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Oak Knoll School Blog

Do You Have a Media Use Agreement at Home?

Posted by Chris Starr on Sep 29, 2023 9:10:00 AM

Technology is everywhere and has become an essential aspect of our school, home, personal, and business lives. Walk into most pre-K or kindergarten classrooms today, and you are likely to see interactive whiteboards, students utilizing iPads, robotics activities, and other tech-based learning aids and apps. By high school, students are engaging in ever more complex uses of technology to learn advanced coding, engineering, 3D modeling, and all manner of internet and artificial intelligence-based research techniques.

The proliferation of technology in education and the need to support healthy media use has prompted many schools to adopt acceptable use policies and other guidelines for supporting mental, physical, and social-emotional growth in the real world measured against the many hours students spend surfing the digital world. 

The Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Business School have joined forces to create the Digital Wellness Lab, and their “Best Practices for Digital Wellness” calls for families to mirror the work of educators by sitting down with their teens to create shared media use agreements in the home.

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Topics: technology, parenting, activities with kids, health, mental health, family, safety

How to Feel at Home in a New School Community

Posted by Chris Starr on Sep 11, 2023 10:04:44 AM

Labor Day has come and gone and school children across the country are back in class. Joining a private school at any grade level can be a social adjustment, as it can also be for new parents and guardians as they get to know a brand new community and school culture. Will I fit in? How can I get to know others in the community? How involved should I be with the school and other parents?

Fortunately, private schools like Oak Knoll offer a variety of mechanisms and activities to help new parents feel at home and a vital part of the school community. If you are joining a private school community for the first time, or switching to a new school, note the following ideas to more rapidly get involved, stay in touch, and leave a lasting impact on your new school community.

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Topics: private school, Community

Podcast: Meet the Newbies (5:49 mins)

Posted by Chris Starr on Sep 11, 2023 9:45:15 AM

Welcome back to a whole new season of the Happy Kid Project. Throughout the upcoming school year, we hope to bring you a variety of student voices so you can hear in there own words how Oak Knoll is a school that cultivates people with purpose. But seeing as school only just began, we thought we’d use this episode to introduce you to some wonderful adults that are just joining the community. We couldn’t get to them all, but here are just a few of our new faculty and staff as we came together the week before school began to get to know each other and the school during orientation and in-service days. You will find a complete list of new faculty and staff, along with their credentials, here.

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Topics: back-to-school, podcast, Community

Keeping Cool About the Return to School?

Posted by Chris Starr on Aug 24, 2023 1:12:48 PM

After weeks of summer fun, a relaxed bed-time routine, more screen time with video games or nighttime movies, and a casual approach to daily responsibilities, your child may be experiencing some anxiety about the return to school in a few weeks, or may be feeling a little less than excited about the prospect.

Experts say there are a number of ways in which parents can ease the transition back to school by using the last few weeks of summer prior to the start of class to physically and mentally prepare for the new academic year.

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Topics: back-to-school, parenting, tips, mental health, family

Why I Chose Oak Knoll

Posted by Zahra Jones '23 on May 31, 2023 12:17:50 PM
 
After my first year of middle school, I knew I needed a change. I had been feeling a variety of emotions I couldn’t put into words, but I knew I needed to switch academic environments. I was a kid who always loved to learn and was eager to enter the classroom. I wanted to be surrounded by people who felt the same way, so I asked my parents if I could look at private schools. I attended a summer camp at a private school the previous summer and really enjoyed it, especially the campus and the schedule each day, and I wanted that to become my daily routine. I looked at many private schools in surrounding towns, but my path led me to Oak Knoll. If you had told me when I was applying to private school that I would end up at Oak Knoll, I wouldn’t have believed you, but it was always meant to be my destination, and for that I am truly grateful. 
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Topics: all-girls, high school, athletics, private school, student advice, building confidence

College Counseling Roadmap: Early Advice for Navigating the Journey

Posted by Chris Starr on May 15, 2023 1:08:48 PM

A major forte at an independent school such as Oak Knoll is the bespoke nature of its college counseling program. Smaller class sizes, lower faculty to student ratios, and individualized learning allow students to be known and honored for their unique abilities and personalities. At Oak Knoll, this enables our college counseling team to tailor a highly personal approach to researching and applying to universities which is introduced to freshman and sophomore parents each year at our College Counseling Roadmap — a late Spring session for families of ninth and tenth graders that offers the following expert advice for gradually navigating school visits, applications, interviews, and acceptances.

