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St. Al’s Featured on Good Day Seattle

Catch Principal Padrnos and Preschool Director Kathleen Fleming on Good Day Seattle as they weigh in on the new alphabet song! At St. Alphonsus, it’s not just about knowing letters – it’s about mastering their sounds and patterns to build confident readers, writers, and communicators. Whether you’re team new song or classic tune, one thing’s for sure: at St. Alphonsus, we’re shaping excellent learners every day!

Wait Until 8th (1)

St. Al’s Ahead of the Curve When It Comes to Curbing Cellphones

We were recently featured in the National Catholic Register media outlet for our stance towards cell phones at school and commitment to creating a distraction-free learning environment. A couple of our 8th graders were also interviewed and gave some insightful responses. You can read the article here: https://www.ncregister.com/news/catholic-schools-cellphone-bans-mcdonald.

You may recall that last school year, we earned the distinction of being the first and only Catholic school in Washington state to be officially registered with the Wait Until 8th pledge. This organization empowers parents to wait until at least 8th grade before giving kids a smart phone. To learn more or to sign the pledge, visit our Family Technology Resources webpage.

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Innovative Housing Project Centers Teachers in Local Community

This article appeared originally appeared FulcrumFoundation.org.

The Fulcrum-funded Innovative Housing Project at St. Alphonsus Parish in Ballard will welcome its first cohort this summer, providing affordable housing to Catholic school teachers in an increasingly high cost of living area.

“The Innovative Housing Project meets two critical needs facing the Archdiocese of Seattle,” said Lizzy Scholz, the pastoral assistant for administration at St. Alphonsus Parish. “The first is the need for adults, especially young adults, to build community. Teaching is a tough career! Living with people going through the same struggles, especially in the early years of teaching, is so beneficial. The second is how difficult it is to pay teachers who want to work in our Catholic schools a competitive rate of pay. The Innovative Housing Project allows us to provide more affordable housing as a way to level the field.”

The program, which has been four years in the making, takes some of the financial burden off local Catholic school teachers by providing an affordable place to live. Accepted applicants will live in community, allowing young teachers to grow together spiritually and professionally.

“The U.S. Surgeon General recently came out and said that loneliness and lack of connection is a major public health crisis,” said Nick Padrnos, principal of St. Alphonsus Parish School. “Community, especially in this day and age, doesn’t happen by accident. It must be intentional. This project anchors young adults to a definite place with a definite purpose. I see this as an incubator, not just for well-formed educators, but also for deeply connected and committed human beings.”

The program currently has space for nine teachers who will be provided with personal apartments as well as communal living spaces, including a garden, courtyard, and chapel. Participants in the program will receive a one-year lease. Teachers will live in the repurposed convent for the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) sisters at St. Alphonsus. In 2021, the SOLT sisters decided to leave the convent, giving the parish and the archdiocese a chance to find a new purpose for the building.

“Transitioning the convent to being a part of the Innovative Housing Project is a perfect fit, because not only do we have a great facility, but Ballard is a very desirable community to live in, and therefore very expensive.  It can make it difficult for staff to afford even a simple apartment.  Our convent would allow each tenant to have access to a basic apartment, as well as a lot of communal space for cooking, gardening, and indoor and outdoor gatherings,” said Lizzy.

“St. Alphonsus has been a stronghold in the archdiocese and Ballard community since 1907,” Nick added. “To last 100+ years means you have to be adaptive and respond to the signs of the times. We’re a small community, but have lots of young families who are attracted to the energy and mission here. The reality is, we don’t have the nuns and other religious groups running our schools and occupying our living spaces. It’s a wonderful opportunity for this St. Al’s community to witness to these young adults about what family life, devotion, and kinship looks like.”

The Innovative Housing Project was, in part, modeled after programs like the Alliance for Catholic Schools (ACE) program at the University of Notre Dame and the Pacific Alliance for Catholic Education (PACE) program at the University of Portland. PACE, which has placed teachers in Catholic schools here in Western Washington, provides housing for young teachers committed to living in community as they work towards their master’s degrees. The program has a proven track-record of success building future educators and leaders within the Catholic school system.

While teachers in the Innovative Housing Program are not tied to a master’s program, they are expected to engage with one another and participate in community-building activities. The Fulcrum Foundation provided $30,000 in funding to support upgrades to the facility and community programming run by the Office for Catholic Schools.

