School News

We will present two of the highlight events of the year on Wednesday, December 16—our Grades 1-7 Christmas Pageant at 8:30 am and our Nursery School and Kindergarten Christmas Pageant with Grade 8 readers at 10:30 am—over Zoom. These events involve every student at St. Patrick's, giving them the chance to share their gifts of music and storytelling with the community!

Please note that we will have a regular dismissal for Winter Break on Friday, December 18. Classes will resume virtually for all grades on Monday, January 4, through Friday, January 8, and return to in-person learning on Monday, January 11. For our January mandatory COVID-19 test dates following the Winter Break—Thursday and Friday, January 7 and 8—we will expect that no student or member of the faculty and staff will be tested earlier than seven days from the date of return from a high-risk state or country to the District (or the Washington area, for those of you who live in Maryland or Virginia).

We are excited to report that, beginning in January, we will be launching a new and improved HoundsTruth. You will see a fresh new approach that represents an important next step in our determination to provide families with a more accessible, streamlined, and considered approach to internal communications. The updated newsletter will become our key method of digital school-to-home communication for all divisions. This shift will also represent a concerted effort to dramatically reduce the amount of ad hoc communication sent during the week, thereby helping to ensure that families engage fully with the information contained in HoundsTruth.  As a result, the current Middle School email (MacArthur Weekly) will cease publication. Please click "Read More" for important additional information on the new approach.

Thank you to all who participated in the Holiday Online Auction, which closed yesterday! We appreciate the community's involvement and participation, and we hope you will plan to join us in March for our spring Auction and Variety Show on Saturday, March 6. If you're still interested in purchasing a St. Patrick's holiday ornament or face mask, you may do so at www.stpatsdc.org/auction. 

The Parents Council of Washington cordially invites you to attend Talking With Kids About Racism on Thursday, January 14, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm, via Zoom. Erica Thompson, Assistant Head of School for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, recommends this presentation for parents and educators. The panelists will discuss productive ways to talk about racism with children of all ages, addressing both conversations between parents and their children and conversations between schools and their students. Please click "Read More" for the link to register.

Since we will be unable to gather in-person for our usual festive Christmas Eve services this year, we will be offering two special services for you to watch online: a Christmas Pageant and a Traditional Service. The videos will be available on YouTube on Christmas Eve, and your family can then watch one or both of the services at times that make sense with your other family traditions.

Please note, as we reported in Wednesday's email, that we will extend the post-Thanksgiving period of all-virtual learning at least through Monday, December 7, given concerns about the turn-around time on our next round of mandatory COVID-19 testing this weekend. Our next round of COVID-19 PCR testing for all students and faculty and staff occurs Friday and Saturday, December 4 and 5. Capital Diagnostics will administer this round of COVID-19 PCR testing on the Whitehaven Campus on Friday and Saturday from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. At this time, only a limited number of appointment times remain available. If you are unable to secure an onsite testing appointment, you will have to schedule testing elsewhere, which may well delay your return to on-campus teaching and learning. Please click "Read More" for a link to the full email sent out on December 2.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Our Annual Schoolwide Caroling will be broadcast over Zoom on Friday, December 4, at 8:30 am. While caroling is usually a special event for students and faculty and staff (as that is all who can squeeze into the Great Hall!), we are overjoyed to share this tradition with the entire St. Patrick's community this year. Students received a Caroling Booklet in their latest HoundPack to use for this event. We know our youngest students may not yet be able to read, but we included the booklet in the hopes that grownups feel encouraged to join their young children in singing.

Thank you for a record-breaking #GivingTuesday! Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of the St. Patrick's community, we not only secured our $30,000 challenge gift but went on to raise a total of more than $280,000 for the benefit of our students. We are deeply grateful for your incredible support. #WolfhoundsGive #StPatsShines

Calling all holiday shoppers! The St. Patrick's Holiday Online Auction opens tomorrow, Friday, December 4, at 9:00 am! Enjoy items in our "Have Fun At Home" and "Out & About" categories, as well as "Dine In" and "Children's Experiences." In addition to the Auction items, check out the adult and student St. Patrick's-themed face masks for sale, along with the "Merry Wolfhound" Christmas ornaments! Visit the Holiday Online Auction at www.stpatsdc.org/auction.