I would like to welcome everyone back as we are about to begin the 2010-11 school year on Monday, Aug. 23.

Our administrators and teachers have been hard at work preparing our facilities and lesson plans for what promises to be another exciting year in Dublin City Schools.

It has been a busy summer as we have completed hundreds of renovation and construction projects at our school buildings.

Four classrooms were added to both Karrer and Davis Middle Schools, and are ready for our students as we begin this school year. These classrooms will help the district indefinitely delay the construction of a fifth middle school which could cost $25-$30-million.

Other major projects this summer included the renovation of the Indian Run Elementary School restrooms, Coffman office reconfiguration, Scioto weight room expansion, and asphalt repair and concrete work at several buildings.  The construction of four additional classrooms each, at Wyandot, Thomas, and Wright Elementary Schools will begin later this month and are expected to be ready for students with the beginning of the 2011-12 school year.

Upgrading the security at all of our facilities continues to be a high priority as identified by the district’s Safety and Security Committee in 2007. The reconfiguring of building entrances to prevent unauthorized access during the school day was completed last summer. This past summer we have installed additional security cameras and will soon be moving to a more secure building entrance system for employees.

One other important change for parents to be aware of this school year, is the State of Ohio has mandated we have only THREE calamity days in 2010-11. This means if we miss more than three days of school due to inclement weather, we will have to make up day four, day five, and so on. Our contingency days are listed on our school calendar as May 31 through June 6. Please make a note of this change to calamity days as you work on your personal calendars.

We are welcoming three new principals to our district family this year. Garilee Ogden, Principal at Bailey Elementary, Scott Zeoli, Principal at Chapman Elementary, and Donis Toler, Principal at Scioto High School. I am excited these highly qualified principals are part of our team.

I would encourage you to subscribe to the district’s free email news updates by visiting www.dublinschools.net. Parents and community members can receive email news updates from the district, individual school buildings, middle school teams, and select departments via this service. Just visit our web site to subscribe. *Please note that if you subscribed last year, you do not need to re-subscribe.

Additionally, we will again be utilizing our automated calling system to contact parents in case of emergency or in cases of school delays and closures. All parents begin the school year in the system. If you wish to add additional phone numbers to your account, call 1-800-846-4976 and follow the prompts to receive your account information including your PIN number. This call must be made from your primary number the district has on file. Once you have received your PIN number, then you can access the system online at www.prek12notification.com to manage your account.

In closing, please take a moment to visit www.dublinschools.net and examine the district’s new Community Education program. The program, led by retired Coffman teacher Mary Ann Grimes offers a wide variety of educational and fun programs for everyone from young children to senior citizens. We are proud to invite members of our community into our facilities to benefit from some of the expertise we have on our teaching and support staffs.

If you have any questions about any of the above information, or about anything pertaining to Dublin City Schools, please call our Office of Public Information at 764-5913 or email info.@dublinschools.net.