SATURDAY: Celebrating Families

Parents, guardians and other family members play a vital role in Catholic education. Not only do they choose to send their children to Catholic schools, they instill values and expectations for academic excellence in their children at home. We acknowledge the role of families as partners in Catholic education and celebrate their contributions to the success of our schools on the last day of CSW and all year long.

TIP: Many schools often seek tips on how to get parents involved in their school life. Families often want to be more involved, they just don’t know how. The answer is simple: schools should provide clearly articulated, meaningful and impactful tasks. Be specific and share the results of their efforts. Let the success of your Catholic school be owned and shared amongst everyone!

Ideas for Celebrating Families

• Celebrate academic excellence by hosting classroom visits for families and friends.
• Organize a family picnic or potluck.
• Create a large-scale family tree celebrating all the families in the school. Make a spiritual tree of baptisms, marriages and ordinations—including the name of the parishes where family members took these sacraments.
• Create a bulletin board or other display that highlights each family in the school. Include pictures, quotes or testimonies from each family or student.
• Host a family welcome night for new parish families to meet members of the school community.