St. Mary's Academy High School recently entered into a prestigious consortium with other independent girls schools across the nation to provide our high school students the opportunity to enroll in online courses through the Online School for Girls.  

Pack the House Night!! This Friday, February 8 - Come support the St. Mary's Academy Wildcats as they face the Kent Denver School Sun Devils in basketball in Bishop Evans Sports Center starting at 5:30 PM.  

Also on Friday, cheer on the SMA Varsity Swim and Dive Team as it kicks off the Colorado 4A State Meet at the Veteran's Memorial Aquatics Center (VMAC) in Thornton!  Our teams need your support! 

What is your education?

I have a BA in Spanish and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh; and I hold an MA in Spanish from Middlebury College.

How many years have you been at at SMA?

What is your teaching/work experience beyond SMA?

Upon graduation from college, I began to work on senatorial and presidential campaigns. After the 2004 elections, I then worked as a research assistant at Brown University on a project to aid Latinos who were parents of asthmatics quit smoking. I began teaching in 2006 at a vocational technical high school in Massachusetts. There I taught both history and Spanish. I then taught English to adults in Rosario, Argentina for close to two years. I currently teach Spanish One, Two, Three; and Culture and Conversation.

What would you name as a memorable or exciting classroom/curriculum moment you have experienced?   

I am most content when I hear my students speaking in Spanish outside of the classroom just because they want to practice and to improve.  Speaking another language has made my world so much bigger and has opened the door to many more opportunities and adventures. It is a great feeling to share these advantages with my students.  

What is something about yourself to share with SMA community that we might not already know?

In college, I spent a semester at sea.  Eight hundred students and faculty and I boarded a cruise ship and sailed around the world visiting 10 different ports. Our final port of call was Havana, Cuba.  There, we were hosted by the Cuban government and Fidel himself talked to our group for more than four hours.  At the end of the talk I seized my chance, pushed to the front of the auditorium and shook the hand of one of the most infamous or famous political leaders of the modern world. Later, we were invited to the presidential palace where Chu Chu Valdez played a concert for 100 of us!

News:                

Events:

• February 8, 8:10 - 9:10 AM, Assembly, 3rd Grade presentation

• February 13, 10:30 AM, LS/MS Ash Wednesday Mass, LS Gym   

• February 15, No Classes, Faculty Retreat

• February 18 - 19, Academy Closed, President's Day

• February 20, 8:00 AM, 5th Grade to Cathedral Mass

• February 22, 8:10 - 9:10AM, Assembly, Primary Dance 

• March 1, No Classes Faculty Work Day

• March 7 - 8, LS Conferences, No Classes 

News:

• SMA Middle School presented its annual Courage for the Journey program for Middle School fathers, male mentors and sons last week. The event included presentations from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock; Jamie Van Leeuwen, PhD, chief of staff for Governor Hickenlooper; Woody Roseland, a seven-time cancer survivor and our own Justin Wimbish who served in Afghanistan and is our Technology Director. Each speaker brought his personal story of challenge and success.

• February 6, 6:00 - 7:00 PM, 7th & 8th Grade Girls/Parent SMA HS Information Night, The Carr Residence.  Attendance for this event is full!

• February 13, 10:30 AM, LS/MS Ash Wednesday Mass, LS Gym 

• February 15, No Classes, Faculty Retreat Day

• February 18 - 19, Academy Closed, President's Day

• February 21, 7:00 - 8:00 PM, MS Concert, HS Forum

• February 22, 11:40 AM, MS Drama Performance, HS Forum 

• February 22, 6:00 - 8:30 PM, The Island sponsored by Academy Parents

• February 25, Trimester 3 Begins

• February 25, 2:30 PM Trimester II Closing Ceremony 

• March 1, No Classes, Faculty Work Day

News:    

• The HS celebrated the Twelfth Annual Diversity Day with the theme, Sharing Stories: Together We Can Build Bridges. The day began with an awesome keynote address from Sarah Culberson, actress, author, dancer and co-founder and president of The Kposowa Foundation.  The foundation works to improve education for young people and to help rebuild Sierra Leone. Later, the students broke into small sessions to listen to a variety of speakers about surviving cancer, genocide and alcoholism, Denver Urban Ministries, local women prisoners and more. Lunch featured an international food sampling and fashion show. The day continued with Keynote Speaker, Sarah Castle '02, a four-time Paralympian and Special Assistant US Attorney. This eventful day wrapped up with a performance by Dr. Art Jones and Ms. Dee Galloway of "The Spirituals Project."    

