Faith, Family, Friendship, and fun at St. Margaret Regional School
Established as a school of Catholic faith in 1994, St. Margaret Regional School is a faith-filled community. For 23 years, our children have learned about our faith in the classroom and at Mass, and live the faith by bringing Christ to others through acts of service. Faculty and parent volunteers lead our school community in performing acts of mercy to those in need around us. Even our youngest children understand that it is our duty to address issues of social justice. The people of SMRS find ways to ease the pain of hunger, homelessness, and loneliness in the local community around our school. Through our Mercy Club, our middle school students cook and bring meals to the homeless, actively collect food for the local food pantry, fundraise for the unborn and their mothers, collect pajamas for children in local shelters, and provide gifts for underprivileged children through their “Giving Tree.” This year, the Mercy Club will extend into our elementary grades, because our younger students asked what they might do!
Next to our faith, we cherish and respect the family at St. Margaret Regional. Our school family is made up of many blended families, single parent families, those led by grand-parents, and families of differing faiths. Our school community embraces and supports families facing challenges. Like St. Margaret of Scotland, herself, we are dedicated to helping the families we serve.
Our families, too, love and help SMRS in special ways. Many of the school’s recent renovations such as new bathrooms, tile throughout, painting and upgrading the modular classrooms, ramps and stairs, as well as landscaping have been made possible by the generous families who love our school.
Throughout its years, SMRS has been a very special place in which families grow in friendship; many students form strong bonds that have lasted well into their adult years. “Our students truly care about the friends they’ve made in their years with us,” Principal Joyce Allison-Saucier says. “They sponsor friends’ younger brothers and sisters in Confirmation, and witness for one another when they marry. They serve one another in serious ways, years after they have graduated our school; that means they’ve experienced something profoundly important here.”
Alumni keep in touch with the school after graduation; many distinguish themselves in their high schools, colleges, and careers, and they take the time to tell their teachers at SMRS how what they learned in our school benefited them later in their lives. “The highest compliment our alumni can give us is to continue our relationship by bringing their own children to our school; we are seeing more former students doing this, and it is a testament to the good work we do together here,” says Principal Saucier.
SMRS is a diocesan leader in STEM; as a Project Lead the Way School, we work with Worcester Polytechnic Institute to promote the importance of hands on learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Our middle school has 100 percent participation in the yearly science fair; several students participate and place at the regional and state levels. And our STEM curriculum is evidenced in all classrooms, from Pre-K to grade 8.
This year, we are very pleased to present a full music program through parents, Laureen and Richard Fish; Mr. Fish is the Director of Performing Arts at St. John Paul II, and he will be bringing his quality program to SMRS. We look forward to a fall production of The Wizard of Oz under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Fish. This is in addition to our instrumental music program; the halls are alive with the sound of music at St. Margaret Regional School!
Our students have fun; whether students, parents, and teachers are working on, our weather balloon launch, science fairs, action field research trips, sports, cheerleading, Mercy Club, robotics, solar race cars, Breakfast with Santa, Book Fairs and ice cream socials, dances, the Hallowe’en Haunted House, Spaghetti dinner, spring field day, or one of our many other events, we have fun together.
This year, St. Margaret Regional School is focusing ahead toward its future; it is an important and exciting time! Changes are taking place on our website, in uniform, and logo; as we update and move forward, however, we will build a new and improved SMRS on the foundations of faith, family, friendship and fun! If you’d like to find out more, please call us at 508-759-2213 or plan to attend our next Open House, on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.