The temperatures are cooler, there's snow on the ground, the holidays are behind us and you're thinking you missed out on applying to private school, right? WRONG! The reality is that families search for schools all year ’round. In the fall, some families find themselves so busy getting adjusted to new schedules and routines that it is often hard to find the time to look for schools. Families may begin eying their top choices at that time, but may wait until the winter — or even later — to actually make a decision. That can sometimes be to your benefit, as you take time to consider all options, but be careful to review the individual schools’ admissions processes and application deadlines well in advance because they are all different!

To help you on your way, be sure to review our list of the top things every family should know before applying to private school to ensure you don't miss a beat during the next admissions season.

By the time October rolls around with several weeks of school now behind families, children have (hopefully) settled into their school year. Homerooms, schedules, routines, and friendship groups by now have been established.

With many children now back to school in-person after months of learning virtually at home, they’re now back in classrooms near others who might be different from them – different races, sexualities, religions, weight, heights – and these differences may lead to bullying. 

October is National Bullying Prevention Month and was first initiated in 2006 by PACER, the Minnesota parent training and information center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Program.

Although it started as National Bullying Prevention and Awareness Week during the first week of October, the campaign expanded to cover the full month now unifying communities nationwide to educate and raise awareness of bullying prevention. 

While your child’s school most likely will discuss anti-bullying with students, parents, too, play an important and vital role towards eradicating bullying. 

Oak Knoll’s Upper School offers a wide variety of classes for grades 7-12. From Darkroom Photography to HO Psychology, AP Latin to HO Engineering, the opportunities are limitless. As a student, I’ve enjoyed getting to explore these options and challenge myself academically. However, some of my most memorable experiences have been taking those OKS courses that are on the rather quirky side.

Summertime is here and children have been trading in their class time for pool time as schools around the country are on hiatus until late August/early September. 

Families have started to enjoy day trips, limited schedules, vacations, quality time together, and plenty of outdoor fresh air. However, although children would probably much prefer to shelve their books and ignore practicing those basic math facts – they shouldn’t, especially after this unusual pandemic school year. 

Each fall, teachers wrestle with the inevitable “summer slide” – or summer learning loss where studies show there is significant knowledge loss in reading and math over summer break if children don’t practice these skills each day. 

Thanks to COVID, learning declines throughout last year were very real for many children. However, it’s not all bad news!  Kelly Ross, Oak Knoll's Academic Support Counselor, offers several ways families can help children combat the COVID slide – the gaps of academic growth and lowered expectations due to the learning disruptions from the 2020-21 school year.

Entering a new school in second grade was nerve-wracking — an experience that I’m sure a lot of new students can relate to. How long would I last here? Who would I make friends with? Little did I know that, at Oak Knoll, these questions would be the least of my worries and I’d actually be preparing myself for some amazing memories. As I now write this as a graduating senior, I want to share some of the lessons I learned along the way. Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the best 10 years of my life.

In episode 10 of the Academically Speaking podcast, Laura Perillo — Oak Knoll's Marketing Content Strategist — sat down with Dr. Jennifer Butler-Sweeney, Upper School psychologist, who talks about tactics parents can use to address the social and emotional impact of COVID-19 on middle and high school students. This is the second in Oak Knoll's special four-part parenting series, Parenting During the Pandemic.

What would childhood be like if you’ve never put a spoon under your pillow, flushed ice cubes down the toilet or put on your pajamas inside out the night before a winter snowstorm?

A true milestone of growing up is the ever-so-coveted snow day – the gift that all children angst for each winter when that first hint of snow is detected in the forecast. 

While skipping school for the day is the most immediate and best part of a snow day for most children, there are many other hidden mental and physical health benefits associated with snow days. Considering our current pandemic situation, snow days are more important now than ever before.

While every election season brings us hot-button issues, the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election specifically focused on the economy, health care, the global COVID-19 pandemic, race and ethnic inequality, Supreme Court appointments and more. While it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and social media craze, it’s essential that families take a deep breath, step back and find the silver linings from election 2020 to help our children understand the significance.

Perhaps one of the most important silver linings is that there are many lessons that girls can learn about from these last few months from Election Day 2020 through this week’s Inauguration Day. 

With the New Year here (finally!) and school back underway after the holidays, the toggle between children learning in-person (full or half-day) to learning virtually from home can be stressful and confusing for families. 

While we’d all like to get back to pre-COVID days, unfortunately, the virus is still hanging around. As a result, it has caused many schools to pivot back-and-forth between teaching children in the classroom and virtually at home with little notice. 

With the school juggle this year still very volatile, we have some helpful tips for families to help ease your children into this new way of learning.

With the rising pressure to succeed felt amongst students today, it’s no wonder that receiving a lower grade than expected may leave many students feeling anxious and defeated.  

It’s not the end of the world, however, when the grade on top of your quiz or test isn’t what you had hoped for. There are several different strategies and steps to follow that may help you navigate the process after earning an undesirable grade.