Week honors Catholic schools

Students, faculty and staff at three local campuses celebrate with events involving grandparents, others.For about a half an hour on Tuesday afternoon, every student at St. Joachim School suddenly had a new teacher. It was a jarring switch -- but probably more for the faculty than the children.

This week, private schools across the nation are celebrating Catholic Schools Week, a nationwide event that honors teachers, administrators, students, parents and other extended members of the learning community. Tuesday was Teacher Appreciation Day at St. Joachim, and the administration rewarded instructors for their hard work by giving them a twist on routine.

So starting at 2 p.m., teachers moved to classes on opposite ends of the spectrum, from higher grades to lower. As first-grade teacher Valerie Douglass found when she took over Jeff Hopkins’ sixth-grade English class, the adjustment took a moment.

“Forgive my printing,” she told the sixth-graders after writing a word on the board. “All I do in first grade is print.”

Meanwhile, across campus, Hopkins was busy with students a head smaller than his usual ones. The lesson for the day was on weather, and Hopkins adjusted to first-grade reading skills by reading textbook sentences such as “The weather is what the air outside is like.”

St. Joachim was one of three schools in Newport-Mesa participating in Catholic Schools Week, which is currently in its 32nd year. St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa and Our Lady Queen of Angels School in Newport Beach are the other Newport-Mesa sites celebrating this week.

St. John opened the week on Sunday by having students and teachers attend every Mass at the parish, with Father Norbert Wood delivering the sermons. The school planned to host 250 grandparents for lunch today.

Between the festivities, the school aims for business as usual, the principal, Sister Mary Vianney, said.

“We have to keep teaching in between times, so we don’t want to put too much on,” she said.

Our Lady Queen of Angels started the school week on Monday with a performance by the a cappella vocal group Vybrations and a faculty-student volleyball game. For Administration Appreciation Day on Tuesday, teachers sent cards to the principal and assistant principal signed by hundreds of students.20060201itzj8tncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Sixth-graders Rachel Camp, left, and Briana Alvarez talk with firstgrade teacher Valeria Douglass at St. Joachim on Tuesday.