Dear OCSA Families,
We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break, full of time with loved ones and well-deserved rest. As the fall semester comes to a close, we wanted to inform you about upcoming changes to the bell schedule and school calendar that will take effect at the beginning of the spring semester. Please review the updates below and discuss these changes with your OCSA student.
Bell Schedule Adjustment
Please be aware that when the spring semester begins on Wednesday, January 5, a revised bell schedule will be in place. Click here to view the Spring 2022 Semester Bell Schedule.
Here are a few key features of the new bell schedule:
- There will be no changes to start and end times of the school day.
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Monday through Friday, the academic schedule will ALTERNATE DAILY between Blue Day (Blocks 1, 2, 3) and Gold Day (Blocks 4, 5, 6). Please see Page 2 of the Spring 2022 Semester Bell Schedule for the full Blue Day/Gold Day calendar.
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Green Day, where students attend all academic classes (Blocks 1-6) each Friday, has been eliminated as a regular occurrence. Green Day will now only be utilized in order to ensure a balance of Blue and Gold Days, and will occur just once in the spring semester on Friday, June 3. The Green Day schedule will be confirmed at a later date.
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Block 7 has been renamed Office Hours. During Office Hours, all students will be able to get assistance from any of their academic teachers. Additionally, Office Hours have been added to the Friday/No Conservatory Day schedule to maintain the existing dismissal time and open up additional support time for students and teachers.
Why is this change to the bell schedule being made?
The current Fall 2021 Semester Bell Schedule was put in place to maintain some of the adjustments originally implemented to accommodate distance/hybrid learning in the 2020-2021 school year, as well as to ensure that OCSA had the flexibility to return to a distance learning environment if needed. At this time, it has been determined that it is unlikely that OCSA will need to return to a distance/hybrid learning environment.
Additionally, the Friday Green Day schedule was not as effective as hoped, as the unique facility logistics of the OCSA campus made it challenging for some students to transition between all six academic blocks in one day. To address these two observations, the decision was made to enact this change to the bell schedule for the spring semester.
School Calendar Adjustments
In a recent email communication, it was announced that the date for Gala 2022 has been changed to Saturday, April 23. In prior years, the Friday that directly precedes Gala has been a non-school day to allow for last-minute event preparations. Due to the updated Gala 2022 date, the following changes will also need to be made to the school calendar:
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Friday, March 18 will now be an instructional day for all students. This date was previously listed as a staff professional development day (no school).
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Friday, April 22 is now a staff professional development day (no school). This date was previously listed as an instructional day for all students.
Please click here to view the most updated Important Dates to Remember document, which reflects these changes.
Days with no conservatory instruction:
In addition to all Fridays during the spring semester, please note that there will be no conservatory instruction on the following dates due to the conservatory instructional schedule or a professional development day for the staff. Dismissal on these dates will take place at 2:25 p.m. (click here to view the full bell schedule).
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Wednesday, January 5 - Thursday, January 6
- Thursday, March 17
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Monday, April 11 - Thursday, April 14
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Monday, May 23 - Thursday, May 26
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Tuesday, May 31 - Thursday, June 2
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Monday, June 6 - Tuesday, June 7
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We thank you for your patience and understanding in regards to these important changes to the bell schedule and school calendar. As we get closer to the beginning of the spring semester, we will continue to remind you of these changes so that all OCSA students can begin the next term as successfully as possible.
Sincerely,
OCSA Administration
Cc: All OCSA Faculty & Staff
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