St. Rocco School looks ahead to 49th year

As the St. Rocco community prepares for their annual St. Rocco Church Feast and Festival, St. Rocco School is preparing to open for their 49th year, educating the hearts and minds of their students.

Principal Lorraine Moschella, who joined the school last October, is excited for her first St. Rocco School opening as well as for her first St. Rocco Feast. In fact, she's already gotten a sneak peek at some of the treats that will be available during the Feast.

"The Original Italian Bakery next door has been getting the prep done for the meatballs and the eggplant and they invited me to come over to help egg and bread the eggplant for the Feast," Moschella said.

The school plays a large part in the Feast and Festival, and has for six years now, according to both Principal Moschella and event co-chairman Richard Montella, who calls the part played by the school, essential to the feast.

"What began as students serving our patrons ice cream and soda, has emerged into college students cooking in the kitchen and grilling, high school students setting up tables and chairs, serving hot meals, and yes, keeping the grounds clean every evening,” he said. “The middle school students continue to learn by staffing the food booths, helping with the Parent Association, and assisting as we roll more than 2,500 meatballs and cook an enormous amount of eggplant.”

Additionally, the school is represented with a booth at the festival where they raise money for the school.

"Our parent association has a booth set up with aprons, cookbooks, items for sale, and there's also a bingo and raffle that they do," Moschella said. "The parents and students participate in that and the money raised goes back to the school."

In keeping with tradition, St. Rocco School will participate in the Sunday procession, a "century old tradition" that takes place on Sunday, Aug. 19.

"The students carry the school banner and represent St. Rocco School," said Moschella.

Montella believes that the Feast holds a special place in the hearts of many of the St. Rocco families, as some have now participated in it for generations.

"It truly is a family experience for many. We have some instances of three generations of families volunteering their time on behalf of the parish,” he said. “We are to the point now where we do not have to ask for volunteers from the school; I receive emails and phone calls in the weeks prior to the feast from students and their families asking if they could again volunteer for the feast. Not just for a couple of hours; much of our youth volunteer in excess of 30 hours of their time.”

Montella says the St. Rocco students embody the school’s motto, “Sharing the love of the heart of Christ.”

When she wasn't busy breading eggplant this summer, Moschella and her staff at the school have been eagerly getting ready for the students' arrival back to school in the fall, and they are looking forward to an exciting school opening.

"We have a lot of exciting highlights for the fall," she said. "We are now going to be offering Spanish to the first and second grades for the first time. Previously, Spanish was available in grades three through eight. We now have two technology labs, one on the second floor for the third through eighth graders and one in the Lower School for the younger students."

Moschella said that although every curriculum area is important, this upcoming year they are particularly looking at enhancing their math and science programs. Richard Macksoud will be working as a math teacher for grades one through four and will serve as technology teacher in grades one through eight.

"He will be able to work alongside our classroom teachers, team-teaching with them and focusing instruction for our students with both enrichment and reinforcement," Moschella said.

As excited as she is about the updates to the Lower School programs, Moschella is equally excited about the highlights at the Middle Level as well. There will be a separate math teacher, Barbara Tremaine, for the fifth grade. Tremaine also serves as math teacher for grades six through eight. Science teacher Kerri Crinns will likewise expand her course load to include the fifth grade.

Moschella noted that the curriculum areas would be linked, integrating the content areas of science, social studies, reading, language arts and math into the units of study.

"Literature will be infused among the core subjects," she said.

Community service is a large part of life at St. Rocco School, and summertime has proved to be no different. While faculty and staff are busy preparing the community service programs for the upcoming school year, students from St. Rocco School and beyond were doing community service at the school throughout the summer months.

Robin Okolwitcz, the school's director of non-academic affairs, was pleased to have help moving and unpacking school supplies from a group of students at the University of Rhode Island's multicultural community service outreach program, the "BOND" group (Brothers on New Direction). Helping the college students were four students from the St. Rocco School community, students who gave approximately eight hours of their vacation time to the school staff this summer.

Given the strong focus on community service at the school, Moschella isn't at all surprised that her students would be so giving of their time during the summer.

"St. Rocco always prides themselves on our community service outreach. We have monthly themes, guest speakers and a religious component is always worked into our curriculum. When students come out of St. Rocco School, they have learned to be lifelong givers," she said.

When students arrive back at school in September, they will discover updates to the physical plant. The custodial staff has been busy painting and waxing, and some classrooms have been updated with new furniture, flat-screen monitors and updated décor.

Specialty classrooms now include an art/Spanish room and a math/science room for grades one through three, with the science kits being housed in the math/science room and tables housed there as well, specifically for science instruction.

"We are also excited that we have a new Lower School Library this year," said Moschella. "We have a new third floor science lab and lecture room for the middle grades and the Lower School science lab mirrors the one for the middle level students. This will ease the transition for our students when they transition from the Lower School to Middle School. It won't be so foreign to them."

As the Feast approaches, with the new school year right behind it, Moschella and her staff await the excited faces of their students.

"It's been a natural progression," said Moschella, as she reflects on all of the exciting highlights and updates for the school year.

Okolowitcz agrees.

"It's very exciting. The students are going to be very excited."