Oak Grove News
Weekly Update ~ April 20, 2015
Oak Grove School Education Foundation
The Oak Grove School Education Foundation (OGSEF) supports our teachers as they create engaging, empowering and inspiring new educational possibilities for our future leaders – our children!
Save the Date – The Grove Gala 2016!
Our biennial Spring Gala will take place on Saturday, February 27, 2016 at Independence Grove. Mark your calendars and look for more information on tickets in the fall. This is a party you will not want to miss!
Recent Grant: Daily 5 Professional Development
The Daily 5 is an organized system to help students gain the skills to become independent in their literacy development through daily activities: Read to Self, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Read to Someone. OGSEF provided support to enable our Kindergarten teachers to attend a professional development conference to learn how to take the next steps in Daily 5 and work with students individually and in small groups to address specific needs in reading development.
Giving Tree
The Oak Grove School Foundation would like you to consider purchasing a leaf in honor of your graduate or your family on the Giving Tree located in the Junior High lobby. This leaf will make a great memento for your child, and mark your child’s place at Oak Grove School.
We will be able to engrave your graduates’ leaves and them mounted in time for graduation, if we receive your order by Thursday, April 30, 2015.
To order a leaf for your graduate, please CLICK HERE or go to our website at http://www.OGSEF.org and click DONATE NOW! – you can select Giving Tree from the drop down menu and it will take you to the order form.
AmazonSmile
Mother’s Day & Father’s Day is Around the Corner - Support Oak Grove School through your online shopping. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to OGSEF! To shop at AmazonSmile simply go to smile.amazon.com from the web browser on your computer or mobile device (please note that AmazonSmile does not work on the Amazon mobile app). On your first visit to AmazonSmile, you need to select a charitable organization to receive donations from eligible purchases before you begin shopping. You can select the Oak Grove School Education Foundation from the list to start earning money for the school – again, at no cost to you!
OGSEF is a 501(c)3 non-for-profit organization
Summer Math Academy for Grades 3-8
For the past two summers, Lake Bluff School District has partnered with Educational Solutions Northwest and Janis Heigl to provide high quality math programming focused on improving student learning. We are pleased to announce that this summer, Oak Grove students have been given the opportunity to participate in this program as well! Specifically, math classes that will be offered are for students entering grades 3-8.
Summer Math Academy (Students entering grades 3-5)
Focus on Fractions hosted at Lake Bluff Elementary School
Summer Algebra Academy (Students entering grades 6-8)
Focus on Algebra and Pre-Algebra Skills hosted at Lake Forest High School
The cost for one student to attend is $399.00 (if registered prior to May 15, 2015). The programs begin on June 15, 2015 and run through July 9, 2015 from 8:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. with no class on Fridays. Students of all different math backgrounds are welcome and encouraged to attend. Registration and additional information about these programs is available by clicking here.
Curriculum Corner
Online Registration Changes for 2015-16
If you have a child that has been at Oak Grove longer than one school year, you’ve likely gone through our online registration system for returning students. In the past, this has involved logging in with a student number and password, going through the process of confirming or changing data, then logging out and repeating the process for any other students you have at Oak Grove, only to come back AGAIN and go through the PTO registration process.
This year, we are working hard to streamline the process. When registration opens in May, you will log into the system with any of your children’s student number and password, and the system will recognize all students in your family. You will still go through the process of confirming or modifying demographics and medical data for each student, but you will not have to log out after each student, nor will you have to log back in to get to the PTO section. At the end of registering for school and PTO, you will be given a single balance for all the children in your family that are returning to Oak Grove. Our RevTrak web store will have only one item available for you to add to your basket (called something crafty like “pay for school & PTO fees”), and it will have an open amount that you can enter yourself. You can simply enter the amount we calculate for you, and you’ll be able to pay for both school and PTO with a credit card.
The work necessary to make this happen is going on right now, and we hope to begin beta testing within the next two weeks. Registration opens on May 11.
