4/11/25 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott
Photo Caption: 8th Grade in Washington, D.C.
Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,
Re-Enrollment has begun for the 2025-2026 school year. It is good journalistic practice never to bury the lead, so I start with tuition for next school year. The amount will be 7,700 per student in addition to a $100 re-enrollment fee per family.
Despite well-deserved teacher salary increases of 6%, the tuition increase represents a 4% increase from last year’s amount of $7,400.
Parents should have already received an email with re-enrollment information. The deadline is Friday, April 25.
We have some exciting changes for next year which we can announce for you:
-We are expanding our Intervention Services with an Intervention Director. Mr. Sheldon Hill has extensive experience in this field, most recently in Pickerington City Schools. He will be joined by Mrs. Mary Flynn who has been doing a great job this year but will be transitioning to part-time next school year. Mrs. Ashley Hamman, a 2005 Bishop Watterson graduate will be here next year as a reading specialist. Ashley is coming over to us from St. Matthew. Mrs. Kristin Miller, who has been doing a lot of tutoring in her morning capacity as an aide for second grade, will be a full-time tutor next year.
Thanks to a grant from the St. Joseph of Cupertino Foundation in memory of Therese Gelonese and donations from King Furniture we are building permanent space downstairs for these services in a room that will become the St. Joseph Cupertino Room for Academic Excellence.
Miss Gelonese was a long-time teacher at Our Lady of Peace and one of the first teachers in the Diocese of Columbus to be certified in helping students with learning disabilities. We are thrilled to have this room reserved exclusively for intervention and tutoring.
Joining the faculty next year as a health and physical education teacher will be Mr. Mathias Kaylor, who will be graduating from Ohio State next month. He is the brother of Mike Kaylor but don’t hold that against him. Many students in our summer camp will surely remember him.
Mrs. McMahon will be giving up regular teaching duties and will be here part-time exclusively for technology and going into the classrooms to teach technology as well as continuing to teach a documentary film class and independent computer studies.
Mr. Mark Roberts will be teaching science to the middle school next year. Sister Mary Meritta, who has been working as a math aid this year while her teaching license from Indiana got transferred to Ohio, will be teaching the regular sections of middle school math as well as 7th grade religion. Mrs. Kate Weber, who has been teaching 4th grade religion, will also be our 6th grade religion teacher, and Mrs. De Leonardis will teach 8th grade religion.
Mrs. Magee will continue to teach 5th grade but will be handling the math for both grades four and five, while Mrs. Martin will be teaching ELA to both grades.
We continue to keep class sizes below Diocesan school averages. We have two kindergartens of no more than 13 students each, smaller classes than the Diocesan average in grades 1-5, and aides in each classroom in order to maximize attention for each student.
While our middle school classes are bigger (no more than 32) in a class they are still smaller than many schools. Science, social studies, math and ELA will be broken into two sections next year.
We have a great school. We have a great faculty and staff, wonderful students and supportive parents. We strive to improve every year to be even better. We thank all the parents who entrust your students to us. Most importantly, everything we do we strive to do for Christ and through Him.
Jim Silcott
