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By Jim Uphoff, Ed. D.
I am asking you to join me as we begin another school year tomorrow by taking a few moments to celebrate our district’s teachers. Too often our society fails to acknowledge the importance of teachers to our children and culture. Clearly the super success of the children of Oakwood is in part due to the fine work and attitude of our professional educators.
Many non-educators have no knowledge of how much time teachers spend throughout their “theoretical summer vacation” actually working on curriculum development, instructional planning, and ways to improve the success of their students. Right here in Oakwood our teachers worked hundreds of hours on various school projects designed to strengthen the achievements of our pupils. Such use of their time does not usually qualify under the typical definition of ‘vacation!’
Another factor that few non-educators understand is how much teachers spend of their own personal money on behalf of the children they teach. Teachers buy many supplies, additional learning tools, more books for their room library, small reward items to give to students in recognition of pupil successes, and room decorations to help provide a more motivational learning atmosphere. National research studies have found these individual expenditures by teachers to reach several hundred dollars per year on average. Thank you teachers for this most tangible demonstration of your commitment to our children.
Within the next few weeks, every Oakwood school building will be having its annual Open House event. Parents, especially, will be asked to come to the school to meet the teachers of their children, learn about the expectations for this room and this new year, and begin the partnership building with the teacher. I cannot stress enough how important these events are as they become the foundation for this mutual effort of home and school to provide the best for the children.
I urge every parent, not just the mothers, but also the fathers, to attend their own School Open House. I can think of no better way for the parents to extend their thanks to the teachers and to celebrate the very key role that our teachers play in our system of education.
By Dolores Winkler
Adventure, very “un-Oakwood” living conditions, exotic venues and eye-opening experiences of the world make up the career Steve Wilger, a 1988 graduate of Oakwood High School. Wilger, the son of Jim and Ann Wilger of Oakwood Avenue. is a member of the United States Foreign Service. Since joining the Service in 2002, he has had two assignments, the first in Bangladesh and the second, just completed, in South Africa.
On Friday, Aug. 11, Wilger shared his experiences there with the Oakwood Rotary Club at their regular meeting at Dayton County Club, providing an overview of the country’s history, politics and economic condition.
The continent of Africa is huge, Wilger said, so large that the United States, South America, Europe and India could be placed inside its boundaries, with space left over. Of this vast continent, the Union of South Africa takes up a mere .04 percent.
The country exhibits troubling contradictions. It possesses abundant natural resources, including platinum, gold and diamonds (over 60 percent of the worlds diamonds are mined in South Africa), yet over 50 percent of the population live in dire poverty and the unemployment rate stands at 26-35 percent. Almost 75 percent of those in the work force are non-white, which suggests that the wealth of the country is in the hands of the very few, Wilger said.
South Africa was settled by the Dutch, who arrived and named their settlement Capetown in 1652. In 1795, the English began settling there,, causing a migration of the Dutch settlers (Boers) to the north. The Boers resisted British encroachments, but were defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902). The resulting Union of South Africa operated under a policy of apartheid, the separate development of the races, and continued until the 1990s brought an end to apartheid politically, and ushered in black majority rule.
South Africa has a very diverse population of 44.2 million people. Eleven different official languages are spoken; 9.6 percent of the population is white, the primary religion is Christian (76 percent).
Among the challenges facing the country are crime, poverty and the AIDS virus, Wilger said. “Forty percent of the population is positive for the HIV/AIDS virus,” he said. “with dire economic effects.
Though knowledge of and interaction with the citizens and governments of the country is necessary, the primary duty of the Foreign Service office is to protect United States citizens abroad, Wilger said. Problems can range from replacing lost passports to dealing with international abductions, especially children by parents. American citizens charged with various crimes, including murder, pass through the care of the Foreign Service offices. And because South Africa exerts very little control over passports, terrorist activities are of concern.
Wilger’s experience in Bangladesh, a trial of poverty and tough living conditions, was somewhat improved in South Africa where his living quarters is a small house, protected by a wall and secured by regularly-checking guards. His next two-year assignment will take him to St. Petersburg, Russia. But first he will go to Washington D. C. for eight months to learn the Russian language.