Mobile-Friendly Website Coming to Oak Grove School
This week, search giant Google is changing the way they rank pages in order to favor those sites that are mobile-friendly. Some folks in the webpage ranking business are calling this “Mobilegeddon” as thousands of sites try to get a mobile-friendly version of their site created and hosted in time.
At Oak Grove, we don’t really care about Google rankings, but we do care about having a mobile-friendly web site. Our communication survey made it clear that lots of our parents frequently use their mobile devices to access information. This is why the Oak Grove News no longer comes to you in an 8.5 x 11 PDF, but rather as an online newsletter that conforms it’s layout to match whatever device is being used at the time.
Earlier this year, we built and tested an internally-hosted web site that would sense what type of device was loading the pages, and it would change its layout to match. While we were very happy with the look and feel, we were not happy with some of the add-on modules, specifically the search function. Rather than completely redesign the site to work on a platform that we were less-than-thrilled with, we began to explore hosting options that were a good fit for Oak Grove. The biggest issue we ran into though, was the prohibitive cost of migrating our internal web site to a new host. Thankfully, the hosting company we were most pleased with is running a promotion that will allow us to migrate our site for $1. It is our intention that we will start the 2015-16 school year with a fresh new mobile-friendly web site!
PTO News
April 20, 2015
A Message from PTO Co-Presidents Joanie Sauers and Julie Goodman:
Lunches This Week
Monday, April 20th – Fio’s
Tuesday, April 21st – Roti
Wednesday, April 22nd – Pasta
Thursday, April 23rd – Culver’s – grades K-7
Friday, April 24th – Culver’s – grade 8 only
BOGO Book Fair
The K-8 BOGO BOOK FAIR begins Tuesday, April 21st. The Elementary Library is bursting with a truly exciting selection of books. Please plan to join us during the school day or during the "Grand Event" on Thursday, April 23rd from 6-8pm. This is the "Buy one Get one Free" book fair, so don't miss out on the great deals. See the Virtual Backpack for a schedule of individual classroom visits to the fair and an order form to purchase gift certificates for teachers.
FAIR HOURS:
Tuesday, 4/21 8:15-3:30
Wednesday, 4/22 8:15-3:30
Thursday 4/23 8:15-3:30
6:00-8:00 pm
As always, all profits benefit the Elementary Library, classrooms and the PTO. Hope to see you there!!!
Market Day Pick Up
Market Day pick up is this Friday, April 24th, in the junior high cafeteria from 4:30 – 5:30.
Student Council News
Elections
Any 7th grader who thinks they may like to run for an officer’s position for their 8th grade year should start making decisions soon. Offices available to run for are: President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. A special meeting for anyone interested will be held on Wednesday, April 29th during your recess time. Please come to Mrs. Evans’s room (108) at 12:50. This will be a brief meeting and you will be given a packet for elections.
Food Collection
Keep those food donations coming! If you would like to contribute to the local food pantries, please bring in canned or boxed food to your classrooms (or homerooms for junior high students). We will collect throughout April.
School Store
Ready to shop? Ready to get some new supplies or just a fun snack? The school store will be open in the junior high cafeteria this Friday during the 5th-8th grade lunch periods. Supplies are limited.
3rd and 4th Grade Mystery Readers at Cook Library!
On Tuesday, April 21st at 6:45 pm, Ms. Waehner will be reading at the Principals Read event at Cook Library. Oak Grove is sending a 3rd and a 4th grade student to join Ms. Waehner as Mystery Readers. The students were selected from all the students who met the grade level goal for Kiss That Cow. Try to guess their identities based on the following clues:
Clue #1 - I am left handed.
Clue #2 - I love to read Harry Potter.
Clue #3 - I have visited seven countries and I am only nine years old.
Clue #1 - Soccer is my favorite sport.
Clue #2 - Swimming is my favorite activity in the summer.
Oak Grove School Board of Education
Click HERE to view Board Agenda and Minutes
Email: boe@ogschool.org
Website: www.ogschool.org
Location: 1700 S. O'Plaine Rd. Green Oaks, IL 60048
Phone: 847.367.4120