Paul Szmal: We're joined on Zoom by the principal of St. Francis de Sales St. Stephen's School in Geneva. The website is stfrancissaintstephen.org. That's S-T. So it's S-T Francis, S-T Stephen, and Stephen is with a P-H. So S-T Francis, S-T Stephen with a P-H.org. Suzanne Lawrence, good morning and welcome back.
Suzanne Pohorence: Good morning. Thank you for having me. We're happy to have you here.
Paul Szmal: Starting tomorrow, you're signing up kids for the 2025-26 school year. So remind us first off the age group that you cover at St. Francis St. Stephen, and then just give us some of the benefits of the education that you can provide for your students.
Suzanne Pohorence: Yes, so we enroll three-year-old preschoolers to grade six students, and we offer lots of different things. We have art and music for our youngest students who are in three-year-old to grade six. We focus on service learning, so students are in the community. Our biggest favorite thing to do with our sixth graders is the community lunch program. We always provide a faith-based education, so morals and values are a core of our teachings here. We give our students enrichment and leadership skill opportunities through all the different activities and extracurriculars that we provide. Our class sizes are really small, so students get that wonderful one-on-one attention and have support of wonderful teachers who are very much focused on helping all of our students grow. So they take the students where they are and they grow them. And of course, with our teachers, they're just phenomenal. They really take time to plan lessons that are engaging from small group to whole group, one-on-one support, and then a lot of them go above and beyond and do things after school with the students.
Paul Szmal: Do you get some students that are not necessarily from Catholic families, but whose families like the idea of, like you said, the smaller class sizes, the real hands-on experiences, and the faith-based and discipline-based education?
Suzanne Pohorence: Yes, yes. About 10 to 15 percent of our student population is non-Catholics. It does not mean that they're maybe not practicing Christians, or maybe their families were Catholic or Christian family, and they maybe have just like been away from the churches for a while, and they are looking to maybe come back. And as you said, they want a place where their child has some values that are instilled in them and support their own family values.
Paul Szmal: And by the way, if you go to the website, and again it's stfrancisststephen.org, you'll see all the information on registering. There's a code that you can click there with your phone. And also, you can work with families. You have some financial aid that's available for students who need it.
Suzanne Pohorence: Yes, absolutely. We generally never turn down anybody who is in need of aid. We just need some documentation, tax forms uploaded. And we've been so blessed by our community that we've actually opened up additional tuition awards and grants and scholarships, sorry, for our families. And we also provide wraparound care. So early morning care at 7 a.m. and after school care that goes until 5 30. So we're definitely there for the families and make it work for their schedule and their financial need.
Paul Szmal: I should point out, and I'll be punished if I don't, that you have won the FLX Finest Award for gold for preschool in actually in three different categories. Best preschool, best elementary, and best private school. Congratulations on that.
Suzanne Pohorence: Thank you. Thank you. We were so, we were very, very enthusiastic about it. We've been highlighting it and it's been a very wonderful honor.
Paul Szmal: Now you have a fundraiser coming up called Pot of Gold in the near future. Tell us about that.
Suzanne Pohorence: Yes. So we are bringing back a kind of a gala type fundraiser. It's our biggest fundraiser for the school year. And we hope that the community will support us in it and attend. Tickets are actually going on sale next week on the 14th. They're a hundred dollars for a couple or 60 for a single. And we have a casino event and you're not actually winning money at the end. You're going to cash in your, your winnings for tickets for a gift certificate raffle. We have a silent auction. We're hoping to have music there. In the course, we will have appetizers and light refreshments. There's a cash bar and it'll be lots of fun, lots of socialization and getting our community and supporters together.
Paul Szmal: And one of the things that you do at St. Francis St. Stephen is you have school uniforms, which it's been shown that that it makes everybody kind of all the same. There's no, you know, nobody has to feel bad because they don't have the latest $200 sneakers.
Suzanne Pohorence: Correct. Correct. That's always been a thing between cursive handwriting and uniforms. They're kind of a staple in Catholic schools and time has always shown that they've made improvement, you know, make the learning experience, you know, a wonderful kind of equalizer. So we do have uniforms for grades 1st through 6th.
Paul Szmal: And by the way, your website is a fantastic resource, both for the parents and families and for anyone considering St. Francis St. Stephen. Again, it's stfrancisststephen.org. You have a whole list of family resources, supply lists for every grade, and then videos you can watch if people are considering enrolling their kids at St. Francis St. Stephen. It's a very complete website.
Suzanne Pohorence: Thank you. We've worked really hard updating it and there's actually going to be a Preschool Pre-K video released next week. So if you want to learn specifically about our Preschool Pre-K program, we'll have a video on there highlighting it.
Paul Szmal: Now tell our listeners about the Festival of Trees that you did at Lynch Furniture over Christmas.
Suzanne Pohorence: Oh yes, so this is our third year. Bernie Lynch at Lynch Furniture has been a gracious host to our Festival of Trees. Each of our classrooms pair up with another classroom and they design the decorations for the tree. We bring them down, we put them in the front window as a little bit of an advertisement and to encourage people to stop in and say hi to Bernie.
Paul Szmal: Now when you start opening up, and again the enrollment period opens tomorrow, will you have an open house event or two coming up at some point?
Suzanne Pohorence: Yes we do. During Catholic Schools Week, which is January 25th to the 31st, on Thursday the 30th we'll have an open house mostly for our current families. But throughout the year I offer tours and shadow days for students and families so they can see and experience if we're a good fit for their family and for us.
Paul Szmal: Well if you're looking to enroll a child for the first time, or maybe your child isn't doing well where he or she is now and you think you need a change, consider St. Francis, St. Stephen, stfrancissststephen.org. Suzanne thanks, always great to talk with you and best of luck getting a great group of students coming in for 2025-26.
Suzanne Pohorence: Thank you very much, we appreciate it.
