Protocols and Procedures
Guidelines Governing the Use of Classrooms
The teachers at St. Thomas More School have made the following requests:
Please do not allow children to:
- eat or drink in the classroom;
- put their hands inside the student desks;
- pick at or remove the name tags that are on the desks; or
- touch or feed any classroom pets.
Please also make sure that:
- classroom computers are not touched;
- Only dry erase markers are used on the whiteboards;
- whiteboards are erased after use;
- trash cans are emptied into the large cans in the hallway;
- all furniture (including desks and chairs) is returned to its original location; and
- material on tables, desks, and/or bookshelves is not moved or is returned to its original location.
These rules also apply to catechists’ own children who may be with them before or after sessions, and to any other visitors - children or adults.
Help us maintain good relations with the teachers at St. Thomas More School by honoring these guidelines!
Registration
If new children arrive in your classes who are not registered, please do not accept them into the class, or just write them in to your roster. Please send them to the EFD staff at the office. Likewise, please do not move a child from one class to another, or make any other roster changes, without consulting the EFD staff. This is for safety and legal protection, as well as administrative clarity.
Requesting Materials and Supplies
Catechists will find a plastic tub of basic supplies in the room they use (including pencils, crayons, markers, a lectionary, a crucifix and a candle), marked with their own names and the name of their class. Additional supplies and other materials (such as bibles, audio-visual material and craft supplies) can be found in the “office” (the Nurse’s Room) and/or in the Mary Chapel closet. Please ask the EFD staff or the office staff for anything you do not have, and use the Supply List forms for anything special you need, including photocopies and audio-visual material. Please ask one week in advance to give us time to get it. A list of EFD audio-visual and other additional resources is available on-line.
Notes For Catechists
Every week the EFD staff will produce “Notes for Catechists”, an email containing news, information, Scripture notes, dates, and ideas for teaching materials, most of which will be available on-line. We always welcome suggestions and ideas to share with each other.
The Faith Development Session:
Preparation and Opening
- Arrive at least 15 minutes before your session begins to set up the classroom and greet the children.
- Upon arrival, please make sure that you collect your folder at the table outside the office. Hand-outs and copies that you requested will be in this folder.
- Please put up the sign with your class name outside your room.
- You may want to play religious music or other appropriate songs as the students arrive.
- Have an activity ready for students who arrive early.
- Begin lesson on time even if children are arriving late, and open with a prayer and lectionary readings. Bibles and other resource materials are available in the OFD office.
- Take attendance, keeping an accurate attendance record for each student. Do not let children write in the attendance record. The attendance record is a permanent form in your Teacher Folder. Do not make any roster changes without consulting the EFD staff.
- Please place your Teacher Folder outside of your classroom door 30 minutes after your class has begun. An office volunteer will pick it up.
Closing and Dismissal
- Summarize the lesson with the students.
- End the session with a prayer and with thanksgiving and intercessions.
- Students are responsible for helping clean up and tidy the classroom.
- Empty your trash bins into the large containers in the hallways.
- If you have moved the desks, return them to their original locations.
- Please restore the classroom to the way you found it. If you use glue, markers, or paints, please clean the desks. Floors must be cleared of scraps. Whiteboards must be erased with a dry eraser. Let us know if something needs special attention.
- Distribute notes (including the Faith First handout for the week) and other materials that are to go home with each child. Give students other occasional handouts, projects, etc. to take home, to help facilitate family discussion about what the student has learned in your class.
- Any correspondence that you may want to send home must be submitted to the Director/Assistant Director for approval before the distribution date.
- Dismiss children promptly at 10:35 am or at 12:10 pm, but do not dismiss them early.
- Bring your students to the gym to your designated place, and wait with them until their parents collect them.
- Do not allow the children to run around in the gym, play basketball, or play on the stage in the gym.
- If you have waited until 10:45am or 12:20pm and still have children who have not been collected, please bring them to the office and we will call their parents.
- Older siblings are not allowed to collect their younger siblings. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Behavior Expectations and Discipline of Children
Children learn best in a well-disciplined setting. In a faith-based setting, discipline includes both respect and responsibility. Children in Elementary Faith Development at St. Thomas More are expected to show respect for self, others, and property by:
- coming to the classroom with a desire to learn about God;
- accepting with a positive attitude classroom guidelines and rules;
- being sensitive to the feelings and ideas of others;
- listening attentively to the person who is speaking;
- properly caring for school property and the property of others.
