District closing year with eye on future

On May 1, 2021

We are quickly approaching the end of the 2020-2021 school year, and we are incredibly excited to safely celebrate those important end-of-year milestones in person with our students.

Summer and 2021-2022 planning

As this school year comes to a close, we are planning for the future – and the additional supports our students might need in the areas of academics and well-being.

We’re starting by building on and expanding existing summer offerings such as our Summer Reading program for elementary students, Summer Academy for K-12 students and immediate credit recovery for high school students.

We also will have additional offerings, with a focus on well-being and core academic subjects, for students at the elementary and secondary levels. Many more details will be coming soon for families.

Construction update

As the school year ends May 27, we’ll be saying goodbye to the current Upper Arlington High School as it is decommissioned to prepare for the next phase of construction on the site.

I want to thank all the community members and alumni who came out for the final walk-through of the high school April 18. Some people drove hours just to come back to Upper Arlington and say goodbye to the building. It was amazing listening to all the stories and the memories of this very special place, and we’ll be sad to see it go.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting a virtual walk-through of the current high school building on our website, uaschools.org/facilities. We’ll also be adding a guided video tour of the new high school – which is on budget and on schedule for a grand opening in August. In addition, you can go to uaschools.org for our latest construction update video to see the progress on the new Windermere Elementary School and the Barrington Elementary School renovation project, which will all be ready for students in August.

We are looking forward to welcoming everyone inside to see all the new learning spaces, including the projects that were completed in August of 2020 – the new Greensview, Tremont and Wickliffe elementary schools, and the Barrington addition project. Look for more details this summer.

Legacy campaign update

I am thrilled to share that, thanks to the generosity of nearly 400 donors, the Upper Arlington Legacy Capital Campaign has raised $7.5 million to enhance our district’s excellence in education by completing and expanding the scope of our facilities master plan.

This fulfills a promise to the community throughout the 2017 bond-levy campaign – to privately fundraise $5 million toward construction costs to offset some of the expense to taxpayers. The additional $2.5 million supports “The Honor Project,” which goes above and beyond the bricks and mortar to support programming that directly impacts our students.

We thank all our donors for their generosity and support of our schools and the children of Upper Arlington for generations to come.

The Legacy Capital Campaign will continue to accept donations through May 7 to further this goal – go to uaschools.org/Legacy for more details.

I’d like to conclude by thanking the families, grandparents and residents of our community for your partnership and support of our students and staff over the past year. We look forward to a great end to this school year – together as Golden Bears!

Paul Imhoff is superintendent of Upper Arlington Schools. Follow him on Twitter @imhoffpual. His office provides this column to ThisWeek Upper Arlington News.