Oak Knoll’s Hope Memorial Library in the Upper School and the Bonaventura Hall Library in the Lower School offer a spectacular selection of reading and resources for students. Upper School Librarian Elinor Takenaga and Lower School Librarian Betty Castello are experts at pointing students toward age-appropriate casual reading and material that supports classroom projects. In addition to tens of thousands of books, online academic research databases, magazines, and newspapers ensure our students can turbo-charge their passion for learning and their pure enjoyment of the written word.

Just a few weeks before the close of school, Takenaga spearheaded a series of field trips to the local Summit library so that students could receive their public library card and tour the facility to investigate its resources. They discovered that many local libraries now go way beyond offering written resources that students and their families can use over the summer for recreation, college planning, passion projects, and much more. Open the doors to your local library, and you may discover some quirky and welcome surprises.

In a guest opinion essay for the New York Times entitled “What Most American Schools Do Wrong.” Dr. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, writes, “Most parents see the benefit of keeping their kids with the same coaches in sports and music for more than a year. Yet the American education system fails to do this with teachers, the most important coaches of all.”

Though the American education system is failing to reap the benefits of “looping” — allowing teachers of core subjects to work with the same student for two or more years —  Oak Knoll is ahead of the curve. Looping is a crucial element in all aspects of our Lower School schedule from grades one to six.

With warm weather on the horizon, the popping sound of pickleballs will soon return to our neighborhoods. As an avid fan of pickleball and skills-based learning, I often think about the life skills acquired in pickleball. Combine this with my position as a history teacher, and my mind wanders to the question, can pickleball save democracy? I know it sounds like a stretch but stick with me on this for a bit.

Oak Knoll student Cora Laborde ’25 said, “I think books are knowledge, but also vessels of personal experience and culture that can invoke empathy, which is crucial when embracing diversity and inclusion.” With that in mind, she has curated a short list of great books celebrating Black History Month.

Here are Laborde’s top five picks and her own words on why they were most appealing.

Perhaps it’s 8:30 p.m., and your preferred method of emergency notification buzzes to inform you that your child’s school will be closed tomorrow due to inclement weather. Alternatively, the notification alerts you to a late start or early departure the following day. 

Snow day decisions bring glee and unexpected freedom to even the most dedicated students. Still, on the part of many parents, they bring anxiety over last-minute schedule changes, not to mention second-guessing whether the school has made the right call and whether other schools in the area are making the same decision.

While the decision to interrupt in-person school due to inclement weather is challenging for all school administrators, it is especially complicated at an independent school due to various unique considerations. Four distinct characteristics of independent schools make them particularly cautious regarding impending weather.

Enjoy some cozy downtime with your youngster during this Holiday Season with any of these “Jingle Book” recommendations from Lower School Librarian Betty Castello. Let them form the basis of new bedtime traditions this year and for years to come. They can also make excellent Christmas gifts or stocking stuffers for the young ones in your life. 

One of the things that I have loved most about my twenty-five years in independent school admissions is watching new students and their families fall in love with their new school. Of course, families and applicants do their research beforehand, talk to current families, and ask many questions to get to know and trust a school throughout the admission process before ever deciding to enroll. More often, though, their experience as a member of their new school inevitably turns out to be even better than they ever could have imagined!

For almost a decade, Oak Knoll has published a Christmas Tech Guide capitalizing on the expertise of our Lower School Technology Integrator to recommend educational technology gifts for young people. This year, as a slight twist on the concept, we are providing a list of seven nonprofit organizations that work to provide educational technology tools, resources, and training to women in technology, older people, and students who are across the digital divide. Perhaps this list will inspire some of us to donate this holiday season to one of these non-profits in honor of someone we love and in place of a Christmas present.

Those who struggle with Executive Functioning can often face challenges with activation (getting started on a project), focus (avoiding distraction), effort (following through on tasks), emotion (self-control and self-regulation), and action (monitoring progress and staying on track).

In a webinar for parents entitled “Executive Functioning 101,” Oak Knoll Upper School Academic Support Counselor Kelly Ross explained, “Executive Functioning is critical for social behaviors, emotional well-being, and goal-directed behaviors.” She stressed that under-developed executive functioning skills are not a character flaw, but a neurological issue, that can affect social emotional skills across the board, but can be improved through targeted assistance.

Though Ross works with Upper School students at Oak Knoll to recognize areas for improvement and assist them in honing their executive functioning capabilities, she offers this advice to all parents on how they can support executive functioning skill development at home.

Oak Knoll is an environment that nurtures each child's growth, not just academically but in all facets of life. We firmly believe in the idea of "actions, not words," a philosophy that encourages students to embrace new experiences, venture out of their comfort zones, and not fear failure.