Dear families,
Hi, everyone, and happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a great week! You can watch my video update here.
Staff Appreciation Week
This week, we’ve been celebrating Staff Appreciation Week throughout our district. I’d like to thank our PTOs and our families for all of the special things they have done to celebrate our staff this week - and I’d like to take a moment to recognize our staff. We have an amazing team here in UA that truly loves your children and wants to help them succeed and thrive in school and in their daily lives. Through every change and through every challenge of the past year, our staff has lived out our values of Start With Heart, Strength in Team and Contagious Drive. And what they’ve done to support our students this year has truly been extraordinary. We are so blessed to have so many amazing individuals who are so very dedicated to our kids and our schools. I am so proud and grateful to work alongside each and every staff member. To our entire staff - thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you do each and every day for our students, our families and each other.
Board of Education meeting - Tuesday, May 11
I want to share a change for our Board of Education meeting on Tuesday. As you may have heard, some people may be gathering before the start of our Board meeting, and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all of our students, we will be moving the meeting to the City Council Chambers at the Municipal Services Center. The public session will begin at 6 p.m.
COVID-19 updates
I’m happy to share that we continue to see a very low number of active positive cases in our district. And we are continuing to follow current state guidance on safety protocols including masking for education settings. The Medical Advisory Team feels comfortable with our current masking policy. If we do receive updated guidance from public health officials on masking in schools, we’ll review that guidance in consultation with the experts on the Medical Advisory Team.
This week at the high school, we held the second round of COVID-19 vaccinations for students ages 16 and older. I want to thank the team at the high school and Nationwide Children’s Hospital for all their work this week to support the vaccination clinic.
Summer BRIDGE program
We are working quickly with our staff to finalize the design for our Summer BRIDGE to Well-Being and Achievement program. This will be in addition to our existing summer programs like Summer Academy, Summer Reading and Credit Recovery. We have many families interested in summer programming during the month of June, and we will be sharing more details with you very soon.
AAPI Heritage Month
And finally, I want to highlight that May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This month, we celebrate the individuals whose heritage traces back to more than 50 countries and more than 20,000 islands. There is so much diversity within the AAPI community to celebrate, and there are many AAPI Americans who have contributed to our history, culture and achievements. Maya Lin is just one example - she was born in Athens, Ohio, and is of Chinese descent. A sculptor and designer, she has designed numerous memorials, public and private buildings, and landscapes. She is best-known for winning a national design competition at age 21 to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
That does it for my update this week. Have a great weekend! Have a very happy Mother’s Day! And as always, go Bears!
Sincerely,
Paul Imhoff, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Upper Arlington Schools