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St. Henry School Newsletter

 

November 17, 2006

 

             “I set the Lord ever before me;

             with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.”        Psalm 16:8            

 

Since next week is so short – only two days (not counting the conferences Monday night), we won’t send home an official newsletter next week.  But it’s possible there will be things to send home in the weekly envelopes, so please check them anyway.  If you haven’t called the Kellers yet about your children being part of next Saturday’s St. Henry Christmas Parade float, please do so right away. That number again is 262-593-8368.  And since I am on a reminding bent . . . if you had Ms. Lyons as a teacher, it would be nice if you could honor her family’s request that you send her a birthday card for her 60th birthday on November 21.  You can either mail them directly to her or send them to school and we’ll see that she gets them.  Thanks.

 

Father Bernie and Mr. Ruehlow (Mike) were hoping that we would have heat by this weekend.  Mike then amended that prediction to by next Tuesday.  I hope I’m not going out on the limb then by saying that we should be toasty warm when everyone comes back from Thanksgiving break.  But just in case, you still might want to think layers for Monday, the 27th.  It’ll be nice to have to take some of them off.

 

Speaking of that Monday, the 27th.  It’s a Student Council theme day.  Because of the Monday night Packer game, the youngsters on the Council thought it would be a good day for their “Sports Theme Clothing Day.”  I added a little in the calendar about what “counts.”  You do understand that we would be horrified if any of you ever felt obligated to go out and buy something so your child could come dressed for a theme.  These days are completely voluntary.  The youngsters seem to like them, and the ideas come out of their Council meetings. They are generally easy for us to say “yes” to since they don’t interfere with learning and they just add a little fun to the school day.  But let us know if they prove not so fun for you!  If we would hear that from a number of you, we would certainly consider curtailing and/or revising them.  We haven’t heard negatives so far so we are presuming no news is good news.

 

We would like to encourage you to occasionally check the sainthenryparish.org website.  In the school section, besides back copies of this newsletter and other information, you can click onto pictures of the students involved in some of our Student Council days’ activities and the like. Take a peek!  

 

I am sending along two articles with this newsletter for your perusal.  One is entitled Latest Drug in Middle School – ‘Dusting.’”  I had first considered just sending it to families with children in grade four or beyond but then thought it might be information you would want to share with family members or friends with children in that age group.  I often don’t have time to download attachments from well meaning folks who send them – and I am very concerned about downloading something with viruses – but for some reason I did these two articles and thought both of them valuable.  The second may strike you as odd coming from me but the advice on what to do in an earthquake is so contrary to what most of us have ever been taught that I decided to share it.  Although Wisconsin is not earthquake prone, some of you vacation in areas that are or have relatives living in them.  The points made in the article seemed reasonable and life-saving to me.  Thought I should share. May that be some information you’ll never need to use!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We are so blessed in so many ways, aren’t we?

 

BAND NEWS

 

Christmas is coming!

 

Let it snow!  Let it snow!  Let it snow!  The snowfall last week put us in the Christmas mood!  And just in time as we are starting to work on music for our Christmas Spectacular.  Preschool through grade eight will be performing in the holiday production scheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2006 at 6:30 pm in the Parish Center.  Mark your calendar now!

 

Grades six through eight are finishing up a mini unit this week about Latin music and instruments.  They composed their own rhythms, combined them with classmates’, and had the opportunity to form ensembles while playing instruments commonly found in Latin music.  We will continue this study after the holidays.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Mrs. Oestreicher

 

 

STUDENTS STUDY NATIVE AMERICANS

 

Isn’t this a wonderful time of the year?  Our blessings are truly endless.  It is my prayer that all of you enjoy the gifts and talents that God has so richly bestowed on each of us.

 

As a culminating activity to our study of Native Americans in social studies, we have constructed an Iroquois and a Hopi Native American village.   The third graders have been quite creative.  The teamwork involved has been great and they have really had fun.  You can see pictures of our creations in process on the St. Henry website – sainthenryparish.org.  In addition to the villages, each third grader is creating their own Native American booklet.  Look for the booklet to come home soon.

 

This week marks the beginning of second quarter.  Our Accelerated Reader points will be different than first quarter.  The points will carry over.  I will explain the program in detail during conferences.

