Student Council
This year the Student Council has made it a priority to make more impact than ever on our community. Our challenge was to participate in more community service and charitable activities than in years past. This fall, we hit the ground running. We began the year with a neighborhood clean-up, collecting trash and debris from the neighborhood around our school. We got the opportunity to speak with our neighbors directly and show them how Oak Crest students care about taking care of the environment and doing something about it. We then discovered Metrocrest had an urgent need for coats and winter clothing. With a frigid winter looming, we set up boxes around the school and promoted our annual coat drive. We were able to collect 100 articles of clothing, including 10 pairs of brand-new shoes!
Around the time that we were planning our next community service event, on a quiet Thursday afternoon, disaster struck. The sky filled with black smoke as we heard a roaring fire coming from our neighbor’s home. When the air had cleared and the fire was out, the school as a whole decided our winter service action should benefit our neighbors who lost their home.
Ready for Reading
Oak Crest has a proven record of getting our youngest students reading. Research shows time and time again that early childhood education that emphasizes literacy sets students up for success. Our curriculum developers have recently revamped the materials for our earliest readers, boosting engagement and excitement in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms.
Oreo Phases of the Moon
Our recent science unit on the phases of the moon was a blast! After exploring the reasons behind the moon’s changing appearance, we decided to add a delicious twist to our learning. The students had a sweet time creating the various moon phases using Oreo cookies – a tasty and memorable hands-on experience! But the excitement didn’t stop there. We took our lunar exploration to the next level with a trip to the UTA planetarium. The immersive experience taught us even more about the moon, space travel, and the wonders of our night sky.
The Perot Museum
Oak Crest is fortunate to have annual trips to the Perot Museum. This fall our Junior School students visited the Perot Museum, exploring the far reaches of space, learning about the marvels of the human body, and of course, racing a T-Rex along the way. We were fortunate to participate in a DNA extraction simulation lab, applying principles of chromatography, as well as examining electricity.
Lemur Encounter
Our Form 1 & 2 classes had an amazing time at Shady Oaks Ranch! They hung out with cows, llamas, and chickens – your typical farm buddies, but this wasn’t your usual farm visit – lemurs joined the party! The students had a blast learning about farming and caring for animals, and of course, the highlight was feeding and hanging out with the lemurs! There were smiles all around. Thank you to Ms. Tracee for making this unforgettable day possible!
Junior School also traveled back in time to the 19th century at the Farmers Branch Historical Park. Our docent-led tour took us into a boxcar’s caboose, a general store, Victorian homes, and a doctor’s home which has the oldest functioning foundation in North Texas. This allowed the students to experience some of what they read about in our literature program, which features countless books from this era.
Bringing History to Life
Junior School also traveled back in time to the 19th century at the Farmers Branch Historical Park. Our docent-led tour took us into a boxcar’s caboose, a general store, Victorian homes, and a doctor’s home which has the oldest functioning foundation in North Texas. This allowed the students to experience some of what they read about in our literature program, which features countless books from this era.
Coppell Biodiversity Center
Our Form 1 class had a fun and engaging time at the Coppell Biodiversity Center! After diving into the world of rocks and minerals, we put our knowledge to the test with some fun group games. Then, we enjoyed a nice nature hike, where the best part was unearthing fossils and even taking some home! It was a day filled with learning, games, and exciting discoveries.
I Love My teacher
Congratulations to our middle school teacher, Ms. Claudia Bianchi! She was presented with an award by our alumna, Arabella Arredondo, a junior at Hebron High School, as her all-time favorite teacher. Ms. Claudia has been teaching at Oak Crest Private School for over ten years and knows our program inside and out and at all levels. She has taught students ranging from Beginners through Middle School and was Arabella’s eighth grade teacher when she graduated from Oak Crest. As a member of the water polo team, Arabella was given the opportunity to select her favorite teacher and to present her with an award. That was Ms. Claudia!
Our teachers make a lasting impression!
Sewing Club
Our Sewing Club is very popular this year! We now have a beginners and an advanced sewing class. Our projects? A cute messenger bag, a super-soft blanket, and a cardigan! We have even gone on field trips to the fabric store, where we learned about different kinds of fabric and sewing machines. It’s been a fun semester!
LEGO Club
Since September, our new LEGO club, spanning ages three to nine, has been busy exploring the wonderful world of LEGO together. Week by week, our budding builders have been honing their teamwork abilities, learning to follow directions, and mastering the art of constructing more advanced LEGO creations. We believe in the power of creative free play. Our young builders have the opportunity to unleash their imaginations, turning LEGO bricks into cool worlds of their own design. Having both structured and open ended playtime not only sparks creativity but also fosters problem-solving skills and boosts confidence.
