Week Thirteen - Fall 2026

With Halloween falling on a weekend this year, Friday became our unofficial dress-up day for students and staff!

There's something pretty funny about walking around a high school on Halloween. You never quite know what you're going to see, and running an important parent meeting while dressed as a pumpkin is one of those awkward rites of passage for a school administrator.

There were some pretty great costumes around campus, but a few of my staff favorites included our Student Intervention Specialists dressed as Shrek and the Gingerbread Man, our Social Science Department as an ostrich wrangler and his flock, and our English Department (if you can find them in this pic!).

Our 9th-grade Essential Skills students gained important hands-on experience last week through a Stop the Bleed seminar presented by Sutter Health and Placer County Fire.

Students learned how to respond to emergencies, including how to pack a wound and apply direct pressure to stop bleeding, when and how to use a tourniquet, how to use an AED, and how to perform hands-only CPR.

Students had the opportunity to practice these skills themselves, working alongside the professionals who use them in real emergencies.

Hopefully, our students will never find themselves in a situation where they need to use these skills, but it's good to know that hundreds of our freshmen are now a little better prepared to help someone in an emergency.

One of the more impressive challenges our 9th-grade PE students take on is "the Biathlon," which includes 3 miles of running and 24 laps of swimming, broken into four segments. This week, 142 freshmen successfully completed the challenge!

The preparation for this event is one thing that makes it especially cool. Throughout the term, students gradually build up their endurance, adding laps in the pool and miles to their runs each week. Something that might have seemed nearly impossible at the beginning of the semester becomes something they can actually accomplish!

Ms. Wallace captured these fun "before" pictures, when everyone was still smiling, looking fresh, and hadn't quite worked up a sweat.

I love that our students get to experience what happens when they consistently work toward something difficult. There's a real sense of accomplishment that comes from pushing yourself beyond what you thought you could do.

Hopefully, along the way, they're building habits and confidence that will help them stay active and healthy long after they leave Del Oro.

Congratulations to all 142 Golden Eagles (including 8 who finished under 32 minutes!)