GRACE: Gold Early Registration is only open today, February 27, through Sunday, March 5! Sign up early and we will waive your registration fee and your child will receive a FREE 2023 camp t-shirt. Why wait? Click the below button to register or to view the camp schedule, pricing, and catalog.
The Day of GRACE is officially one week away! It takes people, prayers, and your participation to build the GRACE community where every student has the opportunity to learn, lead and succeed. Celebrate with us, make a donation in support of our students, spread the word, and follow along with us on social media for a Day of GRACE! Early donations are now being accepted at givingday.gracesystem.org
Help GRACE grow! Refer new families and earn an incentive for yours. We at GRACE value the support and loyalty of our school families, and are excited to announce our New Family Referral Program, which rewards our existing families with a tuition incentive for referring new families that enroll in our system. Share the word about GRACE education with your friends and family, and be a part of building our strong, faith-based community.
The GRACE 2023-24 academic calendar is here! You can view it in English or Spanish.
The calendar highlights key dates such as early dismissals, parent/teacher conferences, holiday vacations, and more. Spring break will be March 4-8, 2024. We are excited to announce it even includes the spring break dates for the following academic year, which will be taking place from March 10-14, 2025.
Keep these important dates in mind when scheduling future family activities and vacations. Have a great year!
Local news station WLUK Fox 11 recently highlighted Notre Dame of De Pere’s charitable efforts to make a difference in the local community this holiday season! Ms. Korinek’s second graders and Mrs. Kopp’s 3-year-olds spent their “buddy time” delivering Thanksgiving cards and singing some Thanksgiving songs for the nearby senior apartments at the end of November.
Read the full story on Fox’s website here.
Join us for the Day of GRACE – a day of giving – to be celebrated during Catholic Schools Week on February 1, 2023. You are an important part of the equation: it takes people, programs, prayers and your participation to build the GRACE community where every student has the opportunity to learn, lead and succeed.
Celebrate with us, make a donation in support of our students, spread the word, and follow along with us on social media for a Day of GRACE!
GRACE parents are invited to respond to the Voice of the Customer Parent Survey. The survey is open Dec 7-19, 2022 and is utilized to provide parental feedback to our Board Education Committee. This is an annual survey to help assess our progress from the parent perspective. All are asked to respond. The survey link can be accessed from your GRACE school’s weekly parent e-newsletter.
Thank you in advance for responding — your perspective is valued!
After leading the CatholicLink Middle School Leadership Conference in May, six Notre Dame Academy students participated in a week-long design sprint led by Abbie Withbroe, educator at St. John the Baptist, and Jaime Danen of Notre Dame Academy. The goal of the week was to develop a student-led character and leadership program for students from kindergarten through high school. The program they developed, Building Character, Growing Leaders, will help students develop the virtues and skills of strong leaders to impact their school and broader communities positively.
Throughout the summer, two of the students continued the work of the design sprint week to develop this leadership program which is now being piloted in three schools: St. John the Baptist, Notre Dame of De Pere, and Notre Dame Academy.
At all middle schools, students are leading and organizing leadership clubs that meet twice a month. The first meeting of the month consists of playing games and working on leadership skills, whereas during the second meeting the students plan lessons and activities which will be taught in K-5 classrooms.
At Notre Dame Academy 15 students are involved in the rollout of the program. They have named this program Notre Dame Leadership Academy (NDLA) and are working hard to involve many more students into the program.
Jamie Danen, Literacy Specialist and Equity Coordinator of Notre Dame Academy states, “This is an entirely student-led program. Students decide what the outcomes will be, how we will get there, and what it will look like when we are successful. They are intent on making this a program that is appealing to all students at NDA. Additionally, they are running each meeting, planning each event, and making deliberate decisions about what will and won’t be included in the program. I have never been involved with a group of students who have so genuinely owned their leadership position and are so excited to train and prepare the next generation of leaders for this program.”
Notre Dame Academy students had these comments to share about the program.
• “I think that this is a rare program where change and progress really happen. You don’t see that with a lot of high school programs and I hope we can continue that.” – Camden – Senior, NDA
• “The CatholicLink Leadership program is incredibly meaningful to me because I’ve always enjoyed taking on leadership positions, but I’ve never been involved in something so focused on cultivating the qualities of a truly good leader in me. I also love being a part of real programs and changes in our school community and the community as a whole.” – Adalyn – Senior, NDA
• “The Catholic Link leadership program has been infinitely beneficial for me. It’s helped me improve in my con dence, organizational skills, communication skills, and, of course, leadership skills. I feel prepared for my future because of my work with CatholicLink.” – Eli – Senior, NDA
This program was supported by a grant to CatholicLink from the Kern Family Foundation and the students are excited to continue to develop and grow the program for all GRACE schools.
The GRACE Catholic School System is committed to our mission. We are not just Christians on Sunday but at all times and in all aspects of our life. Likewise, at school, we aim not merely to integrate our Catholic faith but to be rooted in it in all ways. One of the defining characteristics of our schools is that we are always “steeped in a Catholic worldview.” So whether we are teaching the Revolutionary War in middle school social studies or learning about how seeds become plants in second grade, we seek to find opportunities to show children the centrality of God and the influence of the Church in the world.
This year the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced a national Eucharistic Revival, whose aim is to encourage “a movement of Catholics across the United States, healed, converted, formed and united by an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist.” In support, Bishop David Ricken wrote a beautiful letter to our Diocese titled, Encountering Jesus in the Eucharist: Disciples Called to Worship.
During these next three years, Bishop wishes to lead us on a journey to better worship Jesus by focusing on encountering Jesus more deeply in the Word and the Eucharist. At GRACE, we aim to support this mission as we endeavor to help make sure all children know and love Jesus Christ.
Catholics believe that the greatest prayer of all is the Holy Mass, and it is especially beautiful when we bring our family on Sunday. As we seek to grow in our relationship with Jesus and strengthen our prayer lives, consider how your family will continue to make Sunday Mass attendance a priority.
In The Sacrament of Charity, Pope Benedict XVI told us, “The love of God that we receive in the Blessed Sacrament should lead us to love our neighbor (88).” Our GRACE teachers are hard at work each day, teaching children to pray, how to approach the Sacraments, and how to live our Catholic morality by guiding the way they act in the classroom and on the playground. We are proud of the ways we celebrate liturgical seasons like Advent and Lent, and each school attends Mass weekly as a community.
This year we ask all members of our GRACE community to join this great movement in our Church as we seek to encounter Jesus deeply and personally through the Eucharist. Parents can support our faith mission by asking their children what they are learning in religion class, taking time to pray as a family, going to Eucharistic Adoration, and attending Mass weekly as a family.
GRACE is proud to announce that technology services team member Lynn Fink has been recognized in a recent article by the local Catholic Diocese publication, The Compass, for her outstanding work in IT. Lynn has been working in the GRACE System since 2004 when she was first employed at Our Lady of Lourdes in 2004. Read the entire article celebrating Lynn’s work on The Compass’s website by clicking here!
