Week Seven - Fall 2026

I opened an email Saturday morning from a parent from Friday night's visiting football team. The subject line read "URGENT! FRIDAY'S FOOTBALL GAME INCIDENTS." I braced myself a little before opening it, ready for a strongly worded complaint. Instead, I found this:

She went on to tell me how much that meant to both of them and asked me to extend a thank you to our students from a visiting family. Then, at the very end, she added:

Well played, Tarina. It worked.  

I followed up to ask her for a picture of her father-in-law so I could share it with our community.  Here he is with an impressive catch!

We get to celebrate a lot of impressive things our students accomplish. But there's something especially cool about hearing who they are when they don't know anyone is paying attention.

I'm proud of those Golden Eagles.

Ms. Montgomery took her 12th-grade Government classes outside this week for a few quick rounds of Government Scattergories.

Students had five minutes with their groups to brainstorm everything they could think of related to government. Their lists went in all kinds of directions, including public transit, John Quincy Adams, pork barrel legislation, town councils, and plenty more.

Then the competition began. One student from each group entered the circle, and they went around naming items from their lists. Pause too long or repeat something that had already been said, and you were out.

There was lots of cheering, plenty of laughter, and some increasingly creative answers as the circle got smaller. By the end, students had also discovered something that's probably pretty useful in a Government class: you can connect just about anything to government if you try hard enough.

We received some exciting news recently that Del Oro senior Ethan Mendoza has been named a Semifinalist in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program!

Ethan is one of about 16,000 Semifinalists nationwide who now have the opportunity to continue in the National Merit Scholarship competition.

This is an impressive academic accomplishment and a great recognition of the work Ethan has put in throughout high school.

Congratulations, Ethan! We are proud to have you representing Del Oro!

As we get further into the school year, I’d like to ask for a little help from families with something our teachers are seeing more frequently in classrooms.

We know many students have personal laptops, particularly MacBooks, that they prefer using. They’re often faster, students are comfortable with them, and I completely understand why they would rather use their own device.

The challenge is that our school-issued Chromebooks give teachers tools to help manage distractions during class, including the ability to restrict which tabs and websites students can access. Those same controls aren’t available on personal devices. Teachers increasingly see students using personal laptops for iMessage, TikTok, games, and other things that have nothing to do with what is happening in class.

We certainly want our students to learn how to manage technology responsibly, but we also want to give our teachers the tools they need to create an environment where everyone can focus and learn.

So, parents, we could use your help. Please make sure the school-issued Chromebook is charged, goes in the backpack, and comes to school each day. And students, when your teacher asks you to use your Chromebook instead of your personal laptop, please help them out.