Frequently Asked Questions
PACE events and activities
PACE events and activities are led by a chairperson or coordinator, who becomes part of the PACE Board. Chairpersons/coordinators attend the PACE meetings and provide a reports on the status of his/her committee event. The chairperson may continue to volunteer for the same position for more than one school year, as approved by the PACE Executive Board.
All SFA families are encouraged to volunteer to be a member of any of the PACE committees and earn service hours. To express your interest for any volunteer work, you can complete the Parent Involvement Form found on-line or contact the chairperson of the event you are interested in.
What is the Annual Auction/Dinner?
The annual SFA Auction is held in the spring each year and is the main source of fund raising for the school. All school families are encouraged to support this event by attending and bidding on items. Tuition alone does not cover all the costs required to provide our children with a quality education. The auction raises funds which defray school’s administrative and operational costs, and allows the school to make investments in educational and facility improvements. It is also an fun night which offers an opportunity to build both fellowship and friendship between our families.
Each school family is required to contribute a minimum of $50.00 or an item of at least that value to the annual auction.
What is the Box Tops Program?
It is a program where we request SFA families to collect General Mills Box Tops for Education. Simply clip the Box Top logos from participating General Mills products and send them to school through your children. The SFA School gets 10 cents for each Box Top collected! The more we collect the more cash we earn.
You can also join online to earn our school cash donations on every purchase. Simply go to BoxTops4Education and sign up. You can learn more about the programs they offer including Shop Reading Room and Shop Marketplace which earns our school 2% - 8% cash donations. Teachers can also set up a registry for items that they may need. The classroom, students, and teachers get the items they need, and our school earns a 2% cash donation on every purchase! You can even find coupons, recipes, and other interesting information on the website.
What is Children's Choice?
Children’s Choice provides hot lunch for students in grades 1 through 9, from Tuesday through Friday throughout the school year.
For more information, contact the Children's Choice coordinator.
Classroom Volunteering Opportunities
There are three positions in the classroom for parents who wish to volunteer in exchange for service hours. These positions are the class representatives (or room parents), auction representatives, and Yahoo Groups representative.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Class Representative/Room Parent
- Organize class parties and events as deemed appropriate by the teacher.
- Assist the teacher in any other duties such as organizing daily classroom volunteers, etc.
- Auction Representative
- Work with auction committee chairperson(s), teachers, and parents to generate idea(s) for the class auction project. This project must be approved by the teacher and the PACE Auction Committee Chairperson.
- Provide communication to parents and families in their class about the auction project
- Organize needed volunteers to complete the class auction project
- Facilitate the collection of funds and purchase of materials needed to complete the class auction project
- Facilitate the completion of the class project prior to the Auction Preview Day
- Yahoo Groups Representative
- Attend monthly PACE meetings and disseminate information to his/her respective class based on the discussions/agreements made during the meeting
- Act as moderator in the class Yahoo Group to ensure all communications are appropriate and meet approved guidelines
- Distribute all approved e-mails from the teacher to the class via Yahoo Groups to keep the families informed class activities. E-mails are approved by the principal and these approved e-mails are sent by the PACE Yahoo Groups Committee Chairperson to each Yahoo Groups Class Moderator
- Facilitate getting the answers to any questions received from parents by referral to appropriate committee chairpersons or PACE Board officers
- Maintain the class contact information, delete families who are no longer part of SFA, adding new families.
What is Dad's Club?
The Dad’s Club is open to all fathers of SFA families for membership. The primary goal of the Dad’s Club is to get fathers involved at the school-community level. The Club provides venue for fathers of St. Francis School students to get to know each other and enhance their relationship with our school community.
There are two primary events organized by the Dad’s Club each year:
- The Golf Tournament which is held in the fall
- The New Families Barbecue
What is Falcon Flash?
The Falcon Flash is a newsletter created by the children of St. Francis. It includes articles written by students, photography, artwork. The Falcon Flash Chair collects content for the newsletter throughout the school year, publishes the newsletter on-line, as well as publishes printed copies for each classroom for the students to read.
What is the Golf Tournament?
The Golf Tournament is an annual event held in October, organized by the Dad’s Club. All proceeds go directly to SFA School to benefit our students. The event is open to the entire SFA community – moms, dads, grandparents, friends, neighbors, alumni, teachers, businesses, and sponsors are strongly encouraged to participate.
Golfers can participate in a full day of fun and contests. Players can sign-up as a foursome or as an individual. We pair individual golfers during the event. Golf tournament starts at noon, and is followed by a cocktail hour, dinner, raffle, auction, and dance.
