Annual event shows off programs at St. Anthony School

WINSTED — St. Anthony School held its annual open house on Sunday, Jan. 25.School Principal Patricia Devanney described the open house as an opportunity to show the activities of students at the school.“It’s an opportunity for us to really shout out the good news of Catholic education and St. Anthony School,” Devanney said. “This is also to show potential families who may be interested in an alternative to public education that we are a strong and viable option for Catholic education. I think we have an extremely strong academic program. Our students have the best faith, morals and a strong education for high school and beyond.”Art projects by the students decorated the hallway walls, and parents were welcome to enter classrooms and speak with faculty members.Geography teacher Scott Norton had his classroom decorated with student-designed displays featuring famous people from history.“We will be doing a living history museum in a few days at school,” Norton said. “Each student picked an important figure from history, someone who has had an impact. They chose a wide variety of people, such as Walt Disney, Helen Keller and Princess Diana. They had to research important facts about that person, write a paper and then build a display board with a timeline showing important events from that person’s life. They will dress up like their person and stand beside their display.”Norton talked about another project his class worked on recently, which he called the “miracle worker project.”“We took sixth- and seventh-graders to see the play ‘Helen Keller’ and based the project around aspects of her life,” he said. “The object was for them to realize what Helen Keller had to do to overcome her disabilities. We wanted to show the kids that they can do good and teach other people. It was kind of neat to watch them do that.”Preschool teacher Liz Plasky said that she spoke to prospective or current families during the open house.“We had quite a few families come through,” Plasky said. “They love to come in and see the room. The toys are always a big draw. Being a Catholic school is the best. We get to teach to the whole child. We don’t just teach academic, we get to teach them spiritually. Sometimes that gets lost in the public school mix of standards and testing, but we get to build on that here.”