We were incredibly excited to celebrate the Upper Arlington High School Class of 2021 in May. This group of new alumni is a very special class that exemplifies our tradition of excellence and our vision of uniquely accomplished students prepared to serve, lead and succeed. Their commitment and accomplishments across the board — in academics, the arts, athletics and community service — is remarkable. We are incredibly proud of them, and we look forward to watching them as they pursue their goals and dreams in their next chapter in life.
This summer, we are thrilled to have approximately 1,000 students participating in our expanded summer learning opportunities — Summer Academy, Summer Reading for grades 1-3, and Summer BRIDGE to Achievement and Well-Being. These are all great opportunities for our students to boost their academic progress and continue to foster meaningful relationships during the summer with their peers and teachers.
We want everyone to have a great summer, but we also can’t wait to welcome our students, our staff, our families and our community back into our buildings this fall. One of the things we have missed most over the past year has been the opportunity to connect, in person, with the parents/guardians, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and community members who care so much about what’s happening in our schools. We are incredibly blessed here in Upper Arlington to have so many people who support our students in our schools, on our athletic fields, and in the arts.
We are so excited to welcome you back this fall and reconnect with you, face to face. I hope you’ll join us for a very special event on Sunday, August 15 for a community grand opening celebration and open houses for all of our facilities master plan projects. You’ll be able to go inside the new Upper Arlington High School and all of our new elementary schools just a few days before the start of the school year.
We’ll kick things off at 1 p.m. with a community grand opening celebration inside the new Upper Arlington High School, and from 2:30 to 4 p.m. we’ll have open houses at the high school and the five elementary schools. You can watch your mailbox for more details this summer, and we look forward to more opportunities to welcome you into our schools during the upcoming school year.
As we prepare for the completion of the new high school, the new Windermere Elementary School and the Barrington renovation project in August — on schedule and on budget — I am thrilled to share that we have reached a big milestone for our Legacy campaign. Thanks to the generosity of nearly 400 private donors, the Upper Arlington Legacy Capital Campaign has successfully raised $7.5 million to enhance our district’s excellence in education by completing and expanding the scope of our facilities master plan.
This fulfills a promise to the community throughout the 2017 bond-levy campaign — to privately fundraise $5 million toward construction costs to offset some of the expense to taxpayers. The additional $2.5 million supports “The Honor Project,” which goes above and beyond the bricks and mortar to support programming that directly impacts our students and finishing touches for the school environment.
We thank all of our donors for their generosity and support of our schools and the children of Upper Arlington for generations to come.