Live Where You Learn

Cross Country Running Strong

Posted on October 7, 2016 //

Cross Country Runners Headed to League Finals

November 2 – Twenty three cross country runners from the Upper Campus are traveling to Midland School today to take part in the Condor League championship race. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams have been training since the start of the school year for the league final, and many of the runners have been logging their best training and racing times in recent weeks. The league final will feature nearly 100 runners on the boys’ side, and about 50 running in the girls’ race. “A lot of these runners are peaking at just the right time,” coach Fred Alvarez said. “I’m expecting all of my runners to have a good day out on the course.” Stay tuned for results!

Falls Sports Heat Up

Posted on October 5, 2016 //

September 30 – The OVS middle and high school fall sports season began this past week with our soccer, volleyball, and cross country teams competing against other schools in the region.

At Lower, the middle school boys’ soccer team opened the season with a win over Santa Barbara Middle School 3-1. Eighth-grader Henry Fisher scored all three OVS goals and earned a celebratory ice bath after the game. The girls’ volleyball team also won 3-1 against SBMS, led by strong performances by Grace McHale and Sophia Valenzuela. The girls lost 0-2 against St. Raphael School, but are showing great potential as their skills develop. There are six more games this season following the fall camping trips. All future games start at 4:00 p.m. Please check the schedule for details.

At Upper, the high school girls traveled to Oak Grove for their first volleyball match of the season. The JV team won in 2 sets and varsity won in 3 sets. Meanwhile, the boys’ cross country team traveled to Cate School for a meet on September 28. They were joined by solo runner Gilim Bae, a member of last year’s CIF qualifying girls’ cross country team, who placed 19th in the field of 61 girls on the Cate’s three-mile course. The boys, led by juniors Jacob Tadlock (L14) and Erick Liang, show strong potential and are running hard in preparation for a tough fall schedule. The Spuds host the opening Condor League meet on Wednesday, October 5, at 3 p.m. on the always-tough Pi course at Upper Campus.

Welcome Summer Campers

Posted on July 7, 2016 //

Ojai Valley School offers a fun and enriching summer experience for day and resident campers, ages 8-16, at our two beautiful campuses in Ojai, California. OVS opened its 2016 summer camp on June 26 and the fun continues until the first week of August. Our flexible schedule allows campers to enroll for 2, 4, or 6-week sessions. Learn more about our offerings on our summer website at http://summer.ovs-archive.ihwy.com.

Check out the first week of photos in our media gallery.

Golf Season in Full Swing

Posted on April 25, 2016 //

The golf season is off to a great start and the OVS team has had an array of exciting matches. With the Condor League schools not all having golf teams, OVS has had to schedule matches with schools from outside the league, including schools with more than 2,000 students.

Currently, with a record of 5 wins and 4 losses, the team is being lead by a strong core of seniors. Davis Smith (L12) is holding the number one spot closely followed by Harris Tsui at the number two position. Seniors Adam Zhao, Mark Chen (L12), Minwoo Sohn and underclassmen Jeff Ding, Kase Skillern (L14), and Kaden Skillern (L15) all have contributed scores in competition.

Wins over Nordhoff High School and Villanova Prep make OVS the top team in the Ojai Valley. The remaining match should be exciting as we face Rio Mesa High School on April 25. OVS lost to Rio Mesa by only by one stroke earlier in the season.

Sixth-Grade Explorations

Posted on September 10, 2015 //

September — If you’re looking for a definition of experiential education, look no further than the sixth grade science classroom at Ojai Valley School. We take integrated hands-on learning to a higher level by leading students on an exploration of the local watershed, which began this week as the sixth-graders ventured to Reyes Peak on a rainy morning to see first-hand how water enters our local environment.

“The whole valley is our classroom — and our playground,” sixth-grade science teacher Dustin Vail told parents at Back to School night. Indeed, the watershed project supplements the earth science curriculum as students participate in numerous field trips to the Los Padres National Forest, Matilija Dam, Ventura River, Friends Ranch citrus packinghouse, local wastewater treatment plant, and more.

The watershed study is complimented by the language arts reading list, which includes the Newbury Award-winning young adult novel “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. Under the guidance of Vail and teachers Ryan Lang and Vanessa Herrera, the students practiced survival techniques they learned while reading the story of thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson who faces life or death in the Northern Wilderness.

This blend of earth science, literature, history, and outdoor education all combine into an integrated exploration of the environment as part of the sixth-grade curriculum.

Theme Week On Lower Campus

Posted on February 19, 2015 //

OVS, Lower Campus, Theme Week, Primary, Elementary

Primary and Elementary classes celebrate the histories and cultures of countries around the world.

This week marks an annual tradition on Lower Campus- Theme Week. The Primary and Elementary grades turn their classrooms and curriculum into an international smorgasbord learning about the histories and cultures of different countries around the world.

The first grade classroom takes the students to the other side of the Pacific to Japan. The second graders are immersed in Mexican culture while third and fourth are representing Russia and France. These youngsters may not be ready to travel abroad on a field trip, but soon enough they’ll be able to follow in the footsteps of their senior schoolmates and have the opportunity to travel to exciting new destinations around the world.

