I hope everyone has had a wonderful week and gets plenty of rest this weekend. We had a very busy week at Oyster Adams this past week and would like to share some of the great work that was done at our school and some of the highlights. This past week we hosted school level administrators and central office executive staff from Desert Sands unified school district in southern California. They were amazed at the level of ownership our students had of their own learning, the level of bilingualism our children displayed and the level of planning on our teacher’s part that was evident during our visits to the various classes at the Adams campus. Shout out to the teachers we visited this past week for their level of planning and always doing the right things for our students.

This past week a group of 7th grade students traveled to the Oyster campus with Mr. Burch to interview Mr. Earl WIlliams. Mr. WIlliams is the first Black students in the 1950s after desegregation of schools to complete all grades at Oyster and be promoted to middle school. The students were very well prepared and asked amazing questions to Mr. WIlliams. He was quite impressed and proud to be an Oyster alumnus. We look forward to maintaining our relationship with Mr. WIlliams and including his story in the “Story of our School”.

On April 8th Washington, DC will be experiencing the largest partial eclipse in recent history. The eclipse is believed to be visible between the hours of 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm, with the climax happening around 3:20 pm. As a result, teachers have secured safety glasses that will allow students to view the eclipse safely. There are viewing parties scheduled for the end of the day at both campuses. We are asking families to join and help support students as they watch the eclipse from school at the end of the day. Teachers will be with students till 3:30, but at that time students will be dismissed and should be under parent/guardian’s supervision if they are to remain at the school.

Beginning on Monday, buses traveling from the Meyers campus to either Marie Reed or Oyster Campus will be loaded and departing from the back of the school at Meyers. The rational is there have been many students in front of the school playing ball and running around and having the students all congregate in a more controlled environment creates a safer space for our students. If you are picking up your child from Meyers or if your child walks home from Meyers, then they will continue to be dismissed out the front of the building and not experience any changes to their dismissal.

We have a couple international trips coming up soon. We are sending 25 Middle School students to Granada, Spain on April 2nd and there are 40 Middle School students scheduled to depart to Tawain on April 19th. Let’s wish them a safe trip and maintain them in our thoughts as they travel and return safely. Thanks to the staff who will be away from their families to provide our students with this experience and for their support of these trips and all the behind-the-scenes work that went into planning these trips.

This past week the admin team and teachers on the Instructional Leadership team met to reflect on our instructional journey this year and measure our progress towards our comprehensive school goals. We discovered that we are on track to meet all of our goals and in some cases, we have met our end of the year goals at the halfway point of this school year. Congrats team.

Emilia C. in the 7th grade competed at the DCPS school wide Spelling Bee and placed in the top ten of all the students in DC. We are super proud of her accomplishment and look forward to her continued success. If you see her or any members of her family, please congratulate her on this endeavor.

Wishing you all a great rest of the week.