Good discipline requires the establishment of guidelines and consequences for the behavior in the classroom. Acknowledge and encourage appropriate behavior. Inappropriate behavior, especially behavior that is disruptive to others, should be addressed immediately and directly, using suitable methods that show Christian love. You may send a child to the Faith Development “office” if the child continues to misbehave. If a child continues to misbehave, the EFD staff will contact their parents, and parents may be invited to sit with their child for one or several sessions to ensure good behavior.
If You Will Be Absent
While we expect our catechists to fulfill their obligations, we realize that there will be some occasions when you may not be able to be present on a given Sunday. Please give us as much notice as you can, but if you have an emergency on Sunday morning please call Jim at home (338-1525) before 7:30 am, or at 933-1041 after 7:30 am. There is a line on this number we can easily hear in the FD Sunday office (the Nurse’s room) in the school. To ensure a safe and orderly environment for our children, please follow these guidelines when you know that you will not be able to come to class:
DISCUSS PLANS FOR ABSENCE WITH YOUR TEACHING PARTNERS NOW.Talk to your assistants or co-teachers about how you will cover for each other in case one person is absent. Are you able to cover for each other and have the assistant be the lead teacher on occasion? Would that person be more comfortable with a substitute lead teacher or would as the lead teacher with a substitute assistant?
FIRST - CALL YOUR TEACHING PARTNER(S). First, call your co-catechist(s) to see if you can cover for each other.
SECOND - INFORM THE EFD STAFF AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OF YOUR ABSENCE:
Jim Hynes 942-6237 (office) 338-1525 (home)
Please call me at home after 4:30 PM on Friday.
Syvia Reyna Tulis 942-6236 (office) 403-08972 (home)
THIRD - please do not leave a message on an answering machine and consider it done. Follow through until you reach a person and a plan has been made.
HAVE LESSON PLANS AVAILABLE. If you know in advance that you will be absent, please let us know which Faith First lesson you are teaching, and any other plans or materials you have for that day, so that they can be given to the substitute.
Inclement Weather
If Faith Development is canceled because of bad weather, we will notify the following radio and television stations:
We will also post bad weather closures on the home pages of the St. Thomas More Parish web site.
The EFD staff will produce a phone tree for catechists, and will use this to inform catechists of cancellations. Please also use your own discretion when the weather is bad or is threatening to become dangerous. If you consider conditions to be dangerous, or your power is out, stay home!
Faith Development for Children with Special Needs
At St. Thomas More we believe that all children are created in the image of God, and thus can know and love God, and live as members of a community of faith. In the Faith Development program, we want to include and make provision for every child in the parish.
We are guided by the words of St. Paul, speaking of the Church, the Body of Christ:
"It is precisely the parts of the body which seem to be weakest which are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with greater honor. ... God has so composed the body, giving the greater dignity to the weaker part, so that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is given special honor, all rejoice together." (1 Corinthians 12:22- 23a, 24-26)
Parents are therefore invited to bring their children with special needs to participate in the Faith Development program. We aim to assess the gifts and needs of each child, and work with parents, siblings, catechists and other children to enable your children to participate to the greatest extent possible. In particular, we will make every effort to enable children to prepare for and celebrate the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist and Reconciliation.
Children Bringing Friends to Faith Development Sessions
Catechists have reported children bringing friends who are not registered with Faith Development with them to Faith Development classes on Sunday mornings. This is a concern for several reasons: health, safety and legal issues, and the disruption caused to classes. Catechists have said that they do not want to be used as babysitters for friends of children in their classes, especially if a child has a sleepover and brings several friends who are not members of the parish.
However, there is a value in welcoming a child who might genuinely be interested in joining the Faith Development classes, for whom the invitation by a friend could be the first point of contact. If a child asks for bread, you should not give them a stone. In this situation, please follow these guidelines:
- A registered child may bring no more than one other child to a Faith Development meeting. If a child wants to bring a friend to EFD, a parent of the child must telephone one of the EFD staff to ask permission some time in the preceding week. Permission would normally be given.
- The parents of the registered child must attest to the good behavior of the visiting child.
- The parent of the registered child must enquire of the parents of the visiting child if the child has any medical condition which catechists need to know about, and if so, must inform one of the EFD staff, who will pass on the information to the catechists.
- No more than two visiting children will be accepted into any class on any Sunday.
- If the visiting child comes more than once, enjoys the program and lives locally, we will consider inviting the parents of the child to register permanently for Faith Development, and RCIA-C or Sacramental Preparation as necessary.
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