As the Primary and Elementary classes turned the Lower Campus into an international melting pot, the Middle School has been preparing for an international adventure to Costa Rica. Keeping in the style of OVS this isn’t completely a tourist destination for the students onboard but it will be filled with life changing community service experience geared at teaching how easy it is to help our global neighbors.

OVS Presents Into The Woods

Posted on February 18, 2015 //

Our high school students stepped into the spotlight this week and gave our community three tremendous performances of the Tony Award-winning musical “Into the Woods.” It was a powerhouse ensemble cast that demonstrated the talented vocals of seniors Nicole Kang (L11) and Amy Xu (L11) as the Witch and Rapunzel, and showed the deep talent pool of our younger students, including sophomore Lauren Rothman as Cinderella, junior Savannah Moler as the Baker’s Wife, sophomore Gavin Floyd (L13) as the Baker, freshmen Leila Giannetti (L14) as Red Riding Hood and freshmen Liam Castagna as Jack.

Hopefully our younger children weren’t frightened by senior Connor Floyd’s portrayal of the evil Wolf, which thankfully was balanced with his performance as the pompous Prince Charming. Freshman Jacob Tadlock (L14), whose comedic timing we’ve enjoyed in previous performances at Lower Campus, showed his whimsical touch yet again as the Granny and the other charming Prince.

Congratulations to the entire cast and crew, which included more than 40 students and 16 teachers, dorm parents, staff, alumni and former faculty members. Special thanks to John and Lisa Boyd, who for 29 years have guided and inspired OVS students to find their voices on and off stage.

This Month At OVS

Posted on February 9, 2015 //

Peace, Love & OVS

OVS Makes Music History In Lennon Bus

Feb. 11, 2015 – The John Lennon Tour Bus made a stop at OVS Lower Campus this morning as part of its national tour. The Lennon Bus found OVS with the help of the maverick primary teacher and veteran OVS staffer, Dana DeYoung. When she’s not on campus leading a line of OVS’ youngest students like a mother hen, she out in the world indulging her own creativity and looking for new and exciting educational experiences for her students and the entire OVS community.

DeYoung has been on a mission to bring STEM curriculum to the PK-1 classrooms. Once she succeeded she moved on to her next challenge- how to incorporate the arts into STEM curriculum. With a little music, performance and the visual arts she’s turned yesterday’s STEM into tomorrow’s STEAM curriculum. This initiative is still a work in progress, but the odds are in her favor and she’s rapidly moving towards another success.

The Lennon Bus happened by chance. DeYoung and the Lennon Bus both happened to be in attendance of the 2015 NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA. One short waiting line later Dana was determined to see the Lennon Bus pull up in the OVS student drop-off turn around. Little did she know it was going to happen sooner than expected. There was an open date in the tour schedule bringing them to OVS in nearly two weeks time. But she pulled it off. And she pulled off a giant human peace sign in the Hermes Quad of Lower Campus this morning at 7:45a.m.

The Lennon Bus is a gift wade possible by the generosity of Yoko Ono Lennon and numerous donors with the goal of spreading inspiration, opportunities and possibilities to the youth of the world. One bus tours the United States as another bus tours Europe, meanwhile the rest of the world can tune into lennonbus.org for information, live streaming video, a virtual tour of the bus and more.

The Bus didn’t come to OVS just to plug into the electricity and grab a heart meal in the cafeteria, they set up shop for the day to work with the Lower Campus garage band. In one day the Lennon Bus staff are going to show the up-and-coming musicians how a song is written, recorded and turned into a music video. The whole Lower Campus is excited to see and experience the next trick DeYoung pulls out of her hat. Thank you Dana DeYoung for making music history happen at OVS!

Also, This Month At OVS…

We’re only one month into 2015 and the OVS Upper and Lower calendars are packed with exciting extra curricular activities, excursions and sporting events.

Both campuses are preparing for the end of the Winter sports season and are looking forward to the warmer weather of the Spring sports lineup. IF you haven’t been to an OVS sporting event this season, you still have time to show your support to the JV and Varsity teams. Please click on the link below to see the calendar for the remaining Winter sports schedule.

The Ojai Youth Sinfonia, Orchestra and Strings continue to rehearse in the Greenberg Activity Center on Mondays in preparation of their Spring concert series. In other performing arts news, Lower Campus students will be attending a performance of Stomp on Wednesday Feb. 11, in Thousand Oaks. And the Upper Campus will perform Into The Woods on Feb. 19 & 20, at 7:00 p.m., with a Fri. matinee at 2:00 p.m. for the Lower Campus.

For more information and events please click on this link to see the OVS calendars.

Winter Sports

Posted on February 9, 2015 //

Upper Campus Winter Sports Season Comes To A Close

This past week the girls’ soccer team played local rival Oak Grove. The girls gave it their all but this game sadly marked another loss on the score sheet.

Meanwhile, the boys played Thacher this week in a friendly match that put both teams’ up and coming players on the field for most of the game. Thacher was represented mostly by first year players and OVS featured a mix of starters and bench players.

Some highlights of the game include some first goals for the OVS team made by Gavin Floyd, Kase Skillern and Shawn Harvey.

On the court, the girls made a huge victory this week against Garden Street with Marcella Peek scoring 17 out of 31 points that won the game for OVS.

Happy New Year, China!

Posted on February 9, 2015 //