Celebrating Catholic Schools Week

April 2018

Top‐to‐bo om, le : Addi James, Kate Hagan, Claire Geiger, Paige Corsmeier, Madeline Waddell Right: Cole Rengers, Maddie Enslein, Nicole e Harold, Sophia Samocki, Delaney Proud

Noel Balster

The week of January 28-February 2, MTCES celebrated the 44th annual Catholic Schools Week with a variety of activities showcasing its commitment to student Catholic faith develop-ment and preparation for a life of service to the community. The school kicked off the week with an Open House event for prospective families that highlighted our mission to educate the whole child while preparing them for their faith journey in high school and beyond.

Throughout the week, MTCES organized a variety of student and teacher appreciation activities while sharing messages of appreciation for our multitude of dedicated volunteers. Student body representatives attended the Catholic Schools Week Mass at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains downtown Cincinnati. The entire student body participated in the Everybody Counts! program, which teaches children about various disabilities and how children with these challenges cope. Students explored blindness, motor disabilities, learning disabilities, and other conditions.

The ever-popular student talent show highlighted the week. Students in all grade levels displayed their singing, dancing, musical, and comedic prowess. A charismatic group of first grade boys delighted the audience with their performance of Raining Tacos.

In celebra on of the Feast of St. Nick, the student body enjoyed a visit from St. Nicholas himself. On December 6, St. Nick went from classroom to classroom to talk to stu‐dents about Christmas joy and holiday tradi ons. Before he le , St. Nick gi ed students with holiday treats and a grade‐specific Christmas book to commemorate the day. Ms. Stevison’s 2nd grade was so excited when they saw that St. Nick le them How to Catch an Elf, they decided to create a wri ng ac vity to go along with the story.

Due to a red reindeer, St. Nick returned on December 7 to share the na vity story with over 20 prospec ve kin‐dergarteners. The excited pre‐K students le with their own copy of My Li le Christmas Story.

Lessons from the Holocaust

Amanda Ocariz

As 8th grade students prepare to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, they are reading memoires of the Holocaust, researching all aspects of the Nazi regime, and writing essays about upstanders of today and the past. As part of this unit, on Tuesday, February 13, the 8th grade class was honored by a visit from Dr. Al Miller. Through the Holocaust & Humanity Center of Montgomery, Dr. Miller shared his stories of living in Germany during the Holocaust. As a Jewish family, Dr. Miller and his parents feared for their safety in Ger-many. Dr. Miller’s grandfather sent him to Switzerland where he was able to live, learn, and survive the persecution of the Nazis. During his presentation, Dr. Miller explained how our words will affect people today and in the future. He expressed the importance of education,

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Class of ‘18 High School Placement Results Impress

Amanda Ocariz

The Class of 2018 has always represented our school well, but to further their legacy, they earned incredible scores on the High School Placement Test. This year, 76% of 8th grade students placed in the high range of test scores with 13 students earning a score above the 96th percentile. Regardless of overall placement, we are thrilled with the level of success these students have achieved.

acceptance, freedom, and upstanders in today’s world. He concluded his presentation by citing a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance, “freedom and justice for all.” He remind-ed students how lucky each one of is to have our free-dom.

As an extension of this unit, six 8th graders at-tended the Bystander to Upstander Youth Leader-ship Summit at the Holo-caust & Humanity Center. Twenty-three schools from the tri-state area sent mid-dle school representatives to discuss how to become upstanders in their commu-nities.

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Holocaust Lessons

Dr. Miller expresses apprecia on for American liber es.

Olympics

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Olympic highlights. The BEST was par-ticipating in a torch run and playing adapted versions of the sports!

Mrs. Hinker and Mrs. Lindloff also took gold in their creativity with each event. Students used scooters and mats to expe-rience bobsledding, milk jugs with sand for curling, donated rice/burlap bag shoe coverings for ice skating, and more. They also participated in mogul, skeleton, cross country skiing, and hockey. Teachers even tracked medal counts for each coun-ty! First grader Tyler Maraan shared that his favorite event was curling as, “you can earn a lot of points!” The 8th grade favorite was hockey. They played in a championship match where Mrs. Lind-loff’s team took gold.

the all school bee, the fourth through eighth grade homerooms held individual spelling bees and then sent their top two finishers to the school wide event. The competition was fierce this year, and it was clear that the participants had come well prepared. The group went through round after round of increasingly chal-lenging words as the field slowly narrowed to two: seventh grad-er Anne Majka and fifth grader Maura Risk.