What is the Halloween Festival?
The Halloween Festival provides the students to celebrate Halloween in costume, and enjoy an afternoon of fun, games and laughter. The Halloween Festival takes place in late October. Participants enjoy carnival games, fun contests, and a cake-walk and more. Halloween tickets are sold in advance.
What is the Host to New Families Program?
It is a program that provides assistance to new families in our school. We assign every new family a host family (an existing SFA family) who will serve as the new family’s resource for any information or questions that they want to know. The host family will initiate the communication usually during the summer prior to the beginning of the school year.
What is the Ice Cream Social?
The Ice Cream Social is an annual event hosted by PACE. PACE holds this event during the first week of the school year, usually on a Thursday at 6:00 p.m. and lasts approximately two hours. This event is a welcoming party to celebrate the beginning of a new school year. SFA families get together and socialize while the teachers serve the ice cream to SFA parents and children.
What is Pizza Monday?
Pizza is available every Monday, and is served in the multi-purpose room. Pizza Monday lunch includes one or two slices of pizza, a drink and dessert. The proceeds of this sale support the 6th grade environmental education program. You can pre-order pizza for the entire school year for a discount or you may purchase with cash the same day.
Candy Apple and See's Candy Sale
Twice a year, SFA families are given the opportunity to participate in fundraising through the purchase of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory candy apples in the fall, and See’s Candy at Easter. This committee will send order forms home through our children, you select the items you wish to purchase, and the products are delivered to the school. Large orders can be delivered directly to your home.
Sees Candy provides about 15- 25% profit for the sale of each item to the school, and the candy apples provide 50% profit on the sale of each apple.
Click here for "What are Service Hours?"
What is the Scrip and E-Scrip Program?
The Scrip program is another way for our school to raise additional funds. For every Scrip purchased, the merchants return a certain percentage of the sale back to the school.
The Scrip Coordinator keeps a supply on hand of gift certificates and gift cards for various merchants (retail stores, toy stores, gas stations, restaurants, and more). Families can purchase the gift cards or gift certificates in two ways: 1) by completing the order form, which is sent home weekly in the Wednesday Communication envelope, and sending it through the student to class then the order is filled and sent back to the child; 2) by purchasing it directly from the Scrip Coordinator during scheduled Scrip sale events.
The E-scrip program is where families register grocery club cards, credit cards, and debit/ATM cards with E-Scrip. Participating merchants contribute a percentage of your purchase to the school. For more information and to enroll your cards, visit the E-Scrip website.
Participation in the Scrip and E-Scrip program is mandatory as outlined in the SFA School contract. Each family must purchase $4,000 worth of Scrip and/or accumulate a total of $4,000 in charges through E-Scrip. We impose a fine on families that do not meet this requirement ($125.00 if less than $2,000 is purchased; $250 if more than $2,000 but less than $4,000 is purchased).
What is the Used Uniform Program?
The school hosts a used uniform sale program. Families are able to donate their gently used uniforms to the program. We accept all regulation uniform items, including red and blue embroidered polo shirts (from Dennis Uniform) in good condition. White shirts, blouses, and non-SFA sweatshirts are not accepted.
The Program Chairperson then sells the used uniforms to other school families at a reasonable price. The proceeds from the sale of used uniforms are given to PACE.
What is Wheel-A-Thon?
The Wheel-A-Thon is an annual event that occurs every fall where each SFA student (kindergarten through 8th Grade) rides a bike to raise funds. Students collect pledges prior to the event and donors can choose to donate a flat rate to a child or an amount for each lap that the child completes. At the end of the Wheel-A-Thon, laps and pledges are summarized and the funds are collected from each child. All the proceeds of the Wheel-A-Thon go directly to the class that raised them to offset the costs of field trips and class projects. It is important to support this event as the funds raised determine the number and type of field trips and projects that each class can take. The class carries over any remaining balance in their account into the next school level/year.
What are the Yahoo Groups?
In 2007, the Diocese of Oakland established and approved Yahoo Groups for each SFA class (kindergarten through 8th Grade). Their main purpose is to provide a centralized, efficient, convenient, and reliable tool for teachers to communicate information regarding the children's class events and activities.
All rules and regulations contained in the SFA Handbook for both parents and students apply to the use of the Yahoo Groups. Misuse (including profanity, disrespectful commentary, or inappropriate network etiquette) of the Yahoo Groups may result in removal from the group or cancellation of the grade level/class Yahoo Group. PACE Class Representatives (Yahoo Groups Moderators) are responsible for the actions of their class’ Yahoo Group.
