Parent Communication from Oakwood School

Bret Nicely / Director of Communications

On the first day of school at our elementary campus I gave new elementary parents a walkthrough of important ways that our school communicates with parents. For those of you who weren’t there, here’s that info again. From email to websites to social media, Oakwood reaches families through many channels to inform and engage.

Emails

As Oakwood parents, you’ll receive regularly-scheduled newsletters from Principals and the Advancement Office, as well as messages sent from school leadership on an as-needed basis.

Principals’ Emails: If you are a secondary parent, you’ll receive This Week at Oakwood from William Perkins Tift every Friday afternoon. This contains a calendar of events for the upcoming week as well as important announcements. If you are an elementary parent, you’ll receive Look Ahead from Denise Ross every other Friday with calendar dates and announcements for K-6 families. Think of these newsletters as need-to-know communications that will help you to plan for upcoming events or schedule changes, and remind you of deadlines while providing contact info for the proper person to answer any questions you might have about a particular happening.
The Ape Vine: Unlike the date and deadline-focused Principals’ Emails, the Ape Vine is a bi-weekly collection of stories and looks at life around Oakwood School. These will often link to our school blog Oakwood Stories, or direct you to social media posts and other places of interest. While there might be announcements about upcoming parent events, there are more often links to photo galleries, news about notable Alums, or recaps of events that have taken place on both of our vibrant, dynamic campuses. The Ape Vine is where the Advancement Office will share ways that you can support our school.
Announcement emails: From time to time, you will receive other emails from school leadership that convey important information, such as the one pictured above when new principal Denise Ross welcomed back the elementary community. In addition, other groups within the school—such as the Parent Organization, your classroom’s Room Parents, or our Athletics Department—will contact you via email with important messages.

OakwoodConnected

Your first contact with Oakwood as a prospective parent and during the enrollment process came through our public-facing website at oakwoodschool.org. However, as parents of current Oakwood students, your online portal is now OakwoodConnected. There are two easy ways to log into OakwoodConnected from our homepage. You can either click on the word PARENTS in the top right corner of the homepage, which will take you to a login window on our website’s parent page, or you can scroll to the bottom of our homepage and click on the OakwoodConnected link.

Oakwood Connected is an online Learning Management System that allows students, families, faculty & staff to access school information in a centralized location at any time from desktop computers and mobile devices. It features a comprehensive and easy to use school calendar, community directory, and links to a range of other online resources. To learn more, download our user’s guide, or even better—log in now and take a look around.

If you have any trouble logging in or any other questions about OakwoodConnected, send us an email at webmaster@oakwoodschool.org and we’ll get back to you with guidance as soon as possible.

Oakwood Stories

Keeping an eye on everything above will be a great help in keeping track of your day to day Oakwood School experience. But for a look into the vibrant public life of the school, don’t forget to check out our blog and printed magazine Oakwood Stories.

A school year is made of countless events—milestone performances, final presentations, athletic contests, year-end culminations—and intimate occurrences, exchanges between students and teachers, families and individuals who share the common bond of being part of the Oakwood community. These things illuminate the vibrant public life of our school and embody Oakwood’s core values as set forth in our Statement of Philosophy. The goal of Oakwood Stories is to share these moments, in a variety of forms and in many voices, and to reflect the passion and purpose of life at Oakwood School.

This also extends to our social media channels, so find Oakwood School on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and give us a follow.