• Junior Rosie Armstrong has been selected to attend the Order of Malta Youth Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France this summer.  The Order of Malta is an international lay, Catholic organization devoted to serving the poor and sick with a special devotion to our Lady of Lourdes.  The Youth Pilgrimage combines a spiritual retreat aspect as well as hours of service to the malades (French word for sick) who pilgrimage from around the world to Lourdes, France.

• Presentations of Learning are around the corner on March 15.  If you would like to be a panelist for this outstanding experience in the ninth and tenth grade, please contact Don Nelson, dnelson@smanet.org, for the tenth grade project Understanding 21st Century Problems; and Kristen Ferguson, kferguson@smanet.org, for the ninth grade project: What Does it Mean to be Human?  These are year-long projects that culminate with a presentation to a panel of "judges." The presentations are on March 15 in the High School.  

Events:

• February 8, 8:00 - 11:00 PM, Dance sponsored by the 9th grade

• February 12, 10:00 - 10:30 AM, Mardi Gras Celebration

• February 13, 9:00 - 10:00 AM, HS Ash Wednesday Mass

• February 14, 9:55 - 10:55 AM, Honors Assembly

• February 15, No Classes, Faculty Retreat Day

• February 18 - 19, Academy Closed, President's Day

• February 23, 6:00 - 8:00 PM, Father Daughter Dance

• March 1, No Classes, Faculty Work Day

• March 2, 6:00 - 9:00 PM, Model UN Trivia Night

• March 5, 10:00 - 10:30 AM, STUCO Town Meeting

• March 6, 10:00 - 11:00, Model UN Munchies

• March 7 - 8, Community Days

• March 7 - 8, 7:00 PM - 8:30 AM, Senior Lock Out 

• SMA Admissions wishes to thank our parents for their prompt re-enrollments. If you have not yet re-enrolled your child, please do so as soon as possible. You will be able to make your deposits online only through Friday, February 8.

• Are you interested in Financial Aid? Our deadline is February 8. Please submit your information at: www.sss.nais.org . If you have any questions, please call Gracie Carr at ext. 205.

• The 7th and 8th Grade Parent/Student Information Night, February 6 at 6 pm featuring Ms. McNamee and three amazing seniors is completely full.  However, we will be offering another opportunity for a similar event after spring break. If you have any questions, call Gracie at ext. 205.

• We have a wonderful school! We love giving tours and creating student visits for families that YOU recommend to St. Mary's Academy! Thank you so much!

• Parent Caught in the Act: Michele Airoldi- Huffman-Thank you!

• Have a Derby connection? We need your help! We are looking for the following items for a Kentucky Derby Auction Package:
• Tickets to attend the 2013 Kentucky Derby on Saturday, May 4 at Churchill Downs
• Clubhouse or Grandstand seats only
• Round-trip airline tickets from Denver to Louisville
• Hotel accommodations in Louisville

• Sarah Castle '02 was a Keynote Speaker at Diversity Day in the  HS this week. Sarah is a four-time Paralympian and Special Assistant US Attorney.  She has won the silver as a swimmer; and a silver and gold in wheelchair basketball. She also set the world record for the 1500m freestyle in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

• Audrey Moton '07, a West Point graduate, was featured on NBC Nightly News for a second time in, Petite but Proven: Two women warriors pass elite Army training course.  Sapper training is for combat engineers or other personnel who support the front-line infantry. The Sapper Leader Course is a 28-day course designed to train joint-service leaders in small unit tactics, leadership skills and tactics required to perform as part of a combined arms team. Click here to read the full story.