Respecting the Faith, Embracing the Future
St. Ephrem School is celebrating Catholic Schools Week for the final time before transitioning to an academy in September of 2018. It is with great excitement that St. Ephrem embodies this year’s Catholic Schools Week theme “Learn, Serve, Lead, Succeed” within everything they do. The administration, staff and students will proudly highlight St. Ephrem School’s ties to the parish and the Dyker Heights community at an Open House on Sunday, Jan. 28 at 11 a.m. for all interested new families.
Visitors will have an opportunity to meet and speak with Principal Craig Mercado, faculty, staff, students and parents as well as tour the well-maintained school facilities.
St. Ephrem School information folders will be given to prospective families to complete applications and register for St. Ephrem Catholic Academy. On the tour visitors can see how a developmentally appropriate curriculum is implemented in the early childhood program (nursery, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten). Students in first through third grades are self-contained, grades four and five are partially departmental and grades six through eight are fully departmentalized.
The school features a newly remodeled science lab with all necessary materials and brand new laptop computers. Students consistently perform well on state and diocesan standardized tests and consistently receive Catholic high school scholarships.
St. Ephrem not only respects Catholic traditions through religious practice but also in the curriculum. Students are introduced to Latin and Greek roots in kindergarten, and continue developing their understanding of the English language on a deeper level through graduation.
The school has also embraced the future of education by providing a 1:1 computing classroom in grades three through eith. Students in the third through fifth grades each have their own iPad in class for instructional use throughout the day. Junior high students learn in 1:1 Chromebook classrooms.
Also open to visitors are the extracurricular activities that develop all parts of a student’s life. St. Ephrem features: a full gymnasium with a CYO sports program; a band program where students can learn to play an instrument and read music from professional musicians; a theater program giving students the opportunity to be a part of a Broadway-style production, and an Aquinas Circle Enrichment Program where students can extend and enhance their understanding of English language arts, social studies and science courses while developing research and writing skills. The Aquinas Enrichment program is run in partnership with Bishop Kearney H.S. and utilizes the high school’s state-of-the-art Fabrication lab and STEM facilities.
St. Ephrem is committed to teaching all students. Those that struggle are given small-group instruction, while those who are ready for a challenge are invited to enroll in the accelerated seventh-grade math program. A unified writing program is led in grades one through five by a trained writing specialist and expanded in the junior high years by teachers trained in the Hockman writing program. This gives students a consistency that enables them to develop their skills across the years at a deeper and more meaningful level.
