Sean O'Reilly Strategic Project Manager FROM OUR LEADERSGreetings from the Enrollment Department! I pray this message finds you healthy and stress-free. We have entered yet another round of re-application for Choice funding and school enrollment. This is always a time of great anticipation for families, and we hope to reduce any stress by providing in-person assistance and rapid status updates on your application. Thanks to God's abundant grace we have been blessed with the skills and patience to integrate more timely communication tools into our processes. Although we do not work directly with the students, by assisting in
enrolling our students into the school we feel connected to the greater goal of developing our enrollees into tomorrow's leaders serving in love with courage, perseverance, integrity, and respect. We look forward to the opportunity to help you along with the application process. In the model of Christ, we are with you in this enrollment process, and He is with you to the end of the age. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20 God Bless, Sean O'Reilly HONORING OUR NORTH STAR Each month we recognize team members who embody our North Star values of serving in love with courage, perseverance, integrity and respect. This month we are featuring Mr. Jimenez, our Activities and Events Coordinator. Hello Everyone! My name is Stanley Jimenez. I began my career in southside community schools 12 years ago. Throughout those years, I have held a variety of roles from assistant teacher, to safety, to the role I currently hold as the Activities and Events Coordinator. For the past two years, I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to work alongside a staff that is as equally as passionate as myself. Together we create a safe and supportive learning environment for our students. My experience at Aug Prep has exceeded my expectations. What I enjoy most about my role is being able to coordinate events that bring students, families, staff, and community members together. My hope is to continue to assist in coordinating impactful activities such as Ruby's Pantry, sporting events, and after-school clubs, which will provide exemplary experiences to our children for years to come. GO LIONS! PARENT TO PARENTMeet the Mendez-Larriuz Family!, members of the Aug Prep Community since 2021. Ms. Natalia Mendez is the proud parent of Noelia Larriuz in K4. My daughter and I have been excited every day to be a part of the Aug Prep Family since August 2021. My daughter's name is Noelia Larriuz and she is in K4. I love the Remind app and how easy it is to communicate with my daughter's teacher. Receiving Aug Prep reminders through text helps to keep me updated with no-school days and updates for the following week. My daughter was able to participate in dance recitals where she loved spending her Saturday mornings dancing and preparing for the Nutcracker Remix. I am truly happy that every morning my daughter wakes up, she is ready to go to school and the excitement she gets seeing her friends dropped off at the same time leaves me with content and security. I know she is at an amazing school where students are valued and cared for. Noelia has grown tremendously. She recognizes all of her alphabets, the sounds letters make, and how letters can make a word and a sentence. Noelia recognizes titles of books, authors, and illustrators and loves to recognize sight words. Practicing her letters and numbers at home has become her favorite thing to do after school. Academically I am so proud of what she has been able to accomplish since her enrollment at St. Augustine. She loves going to school every day to see her friends and teachers. St. Augustine has had a beautiful impact on Noelia and I’m so proud of who she is becoming every day. TEACHER FEATUREHello! My name is Eric Hanrehan and I am a High School Music teacher. It is my pleasure and job to teach my students to love and appreciate music in their lives. Students in my class also learn how God communicates to us through the art of music and how we can learn of his love through music literacy. It is a blessing to be here at Aug Prep because of the supportive atmosphere created by the administration, students, and staff of the arts. It is my personal belief that art teachers must stay active in their craft outside of teaching. I currently sing with the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus and teach private music lessons with my primary musical instrument, the French Horn. This is my 12th year teaching in my career. I started teaching as a substitute music teacher in the New York City Public school system for two years. Then I taught at a charter school in the Bronx, NY for a few years. I finally worked for a private company that developed music programs for private and parochial schools in NY and Connecticut. It was here I developed a closeness to a Biblically centered musical instruction. That has led me to Aug Prep where this is my third year teaching. Serving the city of Milwaukee has been a privilege that I hope to continue for a long, long time. Music education has always been a passion of mine that I have fought for throughout my career. Music education