Head of School Update - August 2022

 

Here are a few updates before we start the new year:

 

Athletic Tickets - Starting with Friday night's football scrimmage against Lake Oconee, all athletic tickets for home events will be available on GoFan. This new service will make it easy for you to buy your tickets ahead of time. 

 

Facilities — Improvements to the fine arts annex are complete – new flooring, windows, and ceiling tiles, and fresh paint. The new playground will be installed by mid-November. We knew last spring that it would not be a quick installation due to supply chain issues, but this is a little later than we hoped. The good news is, weather permitting, students will be playing on their new playground by Thanksgiving!

 

Faculty — You may have read about unfilled teaching positions at area schools because of a teacher shortage, but it speaks volumes for our school and school culture that qualified teachers are eager to work here. All open positions at Lakeview were filled by talented new teachers weeks ago. I know you will enjoy getting to know them as much as I have.

 

After School Programs — Beginning this fall, we are pleased to offer a variety of after-school enrichment opportunities. TGA Premier Sports, which partners with several other area independent schools, will provide age-specific tennis and golf classes for our Lower School students from PreK through fifth grade. We are also excited to partner with Gainesville Ballet Company (GBC), which will offer a year-long enrichment program for our PreK and Kindergarten students. GBC’s 16-week dance course will conclude with a family recital in the spring. Finally, students in Lower School and Middle School will have the chance to learn chess and sharpen their skills with Damir Studen, a national chess master. You’ll learn more about these opportunities after the start of school.

 

Costs — You will notice that charges for several optional services are going up slightly this school year.  We are all experiencing the effects of inflation at the grocery store, gas station, and wages, and Lakeview is no exception.  You will see increased costs for transportation, lunch, and learning support.

 

Student/Parent Handbook — The handbook has been thoroughly revised and redesigned this summer to make a parent and student-friendly guide to every aspect of Lakeview life.  New families will receive a printed copy, but the handbook is easily accessible online here. 

 

Academics — There are two new high school electives available this year:  AP European History and Engineering Design Principles. The engineering course is designed to familiarize students with the engineering design process and strengthen their prototyping and design skills in respect to 2D and 3D design. Students will use the school’s 3D printers to design and prototype their own ideas. There is still time to enroll in these courses.

 

This year, the fourth and fifth grades will move to a departmentalized teaching model. This style of instruction will allow our faculty to utilize their strongest teaching gifts while our students experience a learning style that will ease their eventual transition to Middle School. Perhaps the greatest strength of this new system is that our students will benefit from daily math and ELA instructional labs, where two specialized teachers will get to work with a single class. 

 

We are also excited that this year our learning support staff will have the opportunity “push-in” to math and language arts classes in the fourth and fifth grades to provide real-time assistance in the classroom environment. The push-in sessions will be in addition to the individualized learning support students may need.

 

These are just a few of the enhancements coming this year to Lakeview Academy. To our brand-new parents and students – Welcome to Lakeview!  To those returning families we welcome you back. All of us -- teachers, staff, coaches -- are grateful for the opportunity to educate your child(ren), and we thank you for your confidence in us.

 

It’s a great year to be a Lion!

 

Sincerely,