Welcome Back!

Hello there, August, we meet again! It’s that time of year looked upon with great anticipation; it brings along the bittersweet end to summer combined with excitement for something new on the horizon! 

Over the summer, while you and your family are enjoying the summer months, the administration is hard at work! Don’t worry, we still take plenty of time to enjoy all things summer, just while also working hard! We take stock of the past school year, while looking ahead to the upcoming year. This summer we spent a lot of time looking at what worked, what didn’t, what helped students grow, what missed the mark and more. In addition, we’ve taken time to analyze ERB test results, student achievement and survey responses, all while having ongoing conversations about how to best serve our students and fulfill our mission. Taking all of this into consideration, we came together as Division Directors and will be focusing on a few key areas this year. 

One area in which we want to focus this year is academics.

Continuing to elevate our academics was a key point of discussion on the survey–as it should be! We’ve been working alongside our Director of Student Support Services, Delaney Zimmermann to collaborate on ways we can elevate academics in each department. Delaney is working closely with teachers to review assessments and test scores to pinpoint specific areas that need improvement. We’ll be working closely with Delaney and Kristin Forsen, Director of Curriculum and Instruction throughout the year to make sure that our academic standards remain high. 

In addition to academics, we also took a close look into evaluating how our school intrinsically promotes and teaches lifeskills.

The entire staff read “20 Things Good Teachers Do” by Hal Urban over the summer. The theme of the book is looking at how teachers can incorporate lifeskills into everyday learning. Teaching lifeskills is at the heart of the Oakhill curriculum and a focal point of our mission. Our goal is for our students to take ownership of their behavior and actions while seeing how it translates into real world success. 

Although our school is housed in two separate buildings we are one school! We recognize the importance of school unity, and we are always looking for ways to build and strengthen that unity within our school. As Division Directors, we’ve been working closely together over the summer and will continue throughout the school year with the goal of building unification. As the saying goes, we are better together! We both look forward to deepening relationships in both buildings.

As you can see, we’ve been hard at work and are so excited to welcome the students back to school. We look forward to partnering with you, and are excited for a great year guiding our students to be the best people that they can be.

Here’s to a great 2024-2025 school year!

Margaret Sarver
Intermediate and Middle School Division Director

Tim Ziegler
Early Childhood and Lower School Director