-
August 15, 2023
Dear Cheverus Families,
This year we celebrate Cheverus Catholic’s 115th year as a school in Malden! Originally established to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Bishop Cheverus becoming the first bishop of Boston, Cheverus Centennial School, later Cheverus Sacred Hearts Parish School, served exclusively the church’s parishioners. Today Cheverus serves children of families of all religions from all over Massachusetts, as far away as Lowell and Rowley! As Cheverus has evolved and changed over the last 115 years, we again find ourselves in need of a change. In this profession, we are blessed to be able to reset every year and have time to contemplate how to best meet the needs of our returning students and a whole new group of students each September. This year, in response to an increase of student socio-emotional needs, we will be focusing more heavily on this aspect of student growth. We also have some new faculty and staff to welcome, and over 100 new students to welcome and embrace. I am thrilled to meet and get to know all our new families and to all of you who have returned for a second year or are starting their final 8th grade year at Cheverus, welcome back! It is exciting to be starting a new school year and we have a lot of exciting news to share.
We will continue to utilize the level coordinator model this school year. While the same five veteran teachers will remain as Level Coordinators, there have been some changes to the classes they will oversee. Please see below for details on that. Also, you’ll notice that some teachers have changed roles. These changes include Mrs. Theresa Ronchetti, moving from second grade to kindergarten, and Mrs. Angela Tavares (formerly England), moving from fourth grade to second. We welcome Ms. Nayara Andrade in grade 1, Ms. Archana Singh as an elementary classroom aide, and Mr. Alexander Hornecker, our new Physical Education teacher. I am also thrilled to welcome back Ms. Buffy Walsh as our middle school religion teacher and Mrs. Maria Velasquez (formerly Aragon) as a Kindergarten aide. Welcoming new faculty and staff to the Cheverus community is always exciting, and I look forward to working with them all.
Some of our faculty and staff have been at Cheverus for many years. Those celebrating over 20 years this school year include Ms. Jaime Young with 20 years, Mr. Scott Carboneau with 20 years, Miss Mary Beth Leon, Miss Kathy Hoff, and Ms. Sandra Malatesta with 22 years, Ms. Janine Hanley with 24 years, Ms. Joanne Gaudet with 30 years, Ms. Patricia Jackson with 43 years!!! Those celebrating over 10 years at Cheverus include Mrs. Lisa Cataldo, Ms. Ronda Young, Ms. Bridget Hussey, Ms. Michelle Vidic, and Ms. Mary Martens. Congratulations to all these dedicated Cheverus employees! They make Cheverus the safe, wonderful, academic institute it is.
Our main focuses this year, besides academics, will be on inclusivity at all levels, socio-emotional learning, and teacher professional development related to this. As we continue to bring students impacted by Covid back to their full potential, we have implemented some great new programs. We had a wonderful professional development with Neuro Noel in August which allowed teachers to learn how to better care for students with a wide variety of socio-emotional needs. We also plan on creating a peer leadership program with our middle school students helping their younger classmates. Since our in-house retreats were such a huge success, we again will plan to have those for our upper elementary and middle school students. One Trusted Adult, a program that promotes student socio-emotional support will be implemented utilizing their Ripple Journals. Also, we will continue with new teacher coaching through Cor Creative. Each year we have a bible quote as a theme. This year we chose, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God has forgiven you.”
Some facilities improvements will commence this school year, as well. We have some new front doors ordered that will improve school security and Diana has been working hard on some new building signage. This will include a sign on the main building with our current name, Cheverus Catholic School, and some large banners that will increase our visibility in the community and allow those seeking a Catholic education a more apparent choice for their young students. While the signage will increase our enrollment, we will need more space. This leads us to our major project which is completing our basement area and opening new classroom space. This is in the early phases and there will be more updates to come. Some changes we’ve already made include hydro-seeding of our courtyard area and the new boiler being installed. Other improvements we have in the works include improving the back preschool play area, and new furniture and smart boards for our classrooms.
Curriculum updates include brand new texts/workbooks in Science, Reading, and Social Studies. We also have our first official curriculum for our early childhood program thanks to our partnership with Malden Public Schools. We will also continue to offer operational therapy and speech through this partnership, as well.
Lastly, next year our school is up for reaccreditation through NEASC. This means that this year our faculty and staff will be writing our standards for that process. While this task is a lot of work, it is a great way to reflect upon some of our shortcomings, and ways to further improve the school. Virtually all our faculty meeting time will be spent working on this endeavor in the coming school year. Please look for parent surveys sent via email that will help with this process. Thank you all again for choosing Cheverus School for your children. We take their care and education very seriously and we are grateful to be entrusted with that responsibility. This will be a great school year!
Level Coordinators
Ms. Mary Beth Leon – Preschool/Pre-K
Ms. Jaime Young – Kindergarten/Grade 1
Ms. Theresa Ronchetti – Grade 2, Gym, and Art
Ms. Lisa Cataldo – Grades 3, 4, and 5
Ms. Sandra Malatesta – Middle School
Sincerely,
Jeff Lane
Principal