News - July 2014 RSS Feed

More personalized instruction to maximize a student’s ability to excel is the teaching focus at St. Benilde School in Metairie. Matt Downey, starting his third year at St. Benilde and eighth year overall as a principal, says when parents ask about curriculum, he answers, “Your child is our curriculum.”

The Office of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans has signed a new contract for the annual assessment test that students will take. The Office of Catholic Schools will now use the ACT Aspire test this year to test students starting in third grade.

The temperature reached the high 80s by 10 a.m., yet students and adult volunteers were working in the heat scraping paint, pulling out old nails and repainting the interior of a house in Gentilly, while another 40 were doing similar tasks at three other houses nearby.

Shooing mosquitoes and dodging the occasional wasps’ nest, teens from St. Peter Church’s “TORCH” youth group toiled to reclaim a stretch of holy ground: an overgrown Stations of the Cross pathway, set deep in the woods of the Teresian Spirituality Center in Covington.

For Kathy Livaudais, a painting inside the St. Rita parish center in Harahan says it all: It shows Christ the Good Shepherd going to the edge of a cliff to rescue a lone lamb encircled by wolves. Livaudais, who retired in May after teaching children with special needs in Jefferson Parish public schools, had encountered numerous lost and innocent sheep in her classroom.

The archdiocesan Prison Ministry is asking local Catholics to prayerfully consider joining the ranks of a mentoring initiative set to make its Louisiana debut this fall. The Kairos Torch Prison Ministry, an ecumenical, faith-based program that pairs adult male and female mentors with incarcerated youth, will launch in October at Bridge City Center for Youth, one of three Office of Juvenile Justice facilities in the state.

– 2014 – AUGUST ➤ Aug. 15, Feast of the Assumption, archdiocesan offices closed SEPTEMBER ➤ Sept. 1, Labor Day, archdiocesan offices closed OCTOBER ➤ Oct. 2, Cabrini High School open house ➤ Oct. 7, St. Katharine Drexel Prep open house ➤ Oct. 8, St. Charles Catholic High School open house ➤ Oct. 9, Mount Carmel Academy open house ➤ Oct. 15-17, Catholic Administrators Conference, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi ➤ Oct. 16, Academy of Our Lady and Holy Cross School open house ➤ Oct. 21, Holy Rosary High School open house ➤ Oct. 22, Academy of the Sacred Heart open house ➤ Oct. 23, Archbishop Hannan High School, Archbishop Rummel High School and St. Mary’s Dominican High School open house ➤ Oct. 26, World Youth Day New Orleans, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center ➤ Oct. 28, St. Mary’s Academy open house ➤ Oct. 29, St. Augustine High School open house ➤ Oct. 30, Pope John Paul II High School and Ursuline Academy open house NOVEMBER ➤ Nov. 1, All Saints Day; St. Paul’s School and St. Scholastica Academy open house ➤ Nov. 3, Archbishop Shaw High School open house ➤ Nov. 4, De La Salle High School open house ➤ Nov. 5, Jesuit High School open house ➤ Nov. 6, Archbishop Chapelle High School and Brother Martin High School open house ➤ Nov. 10, applications to Catholic high schools available to elementary school students/parents on archdiocesan website (ocs.arch-no.org) ➤ Nov. 12, high school applications returned to Catholic elementary schools ➤ Nov. 14, applications and records sent by elementary schools to high schools ➤ Nov. 27-28, archdiocesan offices closed for Thanksgiving DECEMBER ➤ Dec. 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, archdiocesan offices closed ➤ Dec. 16, Christmas luncheon sponsored by the Council of Catholic School Cooperative Clubs, Sheraton Hotel.

Beth Ann Simno, who began teaching at Mount Carmel Academy in 1978, is the first layperson to serve as principal of the school. She officially assumed the principal’s duties in July, taking over for Sister of Mount Carmel Camille Anne Campbell, who continues to serve as Mount Carmel president.

Not many reading this column will know much about 15-year-old Aitzaz Hasan, a student at a boys high school in Pakistan. Aitzaz was a student who wanted peace for his town and country. In January, he noticed a man wearing a bomb heading for his school.

Ansel Augustine knows how to connect with teens and young adults, and employs multiple platforms, as was evident June 24 when he conducted a webinar through Loyola University’s Institute for Ministry (LIM).

The gauntlet has been thrown down! Residents of the Apartments at Mater Dolorosa challenge other Christopher Homes properties in the archdiocese to see who can yield the most from their community garden.

Sister of the Holy Family Bertrand Neveu, who served for 72 years in religious life, died May 15 in New Orleans. She was 91. Sister Bertrand, the daughter of Fortunet Neveu and Elva Journet, was an educator and worked with the homeless and poor of the area.

A new, pilot discipleship program is in progress at Ascension of Our Lord Catholic Church in LaPlace. “Encountering Christ” puts faith in action by enlightening Catholics about their faith, leading to stronger parishes.

A few weeks ago the cafeteria at St. Rita School uptown was packed with people – not its usual crowd of hungry grade-schoolers, but with a crew of faithful Catholic adults hungry for something more than a hot lunch.

The Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice soon will be training a new wave of solo practice lawyers equipped with the skills and real-world know-how to address the legal needs of poor or moderate-income individuals.

Spending time away from home, wherever the journey takes you, always serves a dual purpose: it allows you to recognize exactly what you miss most, while allowing you to make points of comparison. For instance, when I first moved to St. Louis, I constantly told friends what I missed about New Orleans – primarily family and the food.

On July 19, 1979 – 35 years ago – Nicaragua started a new chapter in her history. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans also had to turn the page and started writing the next chapter in their lives. My dad, mom, brother, sister and I were among those tens of thousands.

As the video rolled across a makeshift screen on the wall of the Ecole Classique cafeteria, high school football officials from the Greater New Orleans area watched a series of illegal hits delivered by defenders against defenseless players.

In 2002, Ashley Ruckert was chosen by the Clarion Herald as its Outstanding Volleyball Player after the senior led the Academy of the Sacred Heart to a fourth consecutive state championship. She now takes charge of the Division III school’s program, taking over for her mentor, Mike Barnes.

Under normal circumstances, the Jesuit-based team sponsored by Retif Oil might not have qualified for the American Legion State Baseball Tournament after finishing behind Southeast Regional front-runners Refuel, Otto Candies, Peake BMW and Deanie’s Seafood.