From the Eagle’s Nest – July

Greetings, Twin Oaks Families! I hope you’re enjoying summer break and have had some time to rest and refresh from the busyness of the school year. Isn’t the Lord is good to recognize our need for seasons and to give us periods of time when we can enjoy a more relaxed pace?

Though the office is operating on reduced summer hours, we have been steadily preparing for the return of our precious students (We miss them!) and are committed to continuing to fulfill our mission for their good and God’s glory. As we look ahead to August, we know that the Lord is faithfully paving the way for another wonderful school year.

Following are some updates and changes regarding this fall:
The 2022-2023 school year will mark Twin Oaks Christian School’s 50th Anniversary serving the greater St. Louis community with quality Christian education. This year special activities and events recognizing God’s faithfulness to sustaining and growing TOCS for 50 years are being planned. To help with these and other school events, TOCS parent Becca Fox will be joining our team this year as part-time Event Coordinator! Please congratulate and welcome Becca to her new role.

I’m also excited to announce that Katie Ragsdale will be moving from the 5th grade classroom to become our new TLC coordinator and teacher! Mrs. Ragsdale’s extensive experience teaching a wide range of grade levels, including students with learning needs, along with her strong leadership and administration skills make her a wonderful fit for this role. We are enlisting the services of St. Louis Learning Disability Association to provide highly specialized and customized consultation while Mrs. Ragsdale pursues special education certification. Please join us in congratulating her on this exciting transition!

One of our goals for this past year was to find a language arts curriculum for our Kindergarten through 3rd Grade classes since our current Treasures curriculum is no longer in print. The curriculum committee worked hard throughout the year, praying and pouring over a variety of options to identify the one offering our non-negotiables of academic rigor, opportunities for applying a biblical worldview, comprehensiveness, and adaptability. We are pleased to announce that McGraw-Hill’s Wonders curriculum came out on top and is Board-approved to be implemented for grades K-3 beginning this coming school year. This curriculum provides a wide variety of quality reading selections as well as robust and well-aligned vocabulary, spelling, and writing exercises. Online resources that can be used for supplementation at home if desired are also available. As part of the curriculum committee, I can vouch for the thorough, intentional way the review process was conducted and look forward to seeing how this new curriculum provides an edge for our students’ language arts learning.

Another big change is that middle school will join elementary school in starting class at 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:20 a.m. This past spring I worked with a school scheduling consultant to optimize our academic and co-curricular schedule. One of the necessary changes was to create 30-minute modules to help streamline transitions and create uniform blocks of time for instruction, co-curricular classes, and lunch/recess times. The result is that daily schedules are more uniform and students have larger blocks of academic time in the mornings when their minds are more fresh, but the 30-minute modules require the middle school day to begin at the same time as elementary. We hope the extra 10 minutes in the morning will be a blessing to our middle school families!

We are thankful to the Lord for new additions to our staff as well as those who are returning in the fall. I’m more excited than ever to be a small part of what God is doing through the ministry of Twin Oaks Christian School. By His grace, we have already made significant strides towards strengthening our ability to carry out our mission to glorify God by nurturing spiritual development, academic excellence, and servant leadership in an environment where each child is known and loved. And together, by His grace, we will continue to do so.

May God’s richest blessings of knowing Him and His Son continue to be your source of joy, hope, and peace as you enjoy the rest of your summer!

By: Julie Cordray, Head of School