Wilger provides an amazingly concise, educated and interesting snapshot of his experiences abroad.
By Kimberly Kappler
Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for Oakwood City Schools
This is the second in a series of four articles about Oakwood’s College Connection Study. The first article, which appeared in the June 13, 2006, edition of the Oakwood Register, gave an overview of the College Connection Study and focused on 2005 survey results from Oakwood graduates attending Miami University (MU). This article focuses on 2006 survey results from Oakwood grads attending The Ohio State University (OSU).
The full report featuring detailed data from the survey is available at www.oakwoodschools.org. From this data, it appears that overall, Oakwood High School graduates attending OSU feel prepared for college academics overall, as well as for the rigors of specific content areas and skills.
 Twenty-three Oakwood graduates (of a possible 71 currently attending OSU) completed the survey (32.4 percent response rate). Of the respondents, one was a Class of 2001 graduate, five were from the Class of 2002, five were from the Class of 2003, four were from the Class of 2004, and eight were from the Class of 2005 (see pie chart.) Eighty-three percent of the respondents reported taking at least one Advanced Placement (AP) course while at Oakwood. This shows that our respondents were not an entirely representative sample of graduates. While over 50 percent of students in the most recent graduating classes from Oakwood took at least one AP course in high school, the fact that 83 percent of our respondents reported taking at least one AP course in high school shows a somewhat skewed sample. I encourage the reader to keep this in mind when considering the data reported here.
Of respondents who indicated their major, eight students (34 percent) are in the sciences/engineering, five (21 percent) are in business-related majors (business, economics, finance, marketing), five (21 percent) are in the humanities (English, philosophy, etc.), and 2 (8 percent) are in each of the following: textiles/clothing, hospitality, and other (students with double-majors were counted twice). Of the 21 respondents who identified their major, five (24 percent) noted a teacher or high school coursework as being the chief reason for selecting their major.
For the 2006 OSU survey, respondents were asked to rate their academic preparation for college using a three-point scale: Not at All Prepared, Somewhat Prepared, and Very Well Prepared. Students were also asked to note the reasoning behind their rating.
Regarding their overall academic preparation, 100 percent of MU respondents rated themselves as Well Prepared (57 percent) or Prepared (44 percent) for college, and 100 percent of OSU respondents rated themselves as being Very Well Prepared (59 percent) or Somewhat Prepared (41 percent) for college. For a more detailed review of the data, please see the full report at www.oakwoodschools.org. College Connection data are being used by the district to review our programming.
The College Connection Study is one of three initiatives to which Oakwood is committed that seek to ensure the strength of our graduates’ preparation for college. As we review and revise our high school curricula, we are aligning curricula to the College Standards for Success, a set of standards developed by professors at top research universities throughout the country. The standards outline the knowledge and skills graduates need in order to be successful in college. Our third initiate centers around an external curriculum audit of our high school curricula which will take place during the 2007-2008 school year.
For a complete report of the 2006 survey data, go towww.oakwoodschools.org. If you have any questions or are interested in additional data, please contact Kimberly Kappler at 297-7801.
2 Due to minor errors from rounding, not all data sets in this article equal 100 percent
The Oakwood Rotary Club is looking for two host families for its Rotary Exchange Student, Philipp Nikelski from Germany. Philipp will arrive this month and the first host family has been chosen and he will be staying with them the first three months.
Philipp is 16 years old and enjoys woodworking, Aikido, guitar, tennis and volleyball. He is interested in becoming an architect and has a terrific sense of humor. He will be attending Oakwood High School the entire year. For more information contact Debbie Hershey at 294-5854.
, a member of the Class of 2001 from Oakwood High School, was award a Bachelor of Science degree, Summa cum Laude, from the Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, in Accounting on June 6, 2006. He accepted a position with KPMG, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, where he now resides.
is preparing for a second tour in Iraq, starting in October 2006. He will be training Iraqi soldiers in logistics and convoy operations. He is married to the former Molly McCann. Both are members of the Class of 1998, Oakwood High School, and graduates of The Ohio State University and proud parents of a beautiful daughter, Samantha Johnston.
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