as our first president. For 26 years, her vision and persistence resulted not only in groundbreaking educational developments which received national recognition but also in breaking ground for our Convocation and Athletic Center as she led our first capital campaign. Mary Lee’s devotion to this work came second only to her love and devotion to her family: her husband, Chris, son, Colin, and daughter, Caroline, Assumption High School Class of 2000, whom we hold in our hearts and prayers.
The mark Mary Lee has left on our campus was surpassed only by how she shaped Assumption’s culture of hospitality and humor. Mary Lee firmly believed in the power of the community of Assumption. In fact, she coined the phrase that we continue to use with our students today, “Remember who we are, we are the community of Assumption”. There is no doubt that Assumption High School will continue to remember Mary Lee’s impact and be indebted to her as we move forward with the work that she committed her life to: the purposeful and mission-driven education of young women.
Join us in prayers of Thanksgiving for the ongoing gift of this remarkable woman to the Assumption community past, present, and future.
COVID NUMBERS: As we did last semester, Assumption will report our number of COVID positive cases and quarantines for any individuals associated with our school on a weekly basis in the Rocket Report. As of yesterday, Assumption’s COVID–19 numbers for this week are: (3/12; 3/15; 3/16; 3/17; and 3/18)
- 3 new positive COVID-19 cases (all students)
- 0 new quarantine cases
- 33 total positive COVID-19 cases as reported to our local department of health as of January 5, the start of this semester (29 students and 4 faculty/staff)
It’s important to note that there have been no known transmissions of COVID here at AHS. As a reminder to our parents, Assumption is required to report positive cases and quarantines of all individuals associated with our school to the State of Kentucky, our local health department as well as the Archdiocese of Louisville.
As you may have just heard today as we did, the CDC updated its physical distancing guidelines for school students. Previously, the CDC recommended schools maintain at least six feet of distance between children, but in light of new data and studies, the agency is now recommending students maintain at least three feet of distance for elementary students so long as everyone is wearing a mask and other prevention measures are in place. The three-foot guideline and prevention measures also apply to students in middle and high schools as long as community transmission is not high. When transmission is high, then middle and high school students must be spaced at least six feet apart. We have contacted the Archdiocese of Louisville regarding this revised recommendation, and they are in communication with our local department of health. As this is a developing situation which requires further consideration and planning, we will update parents once we have had an opportunity to meet with representatives from Archdiocese of Louisville about next steps.
Thank you for your continued support during these ever-changing times.
CALENDAR NOTES:
- DAILY SCHEDULE: Next week, we will not have a LEAD & Learn Wednesday due to Friday’s holiday:
- Monday, March 22 – Day 1: In-Person – Maroon Cohort, Virtual at Home – Blue Cohort
- Tuesday, March 23 – Day 2: In-Person – Maroon Cohort, Virtual at Home – Blue Cohort
- Wednesday, March 24 – Day 3: In-Person – Blue Cohort, Virtual at Home – Maroon Cohort
- Thursday, March 25 – Day 4: In-Person – Blue Cohort, Virtual at Home – Maroon Cohort
- Friday, March 26 – No School: Rocket Raffle Incentive Date/Spring Break Begins!
- COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP NIGHT: All parents are invited to attend our virtual College Scholarship Night on Monday, March 22, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. The link to the meeting will be shared via email prior to the event. Representatives from various colleges will participate in a panel discussion about college scholarships aimed at helping juniors, and even sophomores, understand what colleges are looking for in a strong scholarship candidate. If you have any questions, please contact LEIGH JACKSON or KIM HABICH, our college counselors.
- SPRING BREAK: Spring break will begin Friday, March 27, since we met our Rocket Raffle ticket sale incentive, and continues through Monday April 5 (Easter Monday). School will resume on Tuesday, April 6.
CAMPUS MINISTRY:
- PARENT PRAYER: Parent Prayer takes place every Tuesday morning from 8:30-9:00 a.m. via Zoom by using this link and ID/Password: Join Zoom Meeting: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/75488139027?pwd=UDQrM3BDWlZRbElEbWdUL1FQRE4wZz09, Meeting ID: 754 8813 9027, passcode: prayer. All are invited!