is proven to develop better minds and better students. Music literacy in the United States is less than 10% and through my work here and in my previous roles, I seek to change that. It is the highlight of my career watching students light up as an instrument is placed in their hand or watching a student stepping up to the challenge of performing publicly for the first time. At Aug Prep, my students got a taste of public performance at our Christmas showcase. Keep your eye out for Aug Prep’s first Spring Arts Showcase! WELLNESS CONNECTIONGreetings Augustine Prep families! I am honored to be sharing this month’s wellness connection. In my past two and a half years teaching high school physical education at Aug Prep, I have had to learn to adapt to many different changes in the world of education and fitness. From teaching in-person to teaching virtually, from packing a gym with 30+ moving scholars to experimenting with ways to get them moving from a desk on the second floor of my home, and from being involved with intramural team sports to discovering new individual sports – staying physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually well has been an adventure. In 10th grade PE we are currently diving into what personal wellness looks like. We have examined how people are primarily motivated in two different ways: intrinsically and extrinsically. In my experience, most adults are occupied with their jobs and families. There needs to be some kind of extra incentive to make a point of prioritizing our wellness and health. Unless there are established family routines or traditions that involve getting out and being active, when can we find the time to add something else into our busy schedules? If there’s a simple answer to that question, I’m still searching for it myself. What I’ve found is that the best kind of activity is the kind that you actually enjoy. If it feels like a chore, that probably won’t change. Instead of forcing ourselves to do things that we don’t like to do, we can try to do activities that we do like to do and do them as much as possible. Whether it’s taking the dog for a walk around the block or playing in a weekend soccer tournament, all of our activity minutes add up and they will eventually pay off. Speaking of paying off, most of us are able to see trends in our physical activity simply by looking in our pocket! Pretty much every smartphone on the market today has an accelerometer that tracks an approximate step count for us on a daily basis. For those of us that are extrinsically motivated, there are free apps we can download like Sweat coin that will pull those step counts (that your phone is already taking) and turn the data into cryptocurrency that can be cashed in for tangible items, gift cards, coupons, and even vacation packages! These apps can also be used very easily to set manageable activity goals for a month, week, or just today. Whatever activity you choose to do is the right activity for you. There are so many tools and physical activity opportunities around us, and all we have to do is take advantage of them. Find something that gets you and your family moving and have fun with it. You’ll be happy you did! AUG PREP DEVOTIONALBy Mr. Powell Hey, Aug Prep Students and Families! My name is Mr. Powell, and I have been blessed to be a part of the Aug Prep community for the last four years. This year, I began teaching Middle School Bible. Throughout the course of all three years, our 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade scholars get to learn all about key themes in the Old and New Testament and how to see the world around them from a Biblical worldview. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in History and am currently enrolled in Graduate School to receive a degree in Biblical Studies. In my time here, God has allowed me to serve hundreds of Aug Prep students and other students in the community. Being a teacher isn’t always the easiest profession but it's one where you can tangibly see God using you for His glory in real-time. Moreover, working at a Christian school allows me to integrate my faith into every interaction I have with my students. We get to pray before a big test and sing the lyrics to our favorite worship songs during advisory. It also means that I am surrounded by Godly coworkers who can lift me up when I need it the most. God has taught me to trust in this season perhaps more than any other period of my life. I’ve experienced many twists and turns that caused me to wonder if God’s plan for me was really better than my own. The Holy Spirit constantly drew me back to Romans 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” I’m often tempted to lean onto my own understanding, even though it failed me time and time again. When I decide to lean on Him instead, I am reminded of how great of a provider He truly is. As I often tell my students, trusting God means relying on him even when He doesn’t do what you ask of Him. Sometimes the greatest thing God can do for us is deny us of what we ask for. It reminds me of lyrics from Come Thou Fount, an encouraging hymn I sang all of the time growing up:
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