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News ReleasesST. FRANCIS DEDICATES CHILDREN’S GARDEN TO HONOR EARTH DAYApril 16, 2007 Goshen, Ky--St. Francis School will dedicate its new organic Children’s Garden this Friday afternoon from 12:40-2:00 at its JK-8 campus in Goshen. In celebration of Earth Day, students in each grade will present a musical performance and will share and work in the themed garden plots they have created. Folk musician John Gage will perform and lead a singalong. The garden will evolve to include paths, a pond, a meeting area and a kitchen garden. Grade-level plots bear themes that are integrated with the curriculum, including a Peter Rabbit garden, an Appalachian garden with a mathematically-devised quilt pattern and a French Impressionist’s garden. The Earth Day 2007 celebration and Children’s Garden Dedication supports the school’s historic environmental education mission. As a progressive preschool-8th grade school, St. Francis’ environmental efforts include recycling and composting projects and studies in ecology and conservation, as well as outdoor-themed preschool summer camps. Established in 1965, St. Francis School is a co-ed preschool-8th grade school in the progressive tradition. The school serves 500 students from average to gifted ability on two campuses. St. Francis Mission (Re)StatementMarch 5, 2007 Dear St. Francis Parents and Friends, We have exciting news to share with you. For the past year, the Mission and School Life Committee of the Board of Trustees has gathered input from the school’s many constituencies in order to restate our mission for the next generation of St. Francis families. After many meetings over the months and many hours of intense discussion we are pleased to report that this process is now complete. We want to emphasize that the content of the statement we are presenting at this time is not new. Rather, we have endeavored to honor the work and ideas of those who came before us at every step, and to preserve the educational and communal values represented by St. Francis School since its inception. There is one significant difference in the new formulation, however, and that is its length. The need to express the essence of St. Francis in as few, “power-packed” words as possible was a top priority of the committee, and we weighed each element carefully before its inclusion. We trust that the resulting brevity will help us all keep the school’s top priorities where they belong (at the top!) while also enabling us to convey our school’s mission to others with clarity. From the beginning of the revision process we strove to avoid the inclusion of empty marketing promises, aiming instead to express what we actually accomplish, from day to day, when we fulfill our mission as a school. In all these goals, we believe we have succeeded. Without further ado, then, here are the revised Mission Statement and Core Values of St. Francis School, approved by the Board on February 13, 2007: ST. FRANCIS SCHOOL CULTIVATES JOYFUL, COMPASSIONATE, CONFIDENT LEARNERS WHO ACT WITH INTEGRITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Core Values As a school in the progressive tradition: Each of these values represents an important dimension of progressive education as it has developed over the past one hundred years. They communicate in a nutshell why we do what we do at St. Francis and, in many cases, how we differ from other schools. Though the committee considered many other ideas that we might have included in the final draft, these were deemed the five essentials. We would be remiss not to thank the Mission and School Life Committee, chaired by the tireless Bruce Cote, for sifting imaginatively the many ideas, feelings, and words that say “St. Francis School” and shaping them into a coherent whole. We believe they have succeeded wonderfully. Sincerely, Environmentalist Reece to work with student writers at St. Francis SchoolMedia Advisory 
GOSHEN, KY. – St. Francis School in Goshen will host Environmental Writer and Activist Erik Reece on February 9th as part of its Environmental Studies Program. Reece, who teaches environmental writing at the University of Kentucky, will discuss his book Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness-- Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia with middle school students who recently read the book. Reece’s visit to St. Francis’ Goshen Campus supports the school’s historic environmental education mission. As a progressive preschool-8th grade school, St. Francis’ environmental efforts include an organic children’s garden, recycling and composting projects and studies in ecology and conservation. Established in 1965, St. Francis School is a co-ed preschool-8th grade school in the progressive tradition. The school serves 500 students from average to gifted ability on two campuses. PRESS CONTACT: | |
