Welcome New Families

Our primary methods of communicating with parents are through the Portal and email. 

Each Friday, the school sends a weekly email that includes important updates and a calendar for the week ahead. The St. Mark's Weekly e-News provides you with the information you need to know!

Most Tuesdays, we send the Parent Guild Bulletin, which includes upcoming Parent Guild events and volunteer needs.

All parents are automatically included in our email distribution lists. If you are not receiving messages, please contact us!

The St. Mark's Portal provides everything from contacts to classes to calendars in one place with tools that allow you to easily filter and find what is most important to you. The Portal includes announcements and assignments, athletics schedules, and allows you to customize your notifications, contact card, directories, and calendars. With an intuitive dashboard and easy navigation, you will be a Portal pro in no time. Portal access was established for each parent during the enrollment process; if you do not yet have access to the portal, please contact our Help Desk.

Middle school students also have student portals, which will hold assignments, lessons, and information. By managing their own homework, our middle school students will learn responsibility and accountability. Once logged into the portal, you will also be able to access our Student Information System and Magnus Health, our health software, where all forms, releases and student information can be accessed and updated by our families.

In late June, you will have full access to the portal. At that time, permission, acknowledgement, emergency contact, and profile update forms for students and families will be available. Watch for communication later this summer, notifying you that these forms are ready for you to complete.

Looking to plan your Spring Break trip or summer camp sessions? Here is our major dates calendar for 2022-2023! You can also access a detailed school calendar in the Portal.

Your child’s class list will be available in early August. This information will be shared in the Parent Portal.

We host formal parent teacher conferences each year. We open the year with introductory conferences. Middle School conferences are held with the student’s advisor and led by the middle schooler.

If a parent teacher conference is necessary at some point during the year in addition to the school’s scheduled conferences, parents may request a meeting time with their child’s teacher at any time.

The mission of the St. Mark’s Parent Guild is to support community spirit, create meaningful events and programs for our children, and promote the school in the greater surrounding community.

The Parent Guild is our version of the PTA. They are a self-supporting organization, with fundraisers generating revenue for their activities. As a parent of St. Mark’s, you are automatically a member of the Parent Guild and invited to join both meetings and committees. Meetings are the normally held first Wednesday of every month.

The success of Parent Guild and school activities and events depends on parent involvement, and we thank you in advance for the gift of your time.  You can learn more about the various volunteer opportunities online. If you have an interest in a particular committee, please fill out the volunteer form online, or email the Parent Guild.

The tradition of fundraising in independent schools is a necessary and important one. We are a 501C3 non- profit organization, and the additional funds we raise through the Development Office support our mission and advance our school. Through growing resources and fiscal responsibility, the basic operating budget of St. Mark’s is covered by tuition dollars. Fundraising efforts help us go above and beyond the standard classroom and create the entirety of the St. Mark’s experience.

The Annual Fund: The Annual Fund is the most important fundraising initiative of the year. This condensed campaign, occurring every fall from September 1 through November 30, provides funding for:

• Enhanced professional development for teachers

• New technology in classrooms

• Refreshed and enriched curriculum materials

• Improvements to our campus and facilities
   

Our theme for the Annual Fund is “Every Family, Every Year,” and we invite all families to contribute in the fall. In previous years we have reached as high 92% parent participation in the fund. We hope to reach new heights this year with your help!

Gala and Ungala:

The annual spring gala to support St. Mark’s Episcopal School is a time-honored tradition. We have a system established where we alternate from a casual UnGala year to a traditional formal affair every other year. We invite all parents to join us this spring for our UnGala, which will be a more casual event held on our campus in the spring. Proceeds from the St. Mark’s Gala or UnGala benefit special projects around campus. Funds from previous events have been earmarked for things like new turf, facility upgrades, keeping our campus secure, professional development, and our ongoing commitment to improving technology.

Across all of our programs, we benefit from the generous support of parents, grandparents, alumni families, and foundations. We are sincerely grateful for all of our donor support at St. Mark’s. It is reflected in what we do and who we serve.

We invite you to join St. Mark's on social media:

Like St. Mark's Episcopal School on Facebook
Follow @stmeshouston on Instagram