Great Start to the School Year

Dear Parents/Guardians,

What a wonderful first week of school!  I can’t thank you enough for your cooperation and support!  This may have been the smoothest start to a school year in a long time.  While perfection is something we strive for, we’ll settle for a smooth start as typical quirks arise.  It was great to see that our school buses even left the bus loop at the Lower Elementary prior to dozens of cars at the parent pick-up loop on the first day.  Wow!  This doesn’t happen by chance.  All departments across the district worked together to have classrooms, facilities, routes, food, schedules, communication, and workspaces ready!  Thank you!

Late Start Tuesdays

Please remember that Tuesdays start 1 hour later than all other school days for students.  This time is necessary for professional development and meetings for staff that can only be done during times without students in the building.  This approach to the school calendar allows us to minimize the number of half days while providing a routine and predictable schedule for families.  Lastly, please do not drop off children early on Tuesdays.  Such students are not supervised because staff are in meetings. 

School Calendars

Our school calendars can be downloaded from our website here.  We’ve already published the 2024-25 school calendar too.  

Show Up.  Let’s Cut Chronic Absenteeism in Half!

Over a quarter of our students missed almost a quarter of the school year last year.  If repeated throughout their K-12 learning experience, they will have missed 3 years of school!  Oakridge is kicking off our campaign called “Show Up.” to bring awareness to this issue.  Our goal is to cut our students’ chronically absent rate in half…from 28% down to 14%.   All you have to do is get your kids to school every day.  Why do you want to come to school?  Listen to our staff explain why in this brief YouTube video.

Stay tuned for much more information on how we will be ringing the alarm to promote positive attendance.  Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of a student’s enrolled school days for any reason.  Let’s pull together as a community to cut our chronically absent rate in half!  We can’t do this alone.  

To a great school year already off to a great start!

Tom Livezey
Superintendent