By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

ATLANTA - From a biodegradable balloon launch to a bilingual open house, Catholic schools around the archdiocese are preparing during Catholic Schools Week to celebrate and sell to parents their winning recipes-unique blends of student soul food in academics, the arts, physical and faith education. Sponsored by the National Catholic Educational Association and the U.S. Catholic Conference, Catholic Schools Week is celebrated nationally Jan. 27-Feb. 2. The theme this year is "Where Faith & Knowledge Meet" or "Donde La Fe & El Conocimiento Se Encuentran" - for the Hispanic immigrants invited to the first Spanish open house kicking off the celebration at St. Mary's School in Rome. Multicultural St. John the Evangelist School in Hapeville is providing Spanish and Vietnamese interpreters for its open house, as well as for workshops to be held in February on financial aid. The school will give a Spanish presentation to its own parish community and has already given one in Spanish at St. Philip Benizi Church, Jonesboro, and a Vietnamese presentation at Our Lady of Vietnam Church, Riverdale. Angela Ritchie, a former Spanish professor in her first year as St. Mary's principal, and others will present in Spanish at the Rome open house with volunteers on call to translate for visitors. Ritchie believes that many of the 300 Hispanic families at St. Mary's Church as well as in the surrounding area have an image from their native countries that Catholic education is only for the "very privileged," and wants to provide more information. The school now serves at least eight Hispanic families. Two Mexican-American parents receiving tuition assistance will speak at the open house. "We want to reach out to (Hispanic families), to let them know, this is your school too," Ritchie said, "to let them know about our academic programs, the archdiocesan tuition assistance available to Catholic schools, that we do have faculty and staff that speak Spanish and will be willing to work with parents and students in that transition time." "We just felt like there's that knowledge gap we needed to fill," she added. "We would just really like to reach out to that community, which is the fastest growing population in Floyd County." All of the 17 archdiocesan Catholic schools and four private, independent ones will do something for Catholic Schools Week, said Superintendent of Schools Judith Mucheck, with elementary schools more vigorously embracing it. Popular activities include scrapping uniforms, teacher, parent, student, grandparent and volunteer appreciation days, open houses, Masses and lots of letters of appreciation. Then there's the archdiocesan-wide spelling bee and Mass for all eighth-graders and high school representatives at St. Peter Chanel Church, Roswell on Jan. 30, followed by lunch at Blessed Trinity High School. Below is a sampling of the many tasty treats North Georgia Catholic elementary schools will offer during Catholic Schools Week. Students will really know they're appreciated at Our Lady of Victory School in Tyrone, where the week's theme is "Every Student Is a Star." "We try to make it special for our students, plus recognize people in the community doing service for us. (We) just promote Catholic education as much as we can," said principal Sallie McQuaid. "It's a good opportunity for us because our open house and kick-off for admissions coincide with Catholic Schools Week." The school opened in 1999 and was built to hold 250 children, but last summer the building was reconfigured to add three more classrooms, McQuaid said, and now serves 296 children. She believes it will fill to its new capacity of 350 next school year. Special activities include separate socials for mothers and fathers, followed by Mass each day, and an open house, in which winning science and "Invention Convention" projects will be displayed. There will be a teacher appreciation luncheon, volunteer brunch and special collection of toiletries for area prisons. Seventh-graders in the visual media class will report on activities through the in-school television station, WOLV-TV. And students will write letters, depending on their grade level, to firemen and policemen, Tyrone's mayor, Gov. Roy Barnes, Home & School Association officers, the development council and advisory committee. "We pretty much leave it up to the kids; then their letters are so original," said McQuaid. McQuaid is also excited that OLV is completing the accreditation process of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which has involved the school in self-examination on ways to improve in various areas. The community also prides itself on being a feeder school for Our Lady of Mercy High School in Fairburn. "We're changing because it's new. It's only our third year in existence. We're a new and growing school. It's a tremendously exploding community. They're building houses all around," she said. "It's been a great year . . . We hope to be accredited by the end of the year by SACS. It's a very vibrant, alive school, lots of extracurricular activities. We have a chess club, karate and dance, just - wow - a lot of different things in the school. We have a wonderful athletic program, basketball and soccer." She added OLV is also very involved in the larger community, participating in the upcoming Math Counts at Georgia Tech and the Science Olympiad in Fayette County. Over at St. Jude the Apostle School in Atlanta, between its two open houses and other activities, Wednesday is St. Jude School Appreciation Day with an outdoor prayer service followed by the launch of balloons, filled with children's letters on what they think makes their school special. Further polishing their penmanship, students wrote essays to be displayed during the week on how St. Jude himself has influenced them. Development director Nida Mudd said for parent appreciation day students will write thank you letters to their parents for their education and offer them a spiritual bouquet. There will be a school-wide Mass, awards ceremony and parent reception. On teacher appreciation day, faculty will have a luncheon and receive gifts made by parents and students, like pottery, pillows and pictures. Overall, "it's a way for us to kind of show off, if you will, what we do here and inform the parish community a little bit about our school and make children appreciate what they're getting here at the school and how special the school is," Mudd said. Sixth-grade students from St. Jude's and other feeder schools for St. Pius X High School in Atlanta may have the opportunity to visit there for its Morning of the Arts Jan. 31. Lisa Martin, chair of the fine arts department, said students representing band, choir, dance, theater, classical guitar and visual arts will perform, giving viewers a sense of electives offered at the school. "It highlights what our students do best from each of the departments," she said. Dean of students Kathy Wood said that earlier in the school year sixth-graders were invited to St. Pius basketball and football games and their open house was held in November. Students at The Donnellan School in Atlanta face some strict competition for basketball and volleyball games rounding out their Catholic Schools Week: their teachers. "It's one of their favorite events because students in each grade level will sit by class and cheer on their favorite teachers," said Kathleen Nichols, associate head of the school. A mystery teacher will cheer them on dressed as the school's cougar mascot. Then there's their "book swap," where students bring old books from home and put them in a pile to give to the media center, and pick out one to take home. "It's to encourage their reading," Nichols said. "It's nice because the media center grows." They'll also showcase student skills with a talent show, science fair and Catholic trivia bowl. Under the new leadership of principal Gary Delneo she continued, the school has added new programs to personalize and individualize learning, like an accelerated learning program providing enrichment materials for children in grades K-4 and French instruction. Focusing on faith, the 504 students at Queen of Angels School in Roswell will make a prayer chain of red, white and blue paper, with prayers for the nation during wartime. Religion coordinator Ellen Howe said that other items on the drawing board for the week include a coin collection for her son, Jeff Hall, who is a lay Maryknoll missionary in Tanzania, a staff appreciation luncheon, a school Mass and a talk on vocations to the priesthood. Students will bring in goods to stock the food pantry and make Valentines for those in nursing homes and hospitals. "Every year it's been a time when we really celebrate our school and how lucky we are to have a school like this and celebrate our faith. This will be an even bigger celebration. The more years we're here, the more we realize how lucky we are," she said.