The Kadens Family Fitness Center, an idea that started as a vision and a challenge by an Ottawa Hills alumnus, became reality Friday when a ribbon-cutting officially started a new era in student health and wellness.

The Ottawa Hills Symphonic Band is only days away from a historic trip. The band will perform three times over four days at some of Toronto’s most notable landmarks in the group’s first-ever overnight travel experience.

With ribbons cut and open house complete, the real inauguration of The Kadens Family Fitness Center can begin. Students: Get ready to sweat! The months-long construction project is now complete (on time and budget), and all equipment installed and tested. Starting Monday (at least officially), the center becomes a classroom at the Junior/Senior High School.

Now is the time to show a cast member in “Aladdin Jr.” (Feb. 7-9) how proud you are of them by commemorating their performance with a "Shout Out” ad.

Do you have a child taking the ACT exam soon? The next national test date is Feb. 8. All Ottawa Hills juniors will take the ACT exam at the Junior/Senior High School Wednesday, Feb. 26. The Office of Village Life has an ACT Prep Course that helps students prepare for the exam. 

The annual Spring Scholastic Spring Book Fair is just two weeks away. The week-long literacy-building (and fundraising) event is Jan. 27-31 and gives families a chance to scan and buy the newest books for students in grades K-8.

Members of the boys’ basketball program at Ottawa Hills Junior/Senior High School are raising money for brain cancer research, leading up to a special event at the boys’ varsity game vs. Toledo Christian Friday (Jan. 17).

Set your calendars to attend College Credit Plus (CCP) Information Night on Wednesday, Jan. 15. The one-hour event begins at 6:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium. Attendance is required for parents and students in grades 6-11 who may be interested in participating in the CPP program during the 2020-2021 academic year.

To help students prepare this week for semester final exams (Tuesday-Friday), The Studio has created a series of workshops focused on academic success.

Mark your calendars to get a first-hand look at The Kadens Family Fitness Center during a Jan. 11 open house.

When the Toledo Ballet presents four performances of "The Nutcracker" Dec. 14 and 15, appearing on stage in numerous roles will be 17 Ottawa Hills students in grades ranging from 1st to 10th. And front and center will be 9th grader Sydney Mack in the starring role of Clara.

Please join 7th grader Rose Hajjar as she plans something special for the families spending their holidays at ProMedica Toledo Children’s Hospital. 

Toledo firefighters are using the biggest local college football game of the year to help raise money for a colleague whose son attends Ottawa Hills High School.

Fall sports team at Ottawa Hills High School had another remarkable run this season, as four teams won Toledo Area Athletic Conference (TAAC) titles and two finished second. In addition, many athletes were named to All-TAAC teams or achieved greater regional and statewide recognition.

The Green Team is ready to send its first Crayola ColorCycle shipment! Team members weighed the items collected so far this year and have 13 pounds of markers and an additional 7 pounds of glue sticks, crayons, pens and pencils: 20 pounds saved from the landfill in one month!

Village of Ottawa Hills' voters elected Lisa Brown Tuesday to a four-year term on the Ottawa Hills Board of Education.

The Elementary School Student Council's annual food drive is under way and lasts through Nov. 22.

Newsweek today named Ottawa Hills High School as the second-best high school in Ohio for STEM and No. 61 nationally among all high schools.

Everyone is supposedly famous for 30 seconds. But how about seven days? Now you can be by being in the profile picture on Superintendent Dr. Adam Fineske's Twitter account.

Usually, Sahil Parikh, Ian Jones, and Anushka Agarwal (pictured above left to right) write "The Sixth Grade Times," also known as the Sixth Grade Newspaper. But this time, they were invited to write an article about last month's annual Camp Storer trip for OH Connections.

The Choraliers have an invitation to return to Carnegie Hall this spring - but first need help raising money for the trip. The 41-member group hopes to perform March 8 at the historic music venue in New York.

The boys' soccer team won its regional semifinal match Wednesday 3-0 against the Kalida Wildcats, earning a chance to play Saturday in the regional finals. Come out and root our athletes on to victory! (Watch highlights via BCSN)

Elementary School classrooms have new options this year to help students calm themselves. The mindfulness tools and calm-down kits inside many of the classrooms were purchased with money provided by the Ottawa Hills Schools Parent Association (OHSPA) through its annual wishlist funding program.

High school teacher Gerry Davis took students in his Multimedia Creations classes to the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) last week to view exhibits and see how artists apply the concepts they have been studying.

Activities take place Thursday, Oct. 31. All students leave the building from 11:05 a.m. to 12;30 p.m. If parents/guardians are unable to be home with a child, please make arrangements for them during the lunch break. There is no Y Care during the lunch hour that day.

Three teachers new to Ottawa Hills this year are learning how to be better educators from more experienced colleagues. For new K-12 teachers like Ashley Gorsuch, learning from a 26-year veteran like Noreen Hanlon has been very beneficial. Even though Mrs. Gorsuch has taught American Sign Language at the college level, those students were adults and expectations and responsibilities were different than working with high-school sophomores.

