Oak Forest students are an inquisitive bunch and Mr. Casler loves to hear what’s on their minds. Do you or your student have a question for our Principal? Ask it! Email [email protected]

I spend a lot of my day walking around our school just listening to people. This allows me the opportunity to find ways to support our community. This includes talking with students, teachers, staff members, parents, and visitors. A typical day could include helping Mrs. Hunt find room for new library books in our library, finding a place for a new student club to meet after school, trying to figure out why an outside garden is flooded, helping a teacher with their read aloud, and meeting the parents to plan a community event. With a school as large as ours, every day presents new sets of challenges and opportunities to support our community.

Believe it or not, I am incredibly shy and have always had a fear of public attention. Since I was a child, public speaking would bring about all kinds of irrational thoughts, “ What if I say something silly?”, “What if I mispronounce a name or stumble over a word?”, “What if I make a mistake?”. These irrational thoughts have the potential to be paralyzing and are very self-centered. I have learned over time, that instead of focusing on my fear of making a mistake, to focus on others. What information can I share that people need? Who needs to be celebrated? Who needs to be encouraged? When I take the focus off myself and onto others, it allows me to overcome this fear. Another fear is dancing in public, I am a terrible dancer. Incidentally, my wife, who is a very good dancer, is also very afraid of Mr. Casler dancing in public.

One of my favorite questions to ask adults in a school community is “What do we want our students to be like as adults?” This is a question I have unapologetically stolen from one of my educational heroes, Ron Ritchhart. What I have found is that typical responses will be a desire for students/children to be empathetic, curious, happy, thoughtful, caring, inquisitive, etc. All these responses articulate dispositions or character traits. Our EMPOWER values are a way for our community to focus on fostering these types of dispositions for our students. These dispositions then serve as a lens through which our students make meaning and purpose for their learning.

This past Friday, students tackled obstacles big and small, racing around the Frank Black Middle School football field to raise funds for their beloved Oak Forest Elementary.

And boy did they raise money! Initial reports indicate that our community raised more than $210,000 for the PTA Budget - an OFE record!

This was our first big school-wide in-person event since 2019 and having families and staff together again, cheering on our students was magical.

Thank you to everyone who participated, whether that was by donating, sharing emails, cheering or waving at our volunteers in the car line - every bit of your support made a difference. Special thanks to all the teachers who got our students so excited, especially those who got a pie in the face.

Once again, Mr. Casler was a great sport and volunteered to be slimed and Ms. Folse and Michelle Tabor were happy to make that happen. Oak Forest's newest music teacher, Mr. Thomas, also volunteered to be slimed and his wife, OFE's own kindergarten teacher Mrs. Janish, and Ms. Folse were more than happy to climb on the school roof and make it happen. Every single administrative staff member, teacher, and volunteer went out of their way to make this the best fall fundraiser yet! Your dedication to this event and to our school is felt every day, and we are so thankful and blessed.

In addition to being one of the best days on campus, the fall fundraiser pays for things at OFE like:

Thank you again to all who participated and Go Bobcats!

Get ready for the biggest and best playdate of the year - Fall Festival! After a year hiatus, OFE PTA is thrilled to bring back the Annual Fall Festival on Saturday, Nov. 13, from 11 am to 3 pm, right here at school.

The event is a celebration for our Bobcats and the entire community is invited to attend. Carnival games, rides, inflatables, confetti eggs, face painting, crafts, and more are staples of this event and will all be back this year. Extra face painters have even been secured! This year will also bring the addition of a petting zoo - yes, a real petting zoo! - and a Food Truck Circle that will provide a variety of food options.

Most importantly, the event will also kick off the annual Fall Book Fair! Bobcats and their families will be able to peruse the classic moving bookshelves and find new favorites to bring home, or purchase for their class or school library.

More details will be coming soon, including ways that you can volunteer!

This month, the Bobcat Beat would like to introduce the OFE community to the Wright family: Holly, Phil, and their children, fifth-grader, Cadence, third-grader, Austin, and first-grader, Beckett. We talked with Holly about their volunteer experiences at OFE and what they love best about our community.

Bobcat Beat (BB): For those at OFE who don't yet know you, could you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Holly Wright: We are the Wrights! 3/5 of us were born in Texas (all the smaller people in our house), Phil was born and raised in Ohio, and Holly was born in Arizona, but got to Texas as fast as she could! Holly went to The University of Texas and Phil went to Miami of Ohio. We care deeply about education and do our best to bring justice and love to this world in any way we can. We love sports (and are big Buckeye fans), the beach, traveling, and nature! We have two dogs (Minnie and Woody) and lots of habitats for fish, lizards, spiders, and other wildlife.

