School For Little Folks

St. James School for Little Folks (SJSFLF) provides a quality educational program for preschoolers in the Hendersonville area.  It maintains a Five-Star Rating with the State of NC and recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.  Click here to go to the St. James School for Little Folks website.

Link Your Ingles Card to SJSFLF
St. James School for Little Folks participates in the Ingles' Tools for Schools program. This means when you make purchases using The Ingles Advantage™ Card, Ingles will give back to the school a portion of those sales. The portion can be used by the school to purchase computers and school supplies. To make this happen, you have to link your card to SJSFLF. You can do this online or download a form ( 133KB) to have the school do it for you. Either way...we appreciate your support!

SPARK Activate Faith starts This Fall
Under the guidance and direction of Mother Eunice, the School for Little Folks begins a new faith journey. We will be using the Spark Activate Faith classroom curriculum for both children’s chapel on Mondays and follow-up instruction during the week. You may ask, what is Spark?

It is a new faith formation program designed especially for children ages two to five years old. The Bible serves as the key learning resource within the curriculum and is the cornerstone of each lesson. Kids will open their Bibles and engage with God’s Word in each and every lesson. The Spark Story Bible is easy to read aloud, has vibrant artwork and contains 150 Bible stories – it is an excellent foundation for beginning a Biblical education with preschool children.

Can You Help a Child?
Do you want to experience the fun of small children, without the pain?  Would you like to read stories, help children learn specific things like tying their shoes and writing their names, garden with children, and/or help them with craft projects?  These and many more opportunities are available at our own St. James School for Little Folks.  The School Board is developing a volunteer program for parish members who enjoy being around small children.

Assignments involving work with an individual child require fingerprinting and a background check, as well as a TB test.  All volunteers, regardless of specific assignment, are required to attend the Diocesan training program, Safeguarding God’s Children (a four hour session which will be presented locally), and complete a health emergency contacts form. Please look for more information in the next Epistle.

From the Consultant’s Corner, September 2009
It has been 10 years since NC began implementation of the higher voluntary licensing standards also known as the star rated license system. Vicki Warren, our childcare consultant, wanted to share some statistics that show where we currently are as a State.

NC ranks 31st out of 52 states (DoD and DC included) in the rigor of our one star center standards. The top 10 states for highest minimum standards are DoD, RI, DC, NJ, VT, IL, WI, DE, MD and MA. NC, ranks 4th in childcare center oversight, just slightly behind DoD, Oklahoma, and Florida.

Currently, 27% of NC childcare centers are at the one and two star level. So while the one star standards rank NC at 31st in the nation, only 27% of the centers in our state are operating at the lowest (one star) and slightly above (two star) standards. 73% of our centers are at the three to five star levels. Wow! This is an amazing accomplishment.
And, for the record, we wanted to remind you that St. James School for Little Folks is one of those five star centers, devoted to stricter standards and rigorous oversight. Our facility truly is a place for little hands to grow!