LETTERS FROM COLLEGES: Attention, senior parents! Please have your senior daughters submit ALL letters received from colleges regarding admissions decisions, scholarship offers, and admission to special programs and honors colleges to the Guidance Office. The majority of colleges DO NOT provide this information directly to high schools, so your daughter is often our only source of information about this. Her timely sharing of this information is vital to the Senior Honors Celebration as we work to make sure we have all the correct information to celebrate your daughter and the Class of 2021. These letters can be hard copies, faxes, or scanned copies and can be emailed directly to COLLEGE.LETTERS@ahsrockets.org. We ask that students submit all of this information by Thursday, March 25.
PINK & WHITE GAME & UPCOMING SENIOR EVENTS – Attention Senior Parents! As we have communicated previously, we have been working on plans for all traditional senior events for this spring. On Monday, we will be sharing all of our plans with the seniors during lunch via a class meeting and then will send a senior parent communication. For the Pink and White game, as required by the Archdiocese of Louisville, the four schools involved submitted a proposal for how to host the Pink and White Game this year under the framework of current restrictions surrounding the pandemic. We just received feedback from the Louisville Department of Health that will allow us to move forward with the game, but that will require that the game will look different this year. Some of those differences include:
- The game will be a limited attendance event played during the school day on Wednesday, April 21.
- Assumption and Sacred Heart will both be limited to a 25-woman roster for each team.
- Only seniors from Assumption High School and Sacred Heart Academy will have the ability to attend the game per attendance limits established by our local department of health. The game will be live-streamed as well.
- Dances from St. X and Trinity dance teams will be pre-recorded and shared in the week leading up to the game and will be live-streamed during the halftime of the game for the livestream audience.
We will share more details with the seniors on Monday, but we can proceed with tryouts for the girls’ teams in the upcoming weekend. If you daughter is interested in trying out, please have her check her email for very important information that has been sent from Ms. Schindler yesterday and today regarding tryouts. We are very excited to share all of our celebratory plans with seniors and parents on Monday!
SENIOR RETREAT – Last Call! Did your daughter miss out on their opportunity to attend an in-person senior retreat? We have great news for you! We will be offering one virtual senior retreat that will be taking place on Tuesday, April 13 will be a Lead & Learn day. This retreat will take place on Teams during the normal L&L day hours, so no interfering with work, practice, games or other after-school obligations! Please have your student contact Julia Scudder at Julia.scudder@ahsrockets.org to sign up!
2021-2022 SCHOOL CALENDAR: A special message was emailed on Monday including information about the school calendar. We are in the process of working on the 2021-2022 school calendar. Although we have not finalized the calendar, we recognize that our families may need general calendar information in advance. In order to help with this need, the tentative key calendar dates for 2021-2022 are posted on our website through this link: IMPORTANT DATES FOR 2021-2022 SCHOOL CALENDAR. Additionally, weekly schedules for April and May have now been posted as well. Event dates will be posted next week!
COHORT CHANGE REQUESTS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SCHOOL YEAR: Parents of students in the Pink/All-Virtual Cohort, you should have received an email on Wednesday with information about moving your daughter to hybrid learning (attending school in person two days a week) if you would like to do so. Please note that the deadline for your daughter to submit the request form (which you have to sign off on) is Wednesday, March 24. Parents of students in the Maroon Cohort and Blue Cohort, if you need to switch your daughter’s in-person learning days, please email Dean of Students Cindi Baughman no later than Wednesday, March 24, to request the change. Cohort changes will go into effect when we return to school after Spring Break on Tuesday, April 6. In requesting a cohort change for your daughter, you are committing to her remaining in that cohort for the remainder of the school year; this is the last opportunity to change cohorts.
HAS YOUR DAUGHTER RECEIVED A COVID-19 VACCINATION? A number of our students have been able to receive a COVID-19 vaccination because of their jobs or medical conditions. If your daughter has been vaccinated against COVID-19, please send a copy of her vaccination record to our school nurse, Laura Burnam, to keep on file in case a question about whether she would need to quarantine should arise.
LEAD & LEARN UPDATE: During our LEAD & Learn Wednesday this week, students began in homeroom with an opportunity led by student leaders for homeroom connection. After beginning in homeroom, freshmen and sophomores focused on independent learning. In addition to independent learning, juniors each had an assigned time to meet with the college counselors about next steps in the college research process. Seniors had the opportunity to gather on campus or participate virtually in an important viewing of The Hunting Groundwith critical follow-up discussion and speakers.
