Even a pandemic can’t stop these students from learning.
As the 2020-2021 school year comes to a close, St. Patrick Catholic School looks forward to its summer learning program, where grade school students attending St. Patrick can receive tutoring from high schoolers attending Bellarmine Preparatory School.
The program, made possible by a School Partnership Grant (SPG) from the Fulcrum Foundation, highlights the incredible community building of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle.
“COVID restrictions challenged the continuation of our program, but with Fulcrum’s flexibility, we are using the SPG to help fund our 2021 summer school sessions,” said Principal Chris Gavin of St. Patrick School. “Bellarmine students will join us for our two weeks of summer school sessions where they will lead small group tutorials under the direction of our lead teachers.”
“We are excited that with Bellarmine servant leaders, our summer sessions will be highly successful in helping students bridge their learning from a COVID interrupted year to a new beginning in the fall,” Chris said.
Twenty-three National Honor Society students from Bellarmine Prep will support students at St. Patrick this summer. “In addition to bridging retrieval with enrichment, our students will strengthen their relationships with one another and the bridge between our schools,” said Principal Cindy Davis of Bellarmine Prep.
Claire McAllister, a graduating Bellarmine Prep senior, said, “During my time at St. Pat’s, the older students had such an impact on me and those memories are still with me to this day. I wanted to have a positive impact on the younger students who are where I once was.”
Mary Vertetis, a Bellarmine Prep junior, shared, “I am looking forward to helping kids understand material and feel more confident in school, creating an environment of inclusiveness and curiosity. I love working with elementary schoolers because of their natural inclination to curiosity. I want to be an aid to their development of deeper understanding and help them find their future academic passions.”