Dear Wildcat Nation,
We want to sincerely thank our students, families, and staff for the successful return to our renovated and reclaimed Oxford High School today. The energy in our building was positive and encouraging. We had a strong return with 91% of our high school students in attendance. Words can not express how good it is to be together with our Wildcats again.
As the physical and emotional safety of our students continues to be our number one priority, we appreciate the presence of local law enforcement, clinicians and therapists from Oakland Schools and Easterseals who joined our counseling department to provide support. We also appreciate the additional staff from across the district and dozens of our athletic coaches who added to the familiar faces throughout our high school building today to provide support. Dozens of therapy dogs, including a whole fleet of puppies-in-training from Leader Dogs, were there for our Wildcats. Every high school student received a generous and thoughtful gift bag at the end of the day, courtesy of the Oxford Strong organization.
As we continue to gather feedback from our school community, we want to let you know we heard from our students and made an adjustment to remove one-way hallway traffic throughout the day. We are so appreciative to them for speaking up and helping us facilitate their safe and successful return to the high school. This week, Mr. Wolf and administration will begin visiting several student groups to gather more formal input and feedback.
Before we end our day, we want to share a note from Dr. James Henry, who has been so gracious in helping our community understand and process the tragedy and connect to a path of healing. Please open this link to read his important warning and guidance regarding the January 27 release of “Fall Out” a fictional movie on HBO.
Finally, we want to thank the media outlets for giving our students and staff the privacy and space they requested by keeping their distance from our campuses today. It is appreciated.
Together, we are Oxford StrOng!
Tim Throne
Superintendent