SCHOOL PICTURES FOR PINK COHORT/SCHOOL PICTURE RE-TAKES: If you daughter needed to get her school picture taken or wanted a re-take and was unable to come on Wednesday this week during the scheduled time on our LEAD & Learn schedule, then you will need to contact BIG photo at 502-585-3103 to arrange a time to go to their studio located at 640 S. Fourth Street to have a portrait taken. This will need to be done by Tuesday, April 6. Any questions, please contact KATIE CULVER.
AP EXAMS: The College Board has recently made changes to their 2021 AP exam schedule. The originally scheduled paper and pencil exams are still scheduled from May 3 – May 17 but College Board has also scheduled two additional weeks of exam administration windows for students who might be unable to test on the original dates. Your daughter’s AP teachers are keeping her informed and full information can be found here: AP Test Information for 2021 Please contact JUDY FIELDHOUSE if you have any questions.
NATIONAL ACT FOR JUNIORS: On Tuesday, April 13, all juniors will take the National ACT at Assumption from 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Just like in October, there is no makeup date for this ACT at AHS, no signup is needed on the part of each family, and this test fee is covered by your tuition dollars. Please encourage your daughter to use the test prep program ALBERT provided by AHS for practice over this next month to help her achieve her best score. This score can be sent to colleges and universities and used for admission and scholarship purposes. Please contact JUDY FIELDHOUSE if you have any questions.
DUAL CREDIT SCHOLARSHIP INFORMATION: All students enrolled in a spring Dual Credit course received an email from Mrs. Fieldhouse on Wednesday, March 10, letting them know that their information has been sent to the state. The state made a change in their process and requested that the school send the information as to what college/university the scholarship should be awarded. This means that your daughters WILL NOT need to go into KHEAA.com and set her scholarship preferences. If your daughter has more classes than available scholarships and needs to pay the school for those classes, you can wait until we hear back from the state to make those payments. When it is time to make those payments, your daughter will get an email and you will be notified via the Rocket Report. For more information, see KHEAA information on the Dual Credit Scholarship Program and Assumption High School Dual Credit Information or contact Judy.Fieldhouse@ahsrocket.org.
LUNCH UPDATE FROM FLIK: Please remind your daughter to pre-order her lunch for next week if she plans to have FLIK provide her lunch on her hybrid in-person days.Lunch orders must be submitted by 8:30 a.m. the morning of but can be ordered a week in advance through this link: www.flikisdining.com. Your daughter will receive an email confirmation when the order is placed. If she does not receive a confirmation email, the order was not received by FLIK. For full information about the lunch ordering process, please click on this link: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESSING LUNCH MENU AND ORDERING
- MAIN ENTRÉE LUNCH MENU OPTIONS for March 22-25: Pita Pizza Foldover – Tomato Basil, Cheese, or Pepperoni, Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Roasted Zucchini, Small Caesar Salad
UPCOMING CLUB OPPORTUNITIES: Be sure to ask your daughter to take some time to check out the upcoming club meetings that will continue to be posted regularly on the website calendar linked here: https://www.ahsrockets.org/events/event/
SUMMER ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES: Academic opportunities for the summer have been UPDATED. You can find these on our guidance department page by clicking here: Academic Summer Opportunities 2021. There are numerous opportunities available with many costing less than $1,000. Programs are grouped according to areas of interest like STEM or Creative Arts/Design or General Summer Pre-College Programs, etc. Please contact LEIGH JACKSON or KIM HABICH with any questions.
AHS SUMMER CAMPS: Assumption High School is excited to welcome back campers to campus this summer! Rocket campers will have the opportunity to experience over 45 different enrichment and athletic camps, with 10 brand new options, including Aviation, Camp Invention, Summer Olympic Fun, and Test Kitchen! Full descriptions of each camp as well as dates, times, and prices can all be found here. As you are browsing the different camps, you will notice that each camp has three essential skills that campers will learn during their time on campus. Camps are open to boys and girls in grades K-11. Space is limited. Please email lauren.lega@ahsrockets.org or call 502-271-2675 for questions.
Gratefully,
Martha Tedesco
Principal