“I am excited to have St. Alphonsus be at the forefront of this initiative, especially moving into Partners in the Gospel. This project will allow us to better utilize our buildings, provide a service to not only the St. Alphonsus community, but the Archdiocese of Seattle as a whole, and allow us all to build connections with our neighboring parishes and schools,” said Lizzy. “I’d love to see a full house with teachers not only from St. Alphonsus, but also our neighboring K-8 schools and high schools. It will be an incredible way for these teachers to grow into their careers and build relationships with others who may soon be in their parish families.”

“During my first teaching gig, I lived in an old convent with 7 other teachers through Notre Dame’s ACE program,” Nick said. “That experience is what’s kept me in the field and wanting to serve. To have that sort of intentional community in our backyard is tremendous because of the ripple effect. The zeal of the residents will spill over into ministry and engagement in our church and school. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit at work.”

Parents’ Club Finance Update

We are incredibly thankful for the St. Alphonsus community who helped raise a total of $165K on behalf of Parent’s Club fundraising events in the last 2023-24 fiscal school year. Because of your generous giving, the Parent’s Club was able to meet a 100K commitment to the school that was set out at the beginning of the school year. We would not have been able to meet this goal had it not been for our 2 biggest fundraisers, the Auction and Jogathon, where both brought in 61K and 33K, respectively. But we also cannot forget the significance of the smaller fundraisers, such as Bingo, Trunk-or-Treat, MOD Pizza nights, and Brown Bear car wash tickets, to name a few. These important fundraisers helped us cross the 100K finish line all while keeping with the St. Al spirit of community. In addition, 56.8K was also raised for the Fund-a-Dream project for new security doors and medical AED devices, vital for the safety and well-being of our St. Al staff and children. Lastly, the community showed how much they cared about our teachers by raising 2.3K during teacher appreciation week, where every penny went back to them in the form of catered meals and gift cards through our Scrip program. In sum, $161.5K out of the $165K raised went back to the school, with 3.5K remaining for Parent’s Club startup costs for FY 2024-25.
We are confident that we can aim higher in this new school year with a 5% increase in our school commitment from 100K to 105K, as we continue to seek the kind and generous monetary and volunteer support of our amazing community. We cannot thank the community enough for helping to benefit our students and the school, both in the past year and in the days to come!
For any questions please direct them to [email protected].
– PCB Treasurer, Susan Young
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Garden Patch Update

Well, the garden is nearly totally tamed, the Shed has the last coats of paint on it, and the Patch is full of glorious blooms! Sunflowers with their faces soaking in the sun, coneflowers (Echinacea) in array of stunning gem tones, and happy geraniums are just some of the beauties blooming in now! Even the lavenders are blooming for their 2nd & 3rd times this season!  The bees are happy, Hummingbirds are zipping through and stopping for a nectar snack, and even a cat or two has been spotted lounging!  Our pumpkins are flowering as well, which, if the warm days continue a little longer, we may have a mini pumpkin patch this year! Thank you to my two Angels who helped plant 16 pumpkin starts!  You know who you are, young ladies!
Last weekend during the School Clean-up (which was amazing) we had a few diehard gardeners help in the rain including a “Little Angel” in her happy raincoat! Weeding was done in our Patch and the Residents Patch was tackled – weeded, a few weed barrier runners went down and even two arbors built and put up!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!  The lavenders (12) sitting in the School Patch for the Resident Patch, will go in in the coming weeks to get their roots happy and established over the winter months as the “bones” in that garden.  There is LOTS of room in both Patches for more plants!  If you find you have too many Winter veggie starts, you’re dividing clumps of your daylilies and need to “relocate them” or anything else you have growing that needs a new home, let us know!  They will find new happy homes in the Patches!
We do have a wish list – good compost, topsoil and cedar playground chips if you so choose!  We could use it!
Happy Gardening!!!!
Chris Cairns and the St. Al’s Dirt Club
Summer Care (1)

Summer Care for Ages 2.5-5

Summer Care is available for students ages 2.5-5. Maximum of 18 students. Priority given to registered St. Alphonsus students. A new kid-friendly theme featured each week. Click here for more information and to register.

Godspell Jr

Godspell Tickets on Sale!

The spring musical is Godspell Junior! The St. Al’s Middle School Drama Department team and our middle school students are working hard on what is sure to be an incredible show.

Buy your ticket HERE and/or make a donation.

There will be three performances, on May 19 (7pm), May 20 (7pm) and May 21 (2pm), so buy your tickets and mark your calendars now.  Ticket sales and donations to the drama program can be made via the link below. Donations are encouraged and help support the drama program and future shows.

Please contact Box Office Coordinator Stephanie Lucash at [email protected] if you have any questions.  See you at the show!