Dear families,
Hello, everyone, and happy Friday! You can watch this week’s video update here.
It’s hard to believe that the end of the school year is just around the corner! Next week, we’ll be celebrating important milestones for our students who are moving on to their next step - whether it’s middle school, high school, college, career or the military. We’re so proud of each and every one of our students at every grade level.
Class of 2021 celebrations
We are incredibly excited to celebrate the Class of 2021 over the next week, and this is a very special group of students whose accomplishments include academics, the arts, athletics and extracurriculars, and a remarkable commitment to service to the community. And I want to highlight just a few of those accomplishments.
The Class of 2021 includes 14 National Merit Semifinalists and 13 Commended Scholars, approximately 100 National Honor Society inductees and approximately 140 members of the prestigious Cum Laude Society. In a year when community service didn’t look like it usually does, this class has 16 recipients of the President’s Volunteer Service Award - with a combined total of nearly 2,000 hours of service. This class includes students who have won state and regional art awards, athletes who have competed at the highest level, and individuals who have explored their passions through extracurricular activities and competitions like speech and debate, robotics, and so much more.
Sunday, May 30 will be a big day for the Class of 2021. We’ll welcome 475 new Upper Arlington High School graduates into the ranks of Golden Bear alumni at the Schottenstein Center on the campus of The Ohio State University. Then, we’re going to do what we love to do in UA - we’re going to have a parade. The senior parade is something that started last year with the Class of 2020, and it’s no surprise that it’s continuing! We’re inviting family, friends, staff and community members to come out and celebrate as the graduates and their families parade through Upper Arlington.
The parade will begin at 11:45 a.m. on Sunday at Northwest Boulevard and Ridgeview Road and will travel around the neighborhood surrounding the high school. We expect the parade to wrap up no later than 3 p.m. You can see more details here.
Upper Arlington High School farewell
Next week, we will also be saying goodbye to a fixture of our community for nearly 65 years - the current Upper Arlington High School. I invite you to come on a virtual tour of the old building with us — you can see the virtual tour here. This summer, work will begin to demolish the old building, which will be done with great care, especially in the area built on the site of the Litchford family cemetery.
It’s bittersweet to say goodbye to the building that Upper Arlington High School students and staff have called home for all this time, but we’re incredibly excited to welcome everyone into the beautiful new home of the Golden Bears in August. You can look in my update next week for a guided virtual tour of the new Upper Arlington High School, and please save the date of Sunday, August 15 for a community celebration at the new high school and open houses for all of our completed projects. More details on that to come this summer!
That does it for my update this week. I hope you have a great weekend, and as always go Bears!
Sincerely,
Paul Imhoff, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Upper Arlington Schools