This year’s victor was Maura Risk, who successfully spelled words like unpropitious and acacias. It was Maura’s first time qualifying for the all school bee, and she worked very hard to prepare for the big event. Maura was overjoyed to see her efforts pay off and was reminded of the quote, “Success only comes be-fore work in the dictionary.”

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Sensational Spellers

Raining Tacos: Jack Hinker, Luke Kollstedt, Kevin Hartman, Jacob Helmers, Jonathan Lusk, Tyler Maraan, Landon Pra , Landon Ew‐ers, Collin Berger, Aus n Bayer, Caleb Schwab, and Brycen Bird

Catholic Schools Week

The Week culminated with Mass, giving the community an oppor-tunity to praise God for the gift of an MTCES education, dedicat-ed parents and faculty, and abundant student talents.

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Every 7th grader par cipated in the MTCES science fair on February 3rd. A er earning a superior ra ng, 30 students qualified to a end the University of Cincinna district science fair. This is the largest group in school history to qualify for districts. Twenty‐two students a ended and performed extremely well: they won $850 in cash prizes and $1300 in scholarships, four students scored in the top 10%, and eight qualified for the state fair in May. Pictured above, front row (le to right): Abigail Healy, Madalyn Mahoney, Kevin Podborny, William Cady, Stephen Meister, Sam Gutzwiller, Nathan Ubbelohde, Nathan Burke. Back row: Anna Foley, Ella Timms, Emily Swindeman, Sean Cas llo, Henry Meyer, Kyle Conner, Kathryn Hagan, Grace Rudie, Trinity Gehr, Ava Kelly, Grace Wells, Rebecca Koehl, Olivia Smith, Carissa Gehr, Anne Majka, Asha Meyer.

Superior Science Fair

Seventh graders Lauren Trusock, Olivia Smith, and Anne Majka deliver blessed Rice Bowls to Mrs. Castrejon’s first grade classroom.

Lenten Season Noel Balster

During Lent, students are participating in a variety of activities designed to make this a meaningful season of faith renewal, sacri-fice, service, and self-reflection. Fr. Paul Gebhardt, Pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows in Monroe, celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass with the students, faculty, and many members of the extended MTCES family. The following week, Fr. Paul joined three area priests, Fr. Geoff Drew of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Fr. Don West of St. John the Evangelist, and Fr. Stephen Lattner of Our Lady of Sorrows, in sharing the Sacrament of Reconciliation with students in grades three through eight.

Every week during morning prayer, the 7th grade Leadership Club, under the direction of guidance counselor Jeanie Brewer, presents a Catholic social teaching and highlights a country in conjunction with the Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl initiative. “This project has provided our 7th graders with an opportunity to become more comfortable with public speaking, work collaboratively, and grow in their confidence in Christ,” said Mrs. Brewer. All students re-ceived a blessed rice bowl to collect donations supporting Catholic Relief Services programs worldwide and local hunger and poverty alleviation efforts.

On March 28, 8th grade teacher Mrs. Scott and her students will organize shadow Stations of the Cross for the school community. This school tradition encourages reflection on Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. The following day, students will listen to a presentation on the Seder Meal, a communal meal during Passover to rejoice at the deliverance for the Hebrews that God accomplished in the exodus.

MTCES Olympians

PTO Scholarships Presented by:

Win tuition, a trip to Greece, sports packages,

diamond earrings!

Saturday, April 21st The Oscar Event Center

Tickets: mtces.org

Tina Pratt

Mrs. Hinker and Mrs. Lindloff won gold in February with their 3-week physical education unit on the winter Olympics. Through short videos, students in grades K-8 learned about where the winter Olympics took place, various winter Olympic events, and past

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Sensational Spellers

Luke Kollstedt displays “ice ska ng” abili es.

Frontispiece. Coquelicot. Ich-thyosaurus. It’s likely that only a handful of stu-dents (or teach-ers or parents) at MTCES can spell these words, tak-en from the Scripps National Spelling Bee list this year. The annual MTCES spelling bee took place last quar-ter, with 20 com-petitors vying for the title. Prior to

Runner‐up Anne Majka looks on as Champi‐on Maura Risk spells her final word.

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