June 1 – Our youngest students in pre-Kindergarten were promoted today! And our Kindergartners graduated from the primary division. Kindergarten Graduation is a tradition at OVS, and the first in a series of special events and ceremonies that mark the end of the academic year!
Astronomy: New Course Offering
By Jaclyn Sersland (U19)
Next year, Ojai Valley School students will be shooting for the stars.
Astronomy is becoming the newest high school course offering at Ojai Valley School. Starting in September, 2019, students will have the opportunity to launch into learning about stars, planets, and galaxies.
Astronomy has been on the fence of becoming a new science course for the past couple years. It’s been a widely popular subject amongst students, especially for those who participate in the biannual Mt. Pinos trip, but the course has never taken off.
Until now.
Upper Campus Head of School Craig Floyd knew OVS needed an astronomy class when he went to Austin, Texas, to participate in a meeting that happened to include astronomy classes and an observatory. After seeing the cool things – like viewing Mars through a telescope – that were going on, Mr. Floyd decided that an astronomy course would diversify the school’s science program.
“I got to see what cool things the students in that class were doing,” Mr. Floyd said. “That inspired me to come back and push through this idea of having astronomy as a class and make it happen.”
Wondering who would teach the course next year, Mr. Floyd immediately thought Micah Sittig — current teacher of conceptual chemistry and physics — would be the perfect fit.
When Mr. Sittig was approached and asked if he’d be interested in teaching the new class, he thought it was a great idea and was immediately on board.
“I’ve always wanted to teach astronomy,” Mr. Sitting said. “Then Mr. Floyd approached me and said that a few students have come to him with idea and that’s when I agreed. I’m excited because it’s something I’ve thought about teaching all the time.”
Mr. Sittig already has some ideas for how the class will be laid out. He will teach about the history of astronomy and its major figures, the different types of telescopes, and study the universe.
“We added this course to expand our science offerings,” Mr. Floyd said. “We have the basics of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and we added Marine Science this year, so we were looking to do this to give another offer for our students, and it seems that a fair number of students have that interest.”
Stargazing is just part of the OVS outdoor education experience, including overnight excursions to Mt. Pinos and camping trips to the eastern Sierras, which offer amazing dark skies and bright stars. Photo by Corbin Muller (U20)
XC Wins League Title
By Avery Colborn (L16, U20)
November 1 – For the second time in the past four years, the OVS girls’ cross country team has been crowned Condor League champion, putting together a dominating performance at Wednesday’s final league meet.
After a long season of hard work, the OVS girls demonstrated their toughness on the flat, fast Dunn School course, earning seven of the top ten places at the league final. Each of the girls took home a Top 10 medal, and the team finished first overall, qualifying for CIF preliminaries for the second year in a row.
Freshman Paige Muller ran her best race of the season. She led the three-mile race from start to finish, setting a new personal record of 23:19 and finishing in first place overall, earning a gold medal and the title of Condor League champion. Paige is the fourth Condor League champion from Ojai Valley School in the past eight years. She was followed by teammates Bella Slosberg, Avery Colborn, Caspian Ellis, Angela Qu, Jolene Fan and Stephany Nostrant.
“Paige ran out of her mind yesterday — I’m so happy for her,” coach Fred Alvarez said. “But, this was a team effort and it has been all season. These girls have run, sweated, and worked hard for more than two months, and yesterday they got to see the results of that commitment and effort.”
The boys also rounded off their season with incredibly strong performances, with junior Corbin Muller finishing first for OVS, and 13th overall, with a time of 20:18. He was followed by sophomore Ethan Gao, freshman Danny Wang, sophomore Bob Chen and junior Sebastian Wayman-Dalo.
“Every one of these runners made me proud yesterday,” Mr. Alvarez said. “It’s hard to describe just how hard they have worked and how much improvement they have made in the past couple of months. They’ve given me their best.”
As the boys now transition into the winter sports season, the girls have one more week of training before they compete in Riverside at CIF Southern Section preliminaries on November 10.
Theme Week On Lower Campus
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.
Primary Performers
Our youngest OVS students recently performed for our oldest students at Upper Campus, taking center stage in the outdoor amphitheater. The PK and K students performed a presentation about the Chumash Indians, who are a native tribe to Ojai and this part of Ventura County.
Click the video link below to view a video news segment by senior Shelley Xu, produced for the students’ online newspaper On The Hill.
