District News

Lakota’s Community Curriculum Advisory Team (CCAT) held its regular meeting on Nov. 16. Using themes derived from the community-wide ThoughtExchange launched earlier this school year, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Lori Brown shared the topics for the evening, including curriculum adoption, professional development and changes to the program of studies.

Lakota West’s Cyber Academy students recently had the opportunity to discover more about one of the oldest modern encryption techniques, the Enigma machine.

The 60-pound machine was carried on the backs of soldiers during the war. Rotors in the machine scrambled the output alphabet by using one of the oldest, and still highly prominent, ciphers, the Caesar cipher.    

Just one quarter into the school year, and the first cohort of Lakota East and Lakota West American Sign Language (ASL) IV students are already sharing their skills and sprinkling joy all around their community. But the biggest impact of the course’s community outreach requirement seems to be on the ASL students (and teachers) themselves. 

“Everything about it just made me happy,” said West senior Josh Curry, recounting his class’s recent visit to St. Rita School for the Deaf. “It was so cool to be completely immersed in the culture. I loved everything about it.”

St. Rita’s is one of several destinations the ASL teaching team has lined up for weekly outings this year with their students enrolled in Lakota’s second College Credit Plus (CCP) level course for ASL.

Lakota Local Schools will make a shift in its academic calendar on April 8, 2024 due to Butler County’s proximity to the total solar eclipse pathway. Students will not have school but staff will report for a professional development day. 

For the first time since joining the school band program in sixth grade, Lakota West junior percussionist Lang Chen participated in the Oct. 10 band concert - not from his normal spot on stage among his fellow bandmates - but from the audience.

The concert also marked the first time the student composer had heard a real band - his own classmates, for that matter - perform live one of the hundreds of musical arrangements he has written.

For the 16th year in a row, Lakota students and staff answered the challenge to “stuff the bus” with food items that Reach Out Lakota desperately needed to restock its shelves and serve a client base that continues to skyrocket.

The approximately 27,500 donations resulting from this school year’s district-wide food drive almost exactly met the 2022 record-breaking total, which came during a year when pantry visits were trending 32 percent higher than the year prior. This year, the relief organization’s visits are once again topping their 2022 visits by another 33 percent.

Congratulations to Independence Elementary, the top collecting school for two consecutive years that generated over 4,300 donations!

The Lakota Board of Education invites parents, staff and community members to attend its next Community Conversation about Special Education. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 8 from 6:30-8 p.m. in the Lakota West Innovation Hub.

Did you know October is Dyslexia Awareness month? Learn more about Ohio's Dyslexia Guidebook from the Ohio Department of Education.