Education Committee

Serving as a consultative board, the parish education committee meets monthly with the Director of Religious Education (DRE). Using a consensus-style of discussion, the committee helps to set policies, determine goals, plan programs and generally guides the education plans for children and families and for the good of the parish.

Membership in the committee includes: Stephanie Lasko, Cindy Sjolander, Julie Wuensch, Bob Masewicz, and Kathy Nicklaus, DRE. Other interested parishioners are always welcome to join. Please contact Kathy Nicklaus (at the parish office) or Julie Wuensch (parish directory) for further information.

The regularly scheduled March 13th meeting has been postponed until May with the actual date to be announced soon.

Education Committee Meeting

M I N U T E S

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Present: Julie Wuensch, Stephanie Lasko, Kathy Nicklaus

Absent: Bob Masewicz, Cindy Sjolander

The meeting was opened with prayer

The minutes of the January 8^th meeting were discussed

Textbook Language

Kathy reported that she left a message for a parishioner who has offered to help with reviewing the language used in the textbook assessments. The plan is to determine if the language and methods used in the assessments are age appropriate. Following some discussion committee member/catechist, Stephanie Lasko, offered to review the assessments as part of a project in her education classes. She was offered the assessments in grades 1, 3, 6. Stephanie will report back at the next meeting.

Lenten Small Groups

It was reported that there was not much interest in forming Lenten groups. Although Kathy reported having the needed leadership, there were too few “group members”. The small group idea will be revisited in the Fall. That timing seemed to work out well this year.

Family Lenten Activity

The remainder of the meeting concerned the movie program which the Education Committee plans to sponsor for a family Lenten activity. The movies were decided

upon: For the adults/families it would be “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, the last 90 minutes which tells the Easter story, for the children, ages 4-8, the Hanna-Barbera, “The Easter Story” and “The Proud Tree”. The children’s movies will last 30 minutes and 25 minutes respectively. In between the movies the children will do a craft to fill the 90 minute time period. The movies program will begin with a short “Easter Seder”, which will be the telling of why Easter is important to us as Christians. It is reminiscent of the discussion at the Jewish Passover meal when the young children quiz the older generation about the story behind the feast of Passover.

The movies will be held Sunday, March 2^nd from 2-4 pm at Newman. This Sunday was determined by the spring break schedule of UWL and the local schools. Popcorn and pop/water will be served at no cost. Kathy is working on getting a popcorn machine that will add to the fun of serving the popcorn. Stephanie will ask her 7^th grade PSF class to help with the refreshments and with the children’s crafts. There will be two crafts for the children. After some discussion it was decided to purchase the crafts from Oriental Trading. Kathy will place the order.

Kathy will take care of publicity in the bulletin, posters, and table tents.

Unfortunately, Julie will be unable to attend the event as she will be unavailable.

Kathy will ask Bob and Cindy for help.

The next meeting of the parish Education Committee will be Thursday, March 13^th at 7 pm in the conference room, lower level.