Community Outreach — Students Bring Holiday Cheer to Retirement Home Residents
Before the holidays, students worked hard at perfecting their performance skills. In addition to a big show at the school’s annual Holiday Extravaganza for parents and friends, our children took their show on the road and performed at two different retirement communities, The Tradition independent living and dependent living facilities. Our young ballerinas twirled in their red holiday tutus, our cheerleaders wowed everyone with their daredevil stunts, and our choirs brought joy to the residents who smiled, sang along and shared how very much they enjoyed the show clapping all the way down the hall until the children got back on their buses to return to school.
Alumni News
Our ever growing alumni network has been leaving their marks with successes outside of Oak Crest. However, these same students have returned to their school to give back. Over the summer, recent graduate and Prestonwood Christian Academy sophomore, Abel Mathew, came back to teach coding to our middle school campers. Meanwhile, former students came to help assist in beautification efforts by sanding and painting classroom cabinets. Another graduate, Mark Djomo, found success on the rink where his team, the Dallas Stars Elite, became champions of the 2023 CCM tournament. He was even named MVP of the entire tournament. Congratulations to Mac Feilmeier (‘14) for graduating Cum Laude from Florida Polytechnic University and Skye Molina (‘18) for his first semester at Texas A&M!
Cheer Team
The Oak Crest Dragons is a newly founded cheerleading team that started with a humble beginning of only six members. Since then, it has grown and flourished to a total of 13 members! The team’s journey has been marked by several successful performances, including appearances at events such as Santa on the Square in downtown Carrollton, their first showcase hosted by Fun Cheer, and their first-ever competition where they were named champions in their category. Cheerleading is much more than pom poms and exciting routines; it is a dynamic sport that builds powerful teamwork skills, instills dedication, and embodies the true spirit of unity. The Dragons’ mission is beyond performing; it has been about fostering school spirit and motivating others by showing them that hard work leads the way to success.
Cross Country Team
It has been a longtime dream for Oak Crest to have a competitive team for our middle
schoolers. Oak Crest has accomplished that goal by forming a cross-country team. The season
began in the late summer when the heat was just barely dying down. The group met up at
7:00 AM for jogs to the local park, where they would participate in long runs, fun runs, games,
and strength training. Their long runs at sunrise took them around our neighborhood, where
they became regulars on the streets with the morning dog walkers, crosswalk guards, and of
course, other runners.
We were fortunate enough to participate in meets around the metroplex throughout the fall. A
few season highlights include each runner significantly improving their two-mile records and
one of our boys taking 19th out of over 200 runners, and bringing Oak Crest home a medal.
The students fell in love with running and asked to continue training off-season for the next
school year. We happily obliged. A special thanks to our boys’ and girls’ teams, coaches, and
parents for all their hard work and support.
New Student Bathrooms Sparkle
After a successful year of fundraising, the main student bathrooms at Oak Crest were renovated. Restrooms were taken down to the studs with everything previously there removed. Ceilings were raised, additional lights were installed, a sparkling new epoxy floor was poured and pretty new blue dividers were mounted. A new hot water heater was installed above the ceiling, so that warm water is instantly available to everyone washing their hands. New fixtures, automatic faucets and towel dispensers completed the update. Students rushed in to admire the completed work after the toilet paper ribbon
The Ideal Scene
Small class sizes and friendly teachers ensure that all students receive the attention that they need, so that they can thrive. With teachers catching small errors and uncertainties right away, our students advance knowing that they are doing their work correctly. By the end of any unit of study, children have solved every problem and done every exercise, and know that they have gotten them right and why. Lots of successes along their academic paths result in certainty of what was learned. This builds a terrific, well-earned confidence!
From the Headmistress
Almost twenty-five years ago at this point, I had a vision of what a great school would be like, and I decided to create one. I thought that learning should be a happy experience. School should be a place filled with kind teachers who really care whether a student learns or not and can give them the individual attention needed to ensure that they succeed. Children should master what they are learning fully.
High Standards
Students should always be challenged, but never overwhelmed. Curriculum should be demanding, but at the right level for each individual child. Standards should be high, and there should be an expectation that these standards are met.
Connecting to the Real World
Hands-on projects and field trips should ensure that students connect what they are learning to the real world. They should learn to apply their newfound skills rather than focusing on tests as the ultimate goal.
Character
Students should grow intellectually but also develop a sense of morals, integrity and with that a sense of responsibility and caring for their fellow students, community and the world. Children of many different cultures and ethnicities should interact in each class, thereby broadening each student’s horizon.
Parents Who Know what is Being Taught
And all of this should be done with close coordination with the parents and materials that let parents see exactly what their children are learning. As L. Ron Hubbard stated, “An educational program which begins with the child’s parents, progresses through kindergarten and grade school, through high school and into college and preserves at every step the individuality, the native ambitions, intelligence, abilities and dynamics* of the individual, is the best bastion** against not only mediocrity but any and all enemies of mankind.”
A Wonderful Community
I look out at our school today, and I am proud – proud of the fabulous team of caring teachers and executives who share that goal with me now, proud of what our students achieve every year, and proud of how our former students are succeeding both academically and in life. The children at our school are really very, very lucky children to have parents who have found this school for them.
