Hello Oakers,

This is a very important message. It is with a very heavy and anxious heart that I announce a temporary return to distance learning for next week. We have just learned that two of our bus drivers have tested positive for COVID. As many of you know we have been short on drivers and with this situation our drivers will all be quarantined except for one.

If you can pick up your student this afternoon that would be very helpful. We are working on a plan to get students home this afternoon. Since we will only have one driver students who are unable to be picked up may get home later than usual.

Chromebooks will be sent home with your student today. If there are problems arrangements will be made if you contact the school.  

Tomorrow will be a day of students working on assignments online. Teachers will be calling and checking with students tomorrow and planning for distance learning for next week.

I am so sorry for this unplanned disruption to our in-person learning. The administration will be working on plans for athletics and other activities for next week. We will get information out as soon as possible.

Again there is no school transportation to and from school starting tomorrow through next week. We anticipate students returning to campus Monday, December 13.

As you may know, our Superintendent, Patti Lovemark, is retiring and we have begun the process of finding a new superintendent. Our new superintendent will begin leading our District on July 1, 2022. I know all of us have appreciated Patti’s ability to lead the Oakland School District for the past four years through some turbulent times.

Last week, the Oakland Board approved entering into a professional services agreement with the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) to coordinate our search and hiring process. As part of the initial search process effort, OSBA has developed a survey to receive feedback from staff, parents, students, and community members. Feedback received through the survey will be used to help guide the development of qualifications, skills, and experience for our new superintendent.

Our hope is for everyone in our school community to provide responses to the survey that we will use to develop the superintendent job posting. During the past three decades, OSBA has helped dozens of Oregon school districts with their search process and has a unique ability to match qualified applicants with school district needs.

The link to the OSBA superintendent search has been posted to our website and we encourage everyone to provide input to this first step in our process. The survey link will remain open until Friday, December 3rd and OSBA will present a summary of the survey results at the next regular Board meeting. Then, the job description will be written and advertising for qualified candidates will begin as soon as possible. Although the details of our entire search and hiring process have yet to be developed, we anticipate additional staff and community involvement in our process and hope to complete the entire process of finding Patti’s replacement by early April.

Thank you for helping us get our process started by completing the survey!

 The surveys will close on December 3^rd:

English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/OaklandSD2021

Spanish: https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/OaklandSD2021Spanish