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Topics: high school, parenting, tips, college counseling, family

Podcast: Building Momentum — Oak Knoll Track & Field Makes Its Presence Known

Posted by Chris Starr on May 11, 2023 10:25:22 AM

In the Spring of 2023, our 4x800 track and field relay team was proactively invited to compete in the historic Penn Relays — the country’s oldest and largest track and field competition. The invitation was a historic moment and further affirmation for our fleet-footed athletes. Whether it is cross country in the fall, indoor track in the winter, or track and field in the Spring, Oak Knoll is making its presence known. In this short podcast (5:12 mins), Coach Mickey Cassu and our Senior Team Captains share thoughts on why our teams are doing so well. 

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Topics: all-girls, athletics, building confidence, fitness, podcast, sports

Top Reads for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Posted by Chris Starr on May 6, 2023 3:38:59 PM

Considered the mother of multicultural literature for her groundbreaking research, Rudine Sims Bishop has said that young people need books that are mirrors (that allow them to see themselves and their own experiences), windows (that they can look through to see other worlds), and sliding glass doors (that allow them to enter other worlds.) With that in mind, Oak Knoll sophomore Amelia Pace ’25 is celebrating her Asian American roots and inviting others to see and enter into her world with a selection of books she curated to honor Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Amelia’s maternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from Japan after World War II. Later, her father, Italian American, and her mother, Japanese American, met in Tokyo, married, and settled in New Jersey. Both cultures are honored in their home, where English and Japanese are commonly communicated. 

“I’ve been a member of the Asian American Pacific Islander Society at school since seventh grade, and it’s nice to have that sort of community,” said Pace. “Recently, I was offered the opportunity to take on a leadership role, and I just thought that it’s so important to share my culture — not just for people who have similar backgrounds to me, but also for the wider community here — whether through recommending reading or making presentations when possible. Asian literature is just so fascinating, the style of writing, and I feel that it’s so important for people not of that background to be able to glimpse into the lives of these characters.”

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Topics: reading, student advice, things to do, diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage

6 Ways to Foster a Love of Reading in Children

Posted by Chris Starr on Apr 17, 2023 3:54:31 PM

According to recent research, the number of children 0-17 years of age who read for fun has dramatically dropped over the last decade. Those who said they read for pleasure “every day” or “nearly every” day have plummeted from 38% to 25%. Experts attribute this drop to a variety of factors including: the rise of technology and digital entertainment, the decline in numbers of caregivers who read aloud to their children at home, and some schools who focus on the acquisition of reading “skills” which leads to students approaching reading as work rather than fun. Oak Knoll prides itself on being a community that bucks that trend and furnishes our students with a lifelong love of reading.


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Topics: elementary school, reading, success skills, family

Podcast: Oak Knoll Presents Powerhouse Women in Sports Panel (5:49)

Posted by Chris Starr on Apr 12, 2023 11:09:35 AM

On Thursday night, April 20th at 7:00 pm a truly newsworthy event will take place in the Tisdall Hall gymnasium at Oak Knoll. In this short podcast, Kelly Childs, 7-year Oak Knoll Athletic Director, former Assistant Commissioner at the Big East Conference, and former Athletic Director for Marketing at Seton Hall University, tells us about the upcoming powerhouse women in sports panel entitled “Celebrating 50 Years of Title IX at Oak Knoll.” Register here.

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Topics: all-girls, athletics, health, wellness, fitness, podcast, sports, student athlete

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