A Great Year at OLL School

Principal Rita Kingsbury enjoys engaging with students at Our Lady of the Lake School

As we come to the end of our school year, it is good to pause for a moment and take a look back.  Because our schools are so important to the life of our families and our community, we would like to share some of our accomplishments, keeping in mind that they are the result of many dedicated people working together.  We are truly blessed at Our Lady of the Lake and we are thankful that at the heart of all that we do and fundamental to all of the programs, discussions and activities, is the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.  The kingdom of God is here and now and we pray and work very hard to make that a reality in our school.

We began a service learning program this year, with a teacher dedicated to its success.  This program has allowed our students to learn about the needs in our community and in our world and figure out ways to not only serve now, but to think about the future and ways to accomplish systemic change. 

We also started a preschool program.  We were blessed with seventeen preschoolers and it has been such a pleasure to see them learn and grow in our nurturing environment under the direction of Mrs. Heather Mrozek. They have access to all our school facilities, including our library, gym, and computer lab, which gives these early learners a wonderful first experience of the school environment. Mrs. Mrozek can often be heard leading her charges down the hall in song.  They will be walking down our street soon and sharing an end of the year picnic and party at the beach.  As you can imagine, they are very excited!

We were also excited to add a foreign language this year.  Our seventh and eighth graders have a daily Spanish class.   Having a class every day in a language, allows for much greater understanding and mastery.  We also purchased a subscription to Rosetta Stone language learning curriculum this year for our younger students, to give them language exposure in the early grades as well.

We are proud of our technological advances here at school, including the addition of more than 100 Chromebooks. The Chromebooks themselves are a wonderful tool, but the really exciting piece is the addition of Google Apps for Education with so many wonderful options.  Our seventh and eighth grade teachers have all set-up Google classrooms.  Our students can access their classroom wherever they are, and parents also have access to their child’s classroom, where they can check assignments, progress, etc. 

We had already invested in smart boards and a state of the art computer lab, but this year we were very happy to have added another set of thirty iPads, with thirty more coming next year.  Our distance learning lab will also be up and running for the beginning of our next school year.  We are excited to be partnering with the Cleveland Museum of Art and other local and global institutions to bring unique and innovative programming to our students from around the world.

At Our Lady of the Lake School, know that our children are multi-faceted.  We believe in educating the total child, and know the importance of developing each student's physical, mental and social skills.  Each of our children is unique and gifted, and we are honored to have been part of their growth this year.