Freshman Retreat: Mustard Seed

The SMCHS Retreat Team is committed to making retreat accessible to all students, regardless of any financial situation. In order to support that vision, we have the following options in place :

1.    Delaying the retreat payment due date to a time in the school year that works better for a family’s budget.

2.    Payment plans that can spread across any time period that works best for a family. You tell us when payments should begin & we will work with the Business Office to set that up in your FACTS account.

3.    A Partial Scholarship that can also be paired with a delayed retreat payment due date or payment plan.

4.    Full Scholarship.

If one of these options would allow your student to attend Freshman Retreat, please reach out to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org to discuss further.

We are happy to offer refunds up until 3 PM one week prior to the retreat date. In order to move forward with a refund, an email from a parent must be sent to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org. We are not able to process refunds requested by Freshmen without a parent email.

Please email Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org to inquire about if spots are still available for the Freshman Retreat you would like to attend. We are only able to take late adds up until 3 PM one week prior to the retreat date. If there are spots open & if the request is made within the above time frame, we are happy to accommodate!

If the retreat is full, you will be placed on a waitlist & notified if an opening becomes available.

Please email Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org to get on the waitlist for a sold out Freshman Retreat. You will be notified if a spot opens up.

We only allow Freshmen to attend Freshman Retreat once as a retreatant. Both Freshman Retreats are exactly the same, so you would essentially be paying twice to attend something your student already experienced. We also want to ensure as many Freshmen as possible are able to make a retreat, so our registration spots are reserved for those that have not yet attended.

No! Freshman Retreat is designed in such a way that anyone from any faith background can get something out of the retreat. As a Catholic school committed to our Catholic identity, the retreat does have Catholic components such as Adoration & Confession. However, those practices are not exclusive for just Catholics to participate in. All SM Freshmen are encouraged & welcome to make a retreat their Freshman Year!

Busses will take the Freshmen to & from the retreat center from SM's campus. Parents will be responsible for getting their student to SM in the morning & picking their student up from SM in the evening.

Unless there is an emergency of some kind, parents will not be permitted to drop off or pick up their student from the retreat center.

Regardless of the school schedule for the day, Freshmen attending must be at the flag pole at the front of campus by 8:45 AM on the day of the retreat. They will check in, load the bus & will be on the road by 9 AM. It is a super jam-packed day, so the bus will not wait for students who are not on time. Please plan accordingly to ensure your student is on campus by 8:45 AM. 

As for our return home, we will leave Irvine Ranch at 7:00 PM & return to campus by 7:30 PM for Fall Freshman Retreat.

As for Spring Freshman Retreat, Irvine Ranch Outdoor Education Center observes "Winter Hours" from December to February. The camp closes an hour earlier during this time & does not provide dinner, so we will leave Irvine Ranch at 6:00 PM for Spring Freshman Retreat & return to campus by 6:30 PM. Students will be provided dinner as they get off the bus.

More information regarding departure & return will be sent in the parent emails for your student's specific retreat.

Since we do not arrive back to campus until about 6:30 PM or 7:30 PM, Freshmen will miss any sports practices or extracurriculars they would normally attend directly after school.

The main reason we offer two different retreat dates is to accommodate as many schedules as possible. When deciding which retreat you would like to attend, please look over your sports practice & extracurricular schedules & choose a retreat that does not get in the way of your other commitments. For help in picking the best Freshman Retreat for your schedule, please email Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org. 

Since Freshmen Retreat is only one day, we do not allow retreatants to come to the retreat late or leave early.

If you have questions about this policy or would like to discuss a specific circumstance, please reach out to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org.

Yes! Irvine Ranch Outdoor Education Center can accommodate dietary restrictions.  

If you would feel more comfortable bringing your own food, we are also more than happy to accommodate that!

We do not, under any circumstance, allow retreatants or parents to pick who is in a Freshman Retreat small group. Each Freshman Retreat Team spends a great deal of time creating small groups that are intentional & will allow retreatants the opportunity to open up as much as they desire. We take the creation of Freshman Retreat small groups very seriously & make decisions that are rooted in prayer & what is best for each retreatant.

The only outside information we will accept from retreatants or parents is if certain retreatants should NOT be paired together. If there is a dynamic between two retreatants that you would like to make us aware of, please reach out to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org.

You do not! We take care of that part for you by sending a list of all retreatants to our attendance office. The day of the retreat, each student attending will be marked as “Excused” in Aeries & does not need to be confirmed by a parent.

All SMCHS Retreats are considered Excused Absences. This means that students will not be penalized in any way for stepping away from campus to attend a retreat. Students are given ample time to make up any work or assessments that are missed while on retreat. Our Retreat Team works closely with faculty, coaches & counselors to ensure that students are preparing ahead of time for what they will be missing, & are not completely overwhelmed with makeup work upon their return to campus.

Freshmen are encouraged to look at their class, sport & extracurricular schedules when picking which Freshman Retreat they would like to attend. For help in discerning which Freshman Retreat would work best for your schedule, please reach out to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org.

To learn more about our school wide absence & make up work policy, please consult the SMCHS Parent Student Handbook.

This may be one of the few times a student hears this, but you are not allowed to work on school work during Freshman Retreat! Freshman Retreat is meant to give Freshmen a break from the busyness of their lives. Their only job on Freshman Retreat is to be present & to focus on growing their relationships with the Lord, each other & themselves. There is a time & place for school work, but it is not on Freshman Retreat.

Years of Freshman Retreats, where cell phones were allowed, proved one thing very clearly: Freshmen cannot enter into the Freshman Retreat experience in a meaningful & complete way, if cell phones are also present. It is impossible to fully “retreat” from the hustle & bustle of campus, if students have a device in their pocket that brings them right back to all of it with the click of a button. 

In order to protect the Freshman Retreat experience & give retreatants the best chance at being present to all the Lord wants to do for them on this retreat, cell phones are collected as students are exiting the bus in the morning & returned as they are getting back on the bus in the evening.

Cell phones are collected as students are exiting the busses at the retreat center. This means that, in the event of an emergency, we are able to give cell phones back because they are up at the retreat site with us. If you have questions about the cell phone policy on Freshman Retreat, please reach out to Chris De Vera at deverac@smhs.org.