My God son attends St. Jerome. I love the small class room sizes, the staff and their youth programs.

I would highly recommend St. Jerome's to any new families.

We fell into St. Jerome accidentally when I was very disappointed at the kindergarten open house of the school I assumed I would love and send our son to. After lots of tears and trying to figure out what we were going to do, I contacted St. Jerome to see if we had missed the deadline to come and tour the school and possibly sign our son up for kindergarten. Thankfully, we had not and we were welcomed with open arms to see if St. Jerome was a good fit for our son. That was seven years ago and we continue to be thankful and feel blessed every day to be able to have our son be not just a student, but a part of St. Jerome School; a school that embraces and celebrates, diversity-social, economic, racial, and developmental. A school that not only encourages inclusiveness of all students, but the students themselves don't think twice about including their peers, whether it be sitting at the lunch table together, working on assignments together, inviting everyone to their birthday parties, or playing together at recess. A school where there is zero tolerance for bullying, but more importantly, the students are taught to have a moral compass and know the "Golden Rule' but also adhere to it-"do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12) A school that pairs your kindergarten student with an 8th grade "prayer buddy" so that your child knows the security of having an older student helping to guide them, and watch out for him/her as they are trying to navigate his/her way through their first year of school. It was so comforting to know that our little guy (when he was little) always had an older student at school to make sure his day was going well. We still are in contact with our son's prayer buddy, even though our son is now in 6th grade and his prayer buddy is in college. The students at St. Jerome will hold the door for you when you come to school and if they know who your child is, they will address you by name (Hello Ms/Mr.________). The class sizes are small (our son's class actually has 16 children in it this year which is 6 children larger than the 10 children he had in kindergarten). The teachers know our child and are always willing to meet with us if we have questions or concerns. Our AMAZING lunch lady, Ms. Laura, knows every child's name, likes, dislikes, and most important food allergies! The children feel so loved by Ms. Laura that they will ask her daily for a baggie to take home an apple, banana, orange, etc that he/she did not finish during lunch time so that they may take it home to eat later, or to eat as a snack later in the day. No matter how stressed or busy her day is, Ms. Laura happily obliges. St. Jerome also offers free and reduced lunches and breakfast for students who qualify. And then there is Mrs. McGraw, her job title is likely "administrative assistant" her real title is "I do everything with a smile" and "caring mom when you can't be here" "band-aid applier" and everything else that goes with her actual job. She just has a way of letting each student know that they are important, that they are individuals, that their voices count; that if they need a moment or an hour to decompress she has a place where they can do so and feel safe and not judged. We only live about 7 minutes from St. Jerome so even when we first decided to send our son to St. Jerome it was somewhat of a natural choice as it was close in distance. In our 7 years of attendance, our family has met and made friends with others families who are so impressed with the education their children receive from St. Jerome, and the overall experience their children receive from St. Jerome, that they drive their children from Hudson, Wisconsin, Woodbury. Apple Valley, Oakdale, White Bear Lake, South St. Paul, and many other areas, just so that their children may benefit from all that St. Jerome has to offer.

St. Jerome students engage in too many community service activities to name in this post, but the experiences range from sending written letters to elderly adults monthly, raking elderly and disabled community members' lawns in the fall, volunteering at Feed My Starving Children, collecting items for veterans, etc--and the list just goes on. Even though we are a small school, the students have the ability to be involved in sports teams; academic teams (such as math masters); choir; band; drama; school carnival; field trips; and so much more.

Finally, we have utilized the before and after care at St. Jerome over the years. We have always been extremely happy with the care-but one of the things that has been so helpful to us as a family is that there are some days where our son is not scheduled to have care and we either need additional care in the morning or afternoon due to a change in our schedules-we simply contact Kids Korner and ask if we can add an extra morning or afternoon and we have never had a time where we have been denied.

We love everything that St. Jerome has to offer our kids and our family. They really look at my children as whole people, not just a body in a seat that needs to get an education. From the teachers to the parents, everyone at St. Jerome's makes it feel like one big family.