BB: As busy adults, we all often wish there were more hours in a day. Time is precious! So tell us what made you decide to give your time and energy to volunteer at OFE.

Holly Wright: This is the last year that all of our children will go to the same school for the rest of our lives! We are so thankful for Oak Forest Elementary and we believe that if we can help support the teachers and staff at school, it will continue to be an amazing place for kids to be known, nurtured, and cared for!

BB: In what capacity have you volunteered at OFE?

Holly Wright: We worked on the Garden Committee when we first got to OFE and helped to build a relationship with Ms. Baker and Ready to Grow Gardens! We are now working on a new committee called "Outreach." The goal of this committee is to provide support to families, schools, and communities that don't have the resources we do. We are working to bring awareness to that very reality and to work towards equity in education for all students! What better way to make an impact in the world than to share what we have in abundance to make schools better for other children and families? Our dream is for EVERY SINGLE CHILD in Houston to have a place like OFE to learn and grow!

BB: What has been your most favorite volunteer experience at OFE?

Holly Wright: We have enjoyed cleaning out the garden beds, helping with class parties, assembling lunches for Kids Meals, --even taking down spirit week decorations is fun. We love being at school and we are really looking forward to more opportunities to serve!

BB: What do you think your student/students think/s about your volunteer activities at OFE?

Holly Wright: Our kids also love to help and serve, so they have been a big part of all we do! I hope that our kids appreciate the value of giving and see us as a model of generosity with our time, energy, and resources. They might act like they aren't excited to have their mom acting goofy when she's volunteering at school, but deep down, they love it!!

BB: What would you tell other OFE adults to encourage them to volunteer?

Holly Wright: OFE can be a bit intimidating, especially if you are new, or a working parent that has scheduling restrictions. I would suggest making sure that you are checking Living Tree often and picking one time each semester to sign up on a class or school sign up genius to get engaged! You can also reach out to me and I can help to brainstorm ways to connect and provide support, even if it's not in person during the school day. (You can reach Holly at [email protected])

Fifth-graders Sasha Baughn, Alejandra Padilla, and Ryan Sakowitz-Smoley are our student Bobcat Beat reporters this year. Ryan and Sasha have been at OFE since kindergarten and Alejandra has been a proud bobcat since third grade.

All three reporters love to read and consider the OFE library their happy place. Respect, Wisdom, and Motivation are a few of their favorite EMPOWER values and we know they will put them all to good use as they write articles this year. If you have a story idea for the student reporters, email [email protected].

Nurse Le

It’s fall, but in many ways fall in Texas is like a spring. It cools down, the light is less intense, less scorching, and the earth gets ready for all the yummy stuff we can throw in a slow cooker, like carrots and potatoes and onions. So here we are, the kids helping out our partners at Ready to Grow get the, well, beds ready to grow! Expect some delicious results in a few months.

All paid for with our PTA fundraising, Ready to Grow is a science-based garden curriculum that comes to the school and provides the kids with a real-life farm-to-table experience. So when you find a small sweet potato in the bottom of their backpack…cook it! Food from the heart, nourished by little hands.

New this year is our Family Partnerships, and we are so grateful to the 11 families that supported this initiative in this first year. A very big thank you to: The Briones Family, Todd and Tamara Copeland, The Glaser Family, The Gomez Family, The Grimes Family, The Maida Family, Michael and Chloe Niggli, The Olaloko Family, The Powers Family, The Sutherland Family, and The Williams Family.

On the Community Partner side, we are once again blown away by the support of our local businesses. A very big thank you to our Diamond Partners: Buchanan's Native Plants, Children's Lighthouse, Morehands Maid Service, The Moore Real Estate Group, Oak Forest Veterinary Hospital, TCD Millwork and Traditions Custom Design, and our Gold Partner, Happen Houston. We are thankful for the support of our Silver Partners: Partners in Building, Resource One, and Kelly Law, Martha Turner Sotheby's Int'l Realty. We hope when you are able that you give them the support that they so generously provide us.

The next time you are on campus, maybe during Fall Festival, take a walk through the courtyard, check out the decorative tiles and painted rocks created by OFE Bobcats through the years and enjoy this beautiful space on our campus.