Why we choose J&A. Meet Betsy

My husband Bryan and I have been members of this parish for 13 years.  We have 4 kids, 3 that attend school here Noah who is in 5th grade, Kayleigh in 3rd grade, Liam in Kindergarten, and our littlest Finn just turned 2 years old.

I have been asked the question many times, how I feel about the school here at J&A and I always say without hesitation that sending our kids to this school was the best decision we have ever made. 

Bryan and I both went to Catholic schools growing up, we knew right away that we wanted our children to attend Catholic school.  When we moved to the neighborhood in 2007 we joined this parish and we always had in the back of our minds that our kids would go to school here.

When it came time for Noah to start Kindergarten I was so nervous and excited to send him off. I can still remember not being able to breathe as I let him walk through the doors, his first day of school.  But I was immediately comforted by all the moms that had been through it all already!

The community of people here is unlike anything I have ever experienced.  It really is our second family.  

Honestly you can learn math, reading, science and social studies anywhere!  But there is something more special at J&A the kids learn faith, love and service.

At the end of the day this is what I want for my kids. A strong faith, for when life gets hard they know that they can turn to God, to feel God’s love so that they can spread that love to others, and service to make the world a better place.  J&A is the place for my kids to experience all three.

Being a teacher myself I know that the core of the school is really the teachers and staff.  J&A has some of the best! 

 Noah, who is now currently in 5th grade has Mrs. Goughenour, she has such a loving and compassionate way of teaching the kids, and has the best STEM projects! My favorite was when the kids learned how to make balloon animals, and code robots to make their own Macy’s day parade!

Kayleigh who is in 3rd grade has Mrs. Fann.  Recently we were talking at dinner one night about the fun things that Kayleigh has been learning in class, and she goes, mom you don’t even know how good of a teacher Mrs. Fann is!  She knows we all need a little bit of extra practice with our multiplication facts so she had us all make flashcards out of index cards! Isn’t that such a great idea!  We all agreed that Mrs. Fann was an amazing teacher!

Liam who is in Kindergarten has Mrs. Crites, what a crazy year for the Kindergarten teachers. Mrs. Crites has taught Liam to be completely independent on google classroom. This time last year that would have been crazy to think of a 5 year old on google classroom.  Everytime I try to help him, he says, no Mrs. Crites already taught us this mom!  

I think 2020 has especially taught us how much our schools mean to us as a family.  Last year when Covid struck and schools shut down.  The teachers at J&A worked through their entire spring break to be ready and prepared to start teaching our kids in an entirely new way. 

To keep that school connection and involvement was such a blessing.  The teachers were incredible at keeping the learning going! Mrs. Beck was Noah’s 4th grade teacher last year and she jumped right in learning zoom and google classroom to help the kids, sending daily lessons and assignments. 

J&A continued fostering the community even though we were apart in so many different ways. We had fb live all school STEM projects, the P.E. teacher, Mrs. Walls sent out a step challenges for the kids to track how much they were moving each day,and the art teacher Ms. Cooper sent out videos the kids could follow to create art projects each week.  We had a rosary service every Friday that the whole school could watch and participate in from home. They even made an at home field day!  It was actually all really incredible to think back on!

Liam had his 5th birthday during lock down last year and Mrs. Magill, his jr. kindergarten teacher came to our house to surprise him dressed up as an inflatable unicorn! I mean right there just shows you how much these teachers care about their students!

I know this current school year is different but Fr. Brockland and the principal Mrs. Schutz have worked tirelessly to  come up with a plan that is working to keep our kids safe and learning at school.  

Our kids are just thriving this year.