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Kids share what they like about their Catholic school
By Nissa LaPoint
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Photo by James Baca/DCR |
For the students at Our Lady of Fatima, the future looks bright.
Eighth-graders at the Lakewood school wrote essays expressing their gratitude for the many ways they’ve been prepared for high school and life afterward.
“I have been coming to Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School since pre-kindergarten,” wrote 13-year-old Sarah Maronick. “And I wouldn’t have spent any of my years here anywhere else.”
Maronick and five other eighth-grade students were selected to read their essays at last weekend’s Masses as part of a series of celebrations during Catholic Schools Week, which ends Feb. 3.
“All the teachers here strive to help me be as good as I can be,” Maronick said.
Several students first mentioned rigorous academics and caring teachers behind the school’s success.
“At Fatima, the students and teachers are so close,” wrote eighth-grader Cambria Gorman in her essay. “You really get a chance to have one-on-one teaching.
Whenever you have a question, you can always feel comfortable to ask the teachers.”
The teachers model and instruct students on the importance of accepting and being welcoming to others just as Jesus did, said Maronick.
Student Yuji Hwang said he experienced the welcoming environment first-hand when he was transferred in the sixth grade from Korea.
“I was nervous and I thought it would be tough, but everyone has been so nice to me, and I could get all the help I needed,” Hwang wrong in his essay. “Usually when I changed schools, people didn’t talk to me or acted awkward, but people here were friendly and I made many friends.”
In every essay, the students discussed what sets Our Lady of Fatima apart from public schools: a religious education.
Dilia Taylor, the religion teacher for middle school students, said she strives to make their faith come alive by organizing activities like the living rosary and reenacting Biblical events like the Last Supper.
“The kids just love it,” Taylor said. “We learn to share our faith in a very meaningful way.”
The students attend Mass every Friday morning, go on a confirmation retreat and are taught the New Testament, Church history and morality.
“In these classes our teachers don’t just tell us about Bible history; they give us thought-provoking questions to discuss in order to know ourselves and our Savior better,” Maronick wrote.
It’s most important that students know that leading a moral life is happiness, Taylor said.
For eighth-grader Andrew Miller, Our Lady of Fatima gave him great experiences he will always remember, he wrote.
From science fairs, school parades, the speech team and field day, he will miss the school.
“My time at Fatima has been fantastic and I am sad to be graduating this year,” Miller wrote. “Every student that graduates from Fatima, classes who have already graduated, and classes that will graduate in the future, all know that past and present we are one Fatima family.”
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