Dear Families,

On August 23, the first day of school, we welcomed over 500 students to ODCS. The mix of student excitement and faculty enthusiasm made a great beginning. What a blessing to have faculty and staff that worked through the process of change this summer and made the first day a fantastic launch for the year!

Here is an overview of some of the changes we have implemented in the last few months:

• We welcomed two new principals – Dr. Joel Torode as our first ever Middle School Principal, and Sue Torode as our new Elementary/Preschool Principal.
• We redesigned courses for High School, increasing to 7 AP courses and adding our first on-campus PSEO offering.
• We revamped our Middle School and High School Bible curriculum to make it even more relevant while maintaining a strong commitment to teach the Word of God to our students.
• We restructured the Middle School with new teachers and new room locations in addition to the many new academic offerings and the expansion of our fine arts curriculum.
• We enhanced our Middle School athletic program with the return of our middle school soccer team and including daily PE in our 5th and 6th grades.
• We adopted a new math curriculum in our K – 2 classes.
• We revised our preschool structure and curriculum, focusing more on academic skills development and targeting the completion of kindergarten standards.
• Our summer reading programs for grades 1 – 12 led to an amazing amount of reading by our students. Our 1 – 8 grade students, through the Accelerated Reader program, read 2600 books and 39 million words! For more information, please click here for our summer reading newsletter.

----

In the midst of all these changes, I want to emphasize what has not changed…our passionate commitment to the discipling and nurturing of our students in their walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Every change we have made this year was implemented with the Great Commandment in mind – “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…. Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30 – 31). Our desire is to see our students fully develop spiritually (the heart), academically (the mind), artistically (the soul), athletically (strength), and in service (love your neighbor). By growing in these ways, our students are able to love the Lord more completely and are available for His use to advance His kingdom.

In His grace,

Jonathan Burton, Ed.D.
President