OAHS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Hello Spartan Families,

It was great to see students back on campus this week at Orcutt Academy High School! We will continue the transition next week as we work through our first full week of Blended Learning. Please make sure to remind your students to follow the social distancing guidelines so that we can keep our school open and help the case numbers continue to fall. All of this will allow us more opportunities for school and extracurricular activities.

Many sports programs are also under way and competing with some of our local schools with a few more opening up in the coming weeks. Additionally, we have other small groups and clubs starting to meet under the social distancing guidelines including Robotics, Associated Student Body, Band, FCC and several others. Please look through the website and check out many of the things that are happening right now for our Spartan students. You will also be able to see some pictures of the “Return of the Spartans” showing our students back on campus with our safely set up Blended Learning structure.

Spring Break is right around the corner (April 5-9) so please mark your calendars as there will not be any school during this week. We do have a full week of school next week including Friday, April 2, which is a full day. Hope that you and your family are staying safe and healthy.

Enjoy your weekend!

Rhett Carter

Hello Spartan Families,

As you likely already heard, Santa Barbara County has moved to the Red Tier. As our case numbers continue to drop, we are able to finally have our students return to school under our current schedule where they will be on campus with their teachers on their “Live” day and will work from home on their “Asynchronous” day. As long as the numbers do not drastically change, Orcutt Academy High School Cohort A students will begin on Thursday, March 25th, and Cohort B students will begin Friday, March 26th!

We are very hopeful and excited to see our students again and to start to get them more involved in the many opportunities available at Orcutt Academy High School. As our Superintendent, Dr. Holly Edds, recently stated in a message to our community, “It is important that we all continue to remain vigilant and follow the safety guidance from the various Federal, State, and Local health agencies in order to keep our communities safe and our case count low”.

Below is a link to our Reopening Plan Video which also outlines important information for returning to school in a safe and healthy way. We strongly encourage all families to watch this video again, in its entirety, prior to returning to campus. Additionally, we have developed an invaluable Blended Learning Cheat-Sheet (click on the link or image below/ to the right, depending on your device) that will aid your family in being ready for the Return of the Spartans!

We look forward to seeing you all soon!

Sincerely,

Rhett Carter

Hello Spartan Families,

There is a lot happening at www.oahsspartans.net ! Please check out the updates and other information found on our website. Feel free to share with friends and family that are or may also be interested in Orcutt Academy High School.

We hope you also enjoy the video below regarding our Safety Protocols as Sports return to Orcutt Academy High School presented by our very own Athletic Trainer Chelsea Davis:

Have a great weekend!

Rhett Carter

Hello Spartan Families,

Spring marks that special time of year here at Orcutt Academy High School as well as around the country when our soon to be graduating seniors are finding out about their college acceptances and making plans for the next step in their lives after High School. We are still too early to know about all of them but we are keeping track as much as possible and we hope to share more information about this towards the end of the school year via the Newsletter. We are so proud of all of our Spartans and their hard work. We also know that this does not happen without some very strong support at home for each of them. This kind of success truly takes a village, so we also want to congratulate you the families for all of their accomplishments.

We also wanted to give you an update with some exciting news going on in our art classes at OAHS. This semester the Advanced Art students studied graphic design. The final project was creating a vans shoe design to submit for the first round of the national Vans Custom Culture Shoe Contest. On March 1st the class was notified that they were selected as 1 of 250 schools to compete in the next round of the competition. Vans will be shipping the class 5 pairs of shoes which will be decorated by 5 students from the class. Winners of the contest receive money for their art program. The class is very excited to be given the opportunity to move forward in the competition!

Have a great weekend!

Rhett Carter

Have a look at the winners of the class competition submitted to Vans that got the class into the next round (Giselle Sarmiento's "Head In The Clouds" and Madylin Hawkins's "Hometown Pride").

Hello Spartan Families,

Last Friday was the end of the 6 week grading period. The school year is passing by quickly. If your son or daughter is struggling and needs some support, please check out the website under Resources to find supports available. There is also a tab titled Mental Health if your student is struggling for non-academic reasons. Mr. Ostini works closely with our staff to keep our website updated with information to help our students and their families to easily access any and all information to help our students.

Some good news as our County COVID numbers continue to drop. We are starting to see some things opening up. Some of our elementary students have a scheduled date to return to school. We are hoping that this is an opportunity in the near future for our older students to also return to school and other activities. The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department is not allowing grades 7-12 to offer in-person instruction until our county is in the “red” tier for 5 days. We will continue to monitor our case rates and will keep you updated as we get closer to meeting that threshold.

We hope that you all continue to stay safe and healthy and that we will see you in person soon!

Have a great weekend!

Rhett Carter

Hello Orcutt Academy Spartan families,

The Orcutt Academy Freshmen Connect Crew (FCC) exists to help our youngest Spartans feel connected to other school-mates, and to help ensure their social and academic success during the first year of high school. The FCC leaders and mentors have worked hard this year trying to maintain a positive connection with their Freshmen, even though the traditional face-to-face meetings have not been possible.

The FCC Team hosted our first-ever Virtual Freshmen Orientation at the start of the school year, and have held several Mentor Meetups last semester. The bugs have eventually been worked out, and the Meetup two weeks ago was the most successful one yet! And, in the spirit of keeping this valuable organization making a positive impact on our school culture, another 40 exceptional Sophomores and Juniors have applied to be on next year’s FCC Mentor Team. Interviews are happening Monday, with the new team being locked in next week. Our youngest Spartans appreciate having the guidance of a few upperclassmen, and we thank FCC for continuing to have a positive impact on Orcutt Academy’s school culture.

For additional resources available for all our students and families, please visit the RESOURCES tab on our website to get connected with all the information you need!

Have a great weekend!

Rhett Carter