Notre Dame Middle School

Picture by Cathy Greenseth

Notre Dame Middle School is part of the Chippewa Area Consolidated School System (CACS). Until 2005, Notre Dame Middle School was located in the school building on parish grounds.

Since 2006, the middle school has been hosted in the McDonell Central High School building at 1316 Bel Air Boulevard.

The school retains the name Notre Dame Middle School and the parish generously supports the consolidated system with over $400,000 every year.

Visit the Chippewa Area Catholic Schools website for more information on the school.

Goal: Our Children Reaching Their Full Potential
 
The overarching principle that the CACS Education Commission uses to guide our decision-making process is how best to get our kids to heaven. I left the last meeting of the Commission edified by the fact that the way we talk about things in our system is how best to help our kids to be happy for ever with God. This is supremely Catholic. The last canon in Canon Law points out: “The salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes” (CIC 1752). The interest and purpose of our schools is to help our children reach their full potential in loving and serving God in this life and to be happy with Him in the next.

What has been going on recently at the high school level to ensure this? A couple of weeks ago, Patrick Madrid, a renowned Catholic apologist, came to speak to our students. We are extremely grateful to those who made this possible. His presentation was great and filled with well-phrased reasons why he is Catholic. I have to admit that I was pretty happy when the only complaint that I heard was that the students already knew much of the stuff he said.

Over the last couple of weeks, we raised about five hundred dollars as a school for the orphanage in Peru. Other efforts of loving the poor are Br. Roger’s spearheading of collecting food for the food pantries, adopting individual orphans from the orphanage, and raising funds to aid the Christian Brothers in Japan.

We will take the freshmen to the Chrism Mass and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe during Holy Week. The juniors will join other juniors from around the diocese in Marshfield for the Junior rally. And seniors will have Chris Stefanick for their retreat, rescheduled for April 27. Chris has recently been announced as the keynote speaker in English for World Youth Day in Spain. We are so lucky to have him come to us to talk to our seniors about keeping the faith when they go off to college. (In case you are wondering, the sophomores had their retreat last fall when NET ministries came to town.)

What can you do to help us? During this time of Lent, pray that these endeavors for the salvation of our kids go well. Don’t forget to offer up some of your Lenten penances for our kids and for the success of our school system. Great things are happening, and with grace and some effort, we will all get holy together.