Monthly Newsletter
The Dragon's Lore is a monthly newsletter that is sent home with students. Information contained in the newsletter includes upcoming school and community events and the cafeteria menu. Please select an issue of the Dragon's Lore from the above list.
2011 Spiritwear Now On Sale!
Click Here, to download the order form and see what is for sale in the 2011 Spirit Wear Sale. Show your Dragon Spirit today!
Register for your RED Library Card
Oak Hills Local School District is partnering with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton Country to encourage every student in grades K-8 to register for a library cards. Information will be sent home with each student this week. All students who already have a library card or get a new one will receive a coupon for a surprise treat when they visit any branch library in Hamilton County from mid-November until the end of the year. Our goal is to register 100% of our students for new library cards!
The RED library cards are free and with it students can get online homework help with English-or Spanish speaking tutors, access to the latest research materials to support school projects, download ebooks, and borrow books, magazines and more! And with the new 'child only' and 'teen only' cards, students won't accrue fines or fees!
For more information, please visit: www.cincinnatilibrary.com/librarycard
A Decade of Excellence!
The Ohio Report Card data for the 2010-2011 school year is in, and Oak Hills Local School District is ranked Excellent.
The report card is an annual measure of schools' and districts' academic success.
The state department of education combines students' scores on standardized achievement tests with other factors, such as graduation rate and attendance, to assess public schools and districts.
There are six academic ratings: Excellent with Distinction, Excellent, Effective, Continuous Improvement, Academic Watch and Academic Emergency. Oak Hills Local School District maintained the Excellent rating it received the previous year.
"We are very pleased with the overall performance of our students and happy to have once again earned a rating of Excellent," said Oak Hills Superintendent Todd Yohey. He said 2011 represents the 10th straight year Oak Hills earned the Excellent rating or higher. "We are celebrating a decade of Excellence," he said. Yohey said the district is pleased it met all report card indicators and had two school buildings – Delshire Elementary and Dulles Elementary – rated Excellent with Distinction. He said the district will once again aim for an Excellent or higher rating this school year. "We plan to continue our focus on high student achievement and quality instruction with emphasis on career and college readiness with global competency," he said.
How our schools ranked:
Bridgetown Middle School, C.O. Harrison Elementary School, Delhi Middle School, Oakdale Elementary School, Oak Hills High School, Rapid Run Middle School and Springmyer Elementary School all earned an Excellent rating.
Delshire Elementary School and J.F. Dulles Elementary School both earned the Excellent with Distinction rating.
Oak Hills awarded $600,000 Race to the Top Innovation Grant
The Oak Hills Local School District will use a $600,000 Race to the Top Innovation Grant to encourage higher level thinking skills and real-life global connections at Oak Hills High School.
The district will join the Asia Society's International Studies School Network (ISSN) Innovative Program with funding from the grant. ISSN is a national network of public schools that are achieving success in attaining their core mission: to develop college-ready, globally competent high school graduates. It has a strong alignment with Oak Hills High School's mission, said Todd Yohey, Superintendent of Schools – a key factor in the district's decision to apply.
"The curriculum, professional development, framework and tools associated with ISSN represent a continuation of the journey and the profound work that our district and Oak Hills High School started two to three years ago," Yohey said. "Our administrative and teacher leaders see this as a vehicle for deeply embedding skills, content and values associated with global competence in our curriculum."
Yohey said membership in ISSN provides a means to expand, strengthen and improve the International Studies Program, as well as the three other programs of study offered at Oak Hills – STEM, Creative and Performing Arts, and Integrated Studies. This customized learning process was started in the 2010-2011 school year.
The Academic Improvement Model for the high school is building around a support system designed to strengthen student skills in four areas of college readiness:
- Contextual skills, and awareness or college knowledge: how to apply to colleges, the application process, financial understanding.
- Key content: Mastery of important content in English, science, math, social studies, and fine arts.
- Key cognitive strategies: Critical thinking skills, analysis, evaluation, synthesis, problem solving skills.
- Academic behaviors: Writing and study skills, and time management.
Opportunities are also available to students across all schools and academic disciplines in world languages and technology and e-learning access. Teachers across the district collaborate and participate in professional development in and out of the school day. The goal is to construct a pipeline of K-12 learning that leads to college and career readiness for all students.
"For our students to succeed they must be productive workers and informed citizens," Yohey said. "Implementing this innovative program and joining Asia Society's ISSN will enable us to build a strong system of learning that results in all of our students graduating with the necessary knowledge, abilities and opportunities to thrive in a global society."
Oak Hills to seek all-day kindergarten waiver for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014
Oak Hills Local School District officials will apply for a two-year waiver to the all-day, every-day kindergarten mandate. The application will be submitted to the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) for consideration.
The district is seeking the waiver because implementation in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 will present a hardship. The board of education approved a resolution authorizing the application at the January 10 meeting. The ODE previously approved a request for this school year.
The mandate, part of HB 1, took effect for Ohio school districts beginning with the current school year.
"The implementation of all-day, every-day kindergarten would create a financial hardship for the Oak Hills Local School District., said Todd Yohey, Superintendent of Schools. "We would need to significantly increase our elementary teaching staff and create classroom space via renovation or new construction. At a time when school district budgets are tight and a cut in state funding is looming, it would be irresponsible for us to increase our expenditures by adding all-day, every-day kindergarten."
Website to Help Students Learn to Type
Typing Pal School Edition is the best tool available to teach students
at all levels 
how to type. It has been carefully designed to meet the needs of students, teachers and network administrators alike.
To learn more, click here for details:
http://school.typingpal.com/?OAKHDELS
Help us Find a Child
The Oak Hills Local School District conducts a Child
Find Service pursuant to state and federal law. This service is designed
to locate special needs students, including homeless students and wards
of the state, who are not in school or who, if in school, are not receiving
special education services.
These students range in age from birth through 21 years and are determined
to have a cognitive disability, emotional disturbance, autism, traumatic
brain injury, specific learning disability, multiple disabilities, or
impairments in hearing (including deafness), speech or language, visual
(including blindness), orthopedic, and in other health.
To refer a child for special services, or for more information, call
(513) 598-2945.