 

Have a blessed Thanksgiving holiday.

Mrs. Zache

 

Dates to Put on Your Calendar

 

NOVEMBER

Sat-Sun               18-19      Parish Holly Berry Fair

Monday                20           Parent-teacher conferences in late afternoon and evening

Tuesday 21           11:30 dismissal   Thanksgiving break begins

Saturday 25           St. Henry HASA has entry in Christmas parade which begins at 5:30 pm

Monday                27           Student Council Sports Day –any clothing (within dress code guidelines) that represents any

sports team whether it be the Packers or other pros, St. Henry Hawks, Park and Rec, etc. acceptable.  Does need to have a logo on it; colors alone not enough.

Wednesday           29           Grade 2 fills liturgical roles at 8:15 am Mass

 

DECEMBER

Friday                    01           Student Council “Bring a Stuffed Animal to School” Day

Sunday                  03           Parish “Town Hall” type meeting between the two Sunday Masses

Tuesday 05           Grade Seven going to Madison for “The Christmas Carol”

                                                St. Bernard/St. Henry Sub-committee meeting, computer lab, 5:00 pm

Wednesday           06           Play Group, PC, 9:30 – 11:00 am

                                                HASA sponsors a St. Nicholas visit

                                                Athletic Association mtg., 6:00 pm, computer lab

Friday                    08           Grade 7 fills liturgical roles at 8:15 am Mass – Holy Day of Obligation

Kraemer Cheese Drive Pick-up Day

Market Day

Saturday 09           Children’s Cantor Choir sings at 4:30 pm Mass

Tuesday 12           Grade 5 fills liturgical roles at 8:15 am Mass – Our Lady of Guadalupe

                                                Education Commission mtg., 6:30 pm, rectory hall

Wednesday           13           Grades 1-8 leaving for Bethlehem Marketplace at 8:00 am

Thursday               14           School Christmas Program, 6:30 pm, Parish Center

Friday                    15           Home and School Christmas Store Day

Saturday 16           First Reconciliation for Grade 2 at 7 pm

Friday                    22           11:30 dismissal    Christmas break begins

 

JANUARY

Wednesday           03           School resumes

Memory verse for November 27–December 1                                                Eucharistic Memorial Acclamation

“Dying you destroyed our death; rising you restored our life.  Lord Jesus, come in glory!”

 

 

Latest Drug in Middle School - 'Dusting'

     First, I'm going to tell you a little about my family and me. My name is Jeff. I am a Police Officer for a city, which is known nationwide for it's crime rate. We have a lot of gangs and drugs. At one point we were #2 in the nation in homicides per capita. I also have a police K-9 named Thor. He was certified in drugs and general duty. He retired at 3 years old because he was shot in the line of duty. He lives with us now and I still train with him because he likes it. I always liked the fact that there was no way to bring drugs into my house. Thor wouldn't allow it. He would tell on you. The reason I say this is so you understand that I know about drugs.


     I have taught in schools about drugs. My wife asks all our kids at least once a week if they used any drugs. Makes them promise they won't. I like building computers occasionally and started building a new one in February 2005. I also was working on some of my older computers. They were full of dust so on one of my trips to the computer store I bought a 3 pack of DUST OFF. Dust Off is a can of compressed air to blow dust off a computer. A few weeks later when I went to use one of them they were all used. I talked to my kids and my two sons both said they had used them on their computer and messing around with them. I yelled at them for wasting the 10 dollars I paid for them.


     On February 28 I went back to the computer store. They didn't have the 3 packs, which I had bought on sale so I bought a single jumbo can of Dust Off. I went home and set it down beside my computer.


     On March 1st, I left for work at 10 PM. just before midnight my wife went down and kissed Kyle goodnight. At 5:30 am the next morning Kathy went downstairs to wake Kyle up for school, before she left for work. He was propped up in bed with his legs crossed and his head leaning over. She called to him a few times to get up. He didn't move. He would sometimes tease her like this and pretend he fell back asleep. He was never easy to get up. She went in and shook his arm. He fell over. He was pale white and had the straw from the Dust Off can coming out of his mouth. He had the new can of Dust Off in his hand. Kyle was dead.


