Catholic Schools Week

Catholic Schools Week was a huge success at St. John the Baptist Catholic School. Each year, the events of the week are organized by the current student council, ensuring that no two CSWs are the same. This year, our student body, led by the Class of 2025, planned an exciting week.

The theme for Catholic Schools Week comes from the National Catholic Educators Association (NCEA). This year's theme is ‘United in Faith and Community.’ We created many activities that highlighted this theme.

Our kick-off was on the Friday before the starting day of Sunday, January 26th. Due to some crazy weather, we had in December, it was decided to postpone movie day until the normal Pep Rally. So, the whole student body came together with blankets in the gym to watch ‘Migration.’ To complete the movie experience, Mrs. Gibson popped popcorn to hand out to everyone. After the movie, our 4th-8th grade band gave us a lively performance to get the student body moving. We ended our time together with each class choosing their color for class color day.

Over the weekend, we enjoyed some of our young singers leading our worship in song. They sounded fantastic despite having to be in the gym. We definitely missed our wonderful church during our week of celebrating our Catholic faith. Mr. Bare attended our parish Family Catechesis and talked about what makes an SJB student and why the children in our parish should attend our school.

On Monday, our students wore their favorite sports team jerseys. We had an impressive representation of various sports and star athletes. It was only fitting that the afternoon was spent competing in basketball challenges. The middle school students participated in 4-on-4 basketball games while the elementary kids engaged in relay races with dribbling and shooting hoops. A shout-out to Mrs. Makenzie for helping to run that event.

Tuesday was a well-deserved day for SJB to relax. Students and staff alike came dressed in pajamas and sweats. It was a day spent together in buddy classes creating cat toys, along with toys and treats for dogs. If you are interested in purchasing some, please contact the school office. All money raised will be donated to the Humane Society of Jefferson. To wrap up the day, we had an all-school "drop everything and read" in the gym.

For SJB, Wednesday was a bit different. We had class clone dress-up day since Mass was moved to Thursday. With students dressed up like one another, it became easy to identify their grades. This is not always the case these days with our school uniforms. We had some great defenders of our country, ready to dress like beach-goers and '90s teens. Our students are so creative in their ideas. The students ventured out into the community with a walk to the Klicka Bowling Alley for some games. Lots of pins fell, with a mix of spares and strikes for good measure. To round out the evening, our boys' basketball teams took on our neighbors, the St. John Lutheran Falcons! It was great fun to watch our boys face some new opponents. Two great games were played by all the athletes.

"Dress for Jesus" was clearly the theme for Thursday. All of our SJB students showed up in their school Mass uniforms before loading onto the buses to head to St. Joseph’s in Fort Atkinson. We were blessed to attend Mass with Bishop Hying and Monsignor Heiar. The Bishop explained many things that only he, as the bishop, would know. It’s always enlightening to hear his message. After Mass and the bus ride back to SJB, we reassembled in the gym. We were privileged to have the Bishop lead all of us in a scriptural rosary. For most of us, this was the first time experiencing this type of rosary. Subsequently, Bishop Hying stayed for a wonderful meal cooked by Ms. Strese and joined the students.

As if the day couldn’t get any busier, we had Rich Rubietta come to lead our students in musical worship. Our 8th graders were part of the production crew, and everyone else was jamming and dancing to the music.

Finally, Friday arrived, and everyone was ready! We spent the morning trying to have a normal Friday morning. The only challenge was that everyone was excited for the afternoon. We had an all-school lunch before loading into two buses to head to Skate Express in Watertown. The rink quickly filled up with seasoned and beginner skaters. Students had a blast skating, visiting the snack bar, and playing games for tickets. Everyone was sporting their class colors, making for a colorful atmosphere. Students returned to school with tired smiles!

Throughout the week, there were several bonus events. We had various guessing jars based on some of the saints. There was a hunt for Luce, the mascot of the Jubilee Year. Congratulations to Julia for finding it after a three-day hunt. There were also many hidden Jesus figures because who can’t use a little extra Jesus in their life?

Catholic Schools Week is a wonderful time to celebrate all the aspects of our Catholic school!