Dear OLOL families,

Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! We are so blessed that your family chose OLOL and your dedication to the mission of OLOL Catholic School and Catholic education in general.  

Being involved professionally in education for 17 years and an additional six as a parent before choosing education as a career, the first week of school is information overload for parents. Many of you have multiple classroom procedures to learn about. In addition about 30% of our students and families are new to the school. That creates another layer of information to take in.

In respect of your time, I will be spreading out information from the office over the next three weeks or so. This is important information and I don’t want it to get lost with everything else that you are learning.

Mentor Parents

We have a mentor parent program and it fits in perfectly with my educational philosophy that we are all partners on the educational journey of our students. The better the parent involvement a school has, the better student experience and learning outcomes will be. You should have all been contacted by your parent mentor. They are there for any questions that you may have about OLOL. They want the transition to OLOL to be seamless. Please reach out to them for any questions that may have during the first month of school. If your questions are about curriculum or what is happening in the classrooms, those questions need to be directed to the teacher or myself, and not the parent mentor.

Dress Down Days

We are changing the procedure on dress down days this school year. Please see below the dress down days and our new plan.

Forms

We would appreciate that you try and fill out and complete all school forms and return to the school office as soon as possible. Thank you!

OLOL Parent Homecoming

Jim Christensen, a proud parent of a 2nd grader and kindergartener, spoke at New Family Orientation. One of the many blessings of sending his children to OLOL is that he has met some of the most wonderful people. If you are new to the school you can start to get to know some of our families by attending the inaugural OLOL Parent Homecoming on Friday September 8th. Please see details below and RSVP for this fun event. Thank you to Jim Christensen for putting this event together.

Principal Welcome

The preparation of the 2023-2024 school began the day after the 2022-2023 school year concluded. The staff met before they went on summer vacation and what went right into changes we would like to implement in 2023-2024. The next three months consisted of different teacher teams working on different initiatives, attending conferences and workshops, and physical changes with the building. The work that was done now starts being rolled out. Some aspects of the summer work will take all year to put into effect, some bigger initiatives are being designated as a multiple year implementation. You can rest assured all of the work was done with one goal in mind: an improved student learning experience and increased student outcomes in academics and faith.

I never take one of our OLOL students for granted. Each of our students are viewed as gifts from God and have unique gifts that we are to cherish and develop. We are also called to develop those gifts that might not be possessed. Our students are not numbers here and we are a factory churning out the students. We prepare the students to be ready to lead, be followers of Christ, and to achieve academically and spiritually in all areas of life.

Thank you again for choosing OLOL. We are blessed to have you here!

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not a filling of a vessel” - Socrates

Educating in mind, body, and spirit,

Jeffrey Young