Olentangy's Top News

Two Olentangy Shanahan Middle School (OSMS) students and teacher Frank Wilcox appeared at the Olentangy Board of Education meeting on December 8. The students discussed their Build-a-Bag program, which supplied Thanksgiving dinners for dozens of local families in need. Students filled grocery bags with non-perishable items like boxes of stuffing and cans of sweet potatoes. They also added gift cards to purchase perishable items like turkey, pie and rolls. Students collected enough food items to fill more than 100 bags and have some left over to help families during winter break.

From left to right: sixth-grade student Heather A., seventh-grade student Cerina R. and teacher Frank Wilcox.

The halls of Wyandot Run Elementary School (WRES) are filled with music this week. Second-grade students are taking part in singing recitals, third-grade students are showing off their keyboard skills and fourth-grade students are performing songs on the recorder. Participating in these events helps the children gain confidence, celebrate their musical knowledge and supports several indicators in the elementary music curriculum.

Students at Olentangy Liberty Middle School (OLMS) are making the holidays a little brighter for families in need by collecting food and toys. The pictures below show the large amount of food collected and some of the students who helped select the toys purchased with cash donations.

Scioto Ridge Elementary School (SRES) has just completed a successful clothing drive for local families in need. Student council organized the drive, which collected mittens, hats, gloves, coats and other cold-weather essentials for People in Need (PIN).

Fifth-grade members of the SRES student council with some of the items collected during their clothing drive.

Teachers and administrators from five Olentangy Schools accepted the 2010 SOAR from Battelle for Kids in November. The awards were given to just 19 schools in the state of Ohio and recognize academic progress in multiple grade levels and subjects during the 2009-10 school year.

Congratulations to the students and staff members of Olentangy High School (OHS), Olentangy Liberty High School (OLHS), Olentangy Orange High School (OOHS), Olentangy Shanahan Middle School (OSMS) and Johnnycake Corners Elementary School (JCES)!

Olentangy High School

Olentangy Liberty High School

Olentangy Orange High School

Olentangy Shanahan Middle School

Johnnycake Corners Elementary School

Second-grade students at Liberty Tree Elementary School (LTES) collected leftover Halloween candy to create sweet treats for the residents of Rebecca’s Place, a community program for women experiencing a housing crisis. The students incorporated several mathematical lessons as they weighed and sorted the candy into approximately 200 individual treat bags, which were distributed during Thanksgiving dinner.

Nine Olentangy student athletes recently signed letters of intent to participate in college athletics. Congratulations to the students pictured below!

Three Olentangy Orange High School (OOHS) students have signed to play collegiate lacrosse. Whitney D. (left) and Hana A. (center) will attend Lake Erie College. Taylor S. (right) will attend Notre Dame College.

Olentangy High School (OHS) senior Olivia Z. will play basketball at Ohio Dominican University.

Five Olentangy Liberty High School (OLHS) seniors signed letters of intent together: Dylan Y., who will play baseball at Lake Erie College; Mike F., who will play baseball at Butler University; Andrea N., who will play volleyball at Georgia State University; Lucy I., who will compete in equestrian events for Auburn University; and Brooke L., who will play lacrosse for Grand Valley State University.

The Board of Education approved the name for elementary 15 during their meeting Wednesday night.  Heritage Elementary School (HES) will honor three previous elementary schools that have operated in the nearby area since the district formed in 1953.

“Involving the community is part of Olentangy’s success story,” said Olentangy Superintendent Wade Lucas, Ed.D.  “So many of the entries tied local history to the proposal.  The name Heritage Elementary allows us to honor all of these ideas.  When you combine community input and local history into the name for a new school you are starting out with a great foundation for student achievement.”

The naming process began in early October when the district asked community residents to submit suggestions as well as any applicable historical information.  Thirty-eight proposals were submitted that provided a wide range of options.

HES is intended to honor Liberty Union, Olentangy and Shanahan elementary schools.  Each school name was used at different points in time throughout the district’s history.  When Olentangy Local Schools formed in 1953, the district housed mostly high school students.  Elementary school students received educational services from four area schools (Berlin, Hyatts, Orange and Powell).  When Liberty Union opened in 1963, it was used as a junior high school for kindergarten, seventh and eighth grade students.  The Orange school closed in 1969 bringing kindergarten through 12^th grade students to the same campus for the first time.  In 1973, the Berlin, Hyatts and Powell schools also closed and the original Olentangy High School and Liberty Union schools were connected to create a single building.  That same school has been renovated a few times over the years and is known today as Olentangy Shanahan Middle School (OSMS).

Olentangy and Shanahan Elementary School are names the district has used multiple times for specific areas within OSMS that housed students who were in an overflow situation.  When HES opens next year, it will be home to many kindergarten students as well as some overflow students from other elementary schools throughout the district.  The attendance boundaries of the district’s 14 existing schools will not be adjusted for the 2011-12 school year.

In addition, Olentangy recently announced that Glen Oak Elementary School (GOES) Principal Susan Staum will serve as the principal for HES.  Staum opened GOES in 2005 as an overflow school and will draw on that previous experience as she opens HES.  Olentangy’s 15^th elementary school is located in Lewis Center between Olentangy High School and OSMS.

The Olentangy Board of Education today officially approved the logo for Olentangy Berkshire Middle School (OBMS), which will open in August of 2011. The logo was inspired by artwork from Olentangy Orange Middle School (OOMS) student Prabhat K. and incorporates a lantern and the letters O and B.

The OBMS mascot is the Sentinels, which is defined as someone who keeps watch or watches over something. The mascot was selected from a pool of community suggestions and references the area’s significance to the Underground Railroad and the military history of Colonel Moses Byxbe, who named Berkshire Township after his hometown of Berkshire, Massachusetts.  Prabhat told the Board that he chose to incorporate a lantern into his design because it would have been used by sentinels during the war and by those helping people escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

Third-grade students at Olentangy Meadows Elementary School (OMES) are creating care packages for soldiers serving in Afghanistan. The project was inspired by the deployment of Keegan Brintlinger, the son of an OMES teacher. The care packages will include personal hygiene items, snacks and hand-written letters from the students. Participating in service projects like this supports the social studies curriculum benchmark of taking part in civic life to promote a common good.