Building Closures
9/1 - 9/2: Our staff is on retreat and the building is closed tomorrow and Friday.
Tuesday, 9/6: Our building is closed to families until the designated Passport Day times (see calendar for schedule).
ALICE Staff Training & School Building Safety Updates
This morning, Lt. Doug Mozan, from the Eugene Police Department, presented an ALICE training refresher course for our staff.
ALICE stands for:
Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate
.
Click HERE
to learn more about ALICE standards.
ALICE training is one of many steps O'Hara is taking to implement new safety procedures and protocols for our building. O'Hara has been working with the Eugene Police Department, along with other security vendors and advisors to make significant upgrades to our facility to enhance building security. Over the past year, updgrades include the biometric front door entry (front doors remain locked at all times, entry accessible only by those with fingerprints registered in the system), additional security cameras (total of 36), additional parking lot lighting, additional walkie-talkies for staff use and the addition of a set of interior doors designed with reinforced glass and also locked down with biometric access for staff only.
Lt. Mozan complimented our school this morning, saying we are on the cutting edge of school security. Thank you to all who so generously gave to our
Raise your Paddle appeal at the 2016 auction, making funds readily available for these projects. We will continue to meet with Lt. Mozan, who is a School Resource Officer and a certified ALICE protocol trainer, as we strive to add even more security features to our building. Safety of our students, staff & families is our first priority at O'Hara.
Lt. Mozan is a St. Mary Parishoner, and plays piano at the Sunday Evening LifeTeen Mass. If you see him, please thank him for all that he does to keep our school and community safe.
O'Hara's Front Door Schedule
With the additional set of doors added to our lobby over the summer, we want to remind our families of the front door security schedule.
Parents will be able to open the front door by using their right index finger on the fingerprint reader located on the wall next to the front doors.
(
Please note: you will only be able to open the door if you have registered your fingerprint into the system at the front office. All information from last year carries over, so returning parents do not need to re-register. New families: please stop in the office on Passport Day to complete the fingerprinting process.
)
Our daily schedule on school days will be as follows:
7:50am - 8:05am: Front Doors & Interior Security doors open for morning drop off
8:05am - 2:35pm (2:00 on Wed.): Front & Interior doors locked, access through front doors with fingerprint only; access through interior doors by front office buzzer system only.
2:35pm (2:00 on Wed.): Front doors open for afternoon release
3:15pm - 4pm: Front doors locked, access with fingerprint only
4pm - 7:50am: Front doors locked. No parent access.*
*Doors will be open for sporting events and large school functions. Those running extra-curricular activities (sports, Scouts, etc.) will have extended hours of access as necessary.
We would like to ask that you please DO NOT hold the door open for anyone that you don't recognize.
Visitors to our school that do not have fingerprint access must push a call button on the entrypad that will activate a camera in the front office. The camera displays a live video feed of the front entry, including the ability to talk to visitors, if necessary, to determine their business with the school. Our front office staff, at their discretion, will be able to remotely open the doors for visitors.
Parents who have not yet, or choose not to, input their fingerprint into the system will enter by pushing the same call button to be buzzed in.
Grandparents, nannies and other frequent visitors to the school will be permitted to add their fingerprint to the system on an as-needed basis as requested by the parent(s) of their O'Hara student. Parents, please send an email to
Barb if you have a grandparent or nanny that routinely drops off or picks up your student and you would like to request fingerprint access.
Morning Drop Off Hours
O'Hara's building is closed to parents and students until 7:50am each morning. Only students in choir, or with special case-by-case permission, will be permitted to enter the building. (Parents and siblings of those students must wait outside the building until 7:50). Students should be in their classrooms by 8:05, when the morning bell rings. We ask that all parents please exit the building promptly when the bell rings and not linger in the hallways. We ask parents of PreSchool - Kindergarten students walk their child to the classroom.
Guest Speaker at O'Hara this week!
We are excited to share with you all that we have a wonderful speaker coming the first week of school (on Thursday) to speak to the students. Her name is Meg Hunter-Kilmer, her website is:
http://www.piercedhands.com/
She will be speaking to our K-8 students for short sessions, grouped by grade level. Parents are welcome to attend the parent session from
8:30 to (approximately) 9:15.
PreK Park Update
Beginning this school year, Pre-K Park will no longer be open before or after school. The cost of wear and tear on the equipment necessitates this new restriction. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
2016-17 O'Hara Directory updates
Our school directory will go to print in the next few weeks. If you have a new address or updated contact information, please make sure to email the information to
Barb.
Passport Day
Schedule (Tuesday, Sept. 6)
New Families
:
Report to O'Hara at 1:00pm
Buddy Families: Report to O'Hara at 1:00pm
Returning Families
: Visit school between 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Family Mass: 4:15pm in the Gym
Family Picnic Dinner & Social: on the field following Mass. Families are invited & encouraged to pack a picnic dinner and stay to socialize.
*Extra info for our new families: Passport Day is a time to bring school supplies and for students to meet their teachers. Parents stay with their student(s) for the entire afternoon. Uniforms are not required on Passport Day.
O'Hara's Water Testing Results
Over the summer, O'Hara's drinking water was tested and analyzed for lead, as mandated and organized by the Archdiocese. We are happy to share with you that O'Hara's results indicate that all water samples were below the action level of 20 parts per billion as established by the EPA. There were 10 sample sites assessed in our building, the average of those results is 3.3 parts per billion.
Class Lists
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