     I am a police officer and I had never heard of this. My wife is a nurse and she had never heard of this. We later found out from the coroner, after the autopsy, that only the propellant from the can of Dust off was in his system. No other drugs. Kyle had died between midnight and 1 AM.


     I found out that using Dust Off is being done mostly by kids ages 9 through 15. They even have a name for it. It's called dusting--a take-off from the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10 seconds. It makes them dizzy. A boy who lives down the street from us showed Kyle how to do this about a month before he died. Kyle had showed it to his best friend and told him it was cool and couldn't hurt you because it’s just compressed air. It can't hurt you. His best friend said no.

 

      Kyle was wrong. It's not just compressed air. It also contains a propellant called R2. It's a refrigerant like what is used in your refrigerator. It is a heavy gas, heavier than air. When you inhale it, it fills your lungs and keeps the good air, with oxygen, out.  That's why you feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen to your brain and to your heart.  Kyle was right. It can't hurt you. IT KILLS YOU.


    
The horrible part about this is there is no warning. There is no level that kills you. It's not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly, terribly wrong. Roll the dice and if your number comes up you die. ITS NOT AN OVERDOSE. It's Russian Roulette. You don't die later. Or not feel good and say I've had too much. You usually die as you're breathing it in. If not you die within 2 seconds of finishing "the hit." That's why the straw was still in Kyle's mouth when he died. Why his eyes were still open. The experts want to call this huffing. The kids don't believe it’s huffing. As adults we tend to lump many things together. But it doesn't fit here. And that's why it’s more accepted. There is no chemical reaction, no strong odor. It doesn't follow the huffing signals. Kyle complained a few days before he died of his tongue hurting.  It probably did. The propellant causes frostbite. If I had only known…


    
It's easy to say hey, it's my life and I'll do what I want. But it isn't. Others are always affected. This has forever changed our family's life. I have a hole in my heart and soul that can never be fixed. The pain is so immense I can't describe it. There's nowhere to run from it. I cry all the time and I don't ever cry. I do what I'm supposed to do, but I don't really care. My kids are messed up. One won't talk about it. The other will only sleep in our room at night. And my wife, I can 't even describe how bad she is taking this. I thought we were safe because of Thor. I thought we were safe because we knew about drugs and talked to our kids about them.


     After Kyle died, another story came out. A probation Officer went to the school system next to ours to speak with a student. While there, he found a student using Dust Off in the bathroom. This student told him about another student who also had some in his locker. This is a rather affluent school system. They will tell you they don't have a drug problem there. They don't even have a dare or plus program there. So rather than tell everyone about this "new" way of getting high, they hid it. The probation officer told the media after Kyle's death and they, the school, then admitted to it. I know that if they had told the media and I had heard, it wouldn't have been in my house.


     We need to get this out of our homes and school computer labs. Using Dust Off isn't new that ”professionals" know about. It just isn't talked about much except by the kids. They all seem to know about it. April 2nd was one month since Kyle died. April 5th would have been his 15th birthday. And every weekday, I catch myself sitting on the living room couch at 2:30 in the afternoon waiting to see him get off the bus. I know Kyle is in heaven, but I can’t help but wonder if I died and went to Hell.

Go to www.snopes.com and type in dusting, in the search box and read more about it.      http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/dustoff.asp 

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

 

This is very interesting - different from what we have been told, but it makes sense! Please take the time to read this.

 

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE "TRIANGLE OF LIFE"

 

 My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.

 

I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

 

In 1996 we made a film which proved my survival methodology to be correct.

 

The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul , University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did "duck and cover," and ten mannequins I used in my "triangle of life" survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the "triangle of life." This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA , Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.

 

The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under their desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something.

 

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the "triangle of life". The larger the object, the stronger, and the less it will compact.  The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings on television, count the "triangles" you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building. They are everywhere.

 

TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

 

1) Most everyone who simply "ducks and covers" when buildings collapse are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

 

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

 

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

  

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

 

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

   

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

  

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different "moment of frequency" (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads - horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

 

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

 

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

 

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact.  Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

 

Spread the word to everyone YOU care about and save someone's life!