As two events (an escaped prisoner and phone outages) showed this week, the district uses SchoolMessenger for email, voice, and SMS communications during emergencies (as well as non-emergencies such as snow days/late TARTA buses and important districtwide communications).

The annual Fall Collage Concert Sunday (Oct. 20) provided a showcase for the vocal and instrumental music talents of Junior/Senior High School students. Vocal music director Donna Wipfli said the concert "created a quilt of music where the patterns and colors changed from one piece to the next even as they were connected without pause."

Parents and students will be able to access first-quarter grades starting Friday morning (Oct. 25). This applies to all students in grades 7-12.

Congratulations to junior Ishan Khare, who presented his own original research this month at the fall meeting of the Ohio Section of the American Physical Society. 

Congratulations to the girls’ varsity cross-country team, which won their third consecutive Toledo Area Athletic Conference title last weekend (Oct. 12) during the annual meet. It was the first meet the girls’ won all year, and it helped them achieve a team goal they set at the start of the season.

The district’s 88 fifth graders waded into the Ottawa River last week to conduct science experiments and do their part to keep the waterway clean.

If you ordered a windbreaker as part of the Junior Class fundraiser for Prom 2020, you can pick up your purchase Oct. 17-18 at the Arrowhead (inside the Junior/Senior High School by the main gym entrance).

A big thank you to Yark Subaru for donating 150 books about science this week to the Library Media Center at the Elementary School. Yark Subaru also awarded the district a $1,000 gift card to Staples.

This Halloween, starve a vampire and save a life by donating blood during the Red Cross Blood Drive Oct. 31.

This week marks the beginning of Homecoming festivities. Students will be celebrating with a series of themed days for spirit week, culminating with the football game and Village parade Friday and the dance on Saturday. Congratulations to members of this year’s court: Sarah Boice, Anna Brown, Catherine Byrne, Amelia Frueh, and Priya Bhatt.  

It’s time again for the fall Scholastic Book Fair. The three-day event begins Wednesday, Oct. 16, and coincides with the fall parent-teacher conferences at the Elementary School.

It is a busy upcoming week for our Green Bear athletes. Several teams already have started tournament play. Come out and support our athletes as they compete!

October and November will be filled with exciting visits to the Toledo Museum of Art for students at the Elementary School.

As part of its efforts to encourage non-Village residents to join our district, Ottawa Hills Local Schools is hosting a "Student Shadow Day" Tuesday, Oct. 29. The event is open to current 4th through 11th graders and their families and runs from 8 a.m. to noon.

Please join Principal Ben McMurray and interim Assistant Principal Darcy Browne for an opportunity to learn more about Ottawa Hills Junior/Senior High School.

OH Juniors Kavita Parikh, Danielle Sun, and Sophia Stone will to speak at GirlForce, an event for International Day of the Girl through Women of Toledo, a local nonprofit that all three girls are involved with. The event is Saturday, Oct. 12 from 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and is free; the students would love to see familiar faces watching their presentations!

It’s time for the annual Ottawa Hills Community Rummage Sale, a fundraiser that supports the Ottawa Hills International Program and the Ottawa Hills Band Program. Organizers need volunteers, clothing racks to borrow, and your gently used items from closets, garages, attics, and basements.

A new “test” kiln is giving high school students more options when it comes to creating their artwork. The Ottawa Hills Schools Parent Association funded the $865 purchase as part of its annual wish-list funding program. The request came from Kristin Johnson, the high school art teacher.

With wins in sectional play later this month, the Ottawa Hills boys’ soccer team won’t have to travel far to play in districts. And for girls’ varsity tennis athletes, they won’t have to travel far this week for sectional play.

A recycling push has started across the district to collect everything from markers and  highlighters to mechanical pencils and glue sticks.

If you represent a school or community group or organization that would like to participate in the Oct. 18 Village Parade, here are the registration guidelines and instructions. The parade is an annual tradition on homecoming weekend. It begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Elementary School parking lot.

Congratulations to the girls’ varsity soccer team, which swept its conference opponents this year en route to winning its third consecutive Toledo Area Athletic Conference (TAAC) title.

Thank you to the Village of Ottawa Hills for contributing to the fitness-related construction projects under way at the Junior/Senior High School.

Congratulations to the boys' varsity golf team for this week (Monday, Sept. 23) winning its 11th consecutive Toledo Area Athletic Conference (TAAC) title. The team beat four other schools and freshman Eddie Griffin was named “Player of the Year.”

A combination of factors has led the Ottawa Hills Schools Parent Association (OHSPA) and OH Boosters, the nonprofit support organizations behind the biennial event, to delay the Green Bear Ball from this coming spring to the fall of 2021.

Students in Patty’s Dowd eighth-grade STEM classes recently designed and constructed their own tetrahedral kites out of tissue paper, straws, and string as part of their unit on flight and space.

Junior High students enjoyed their first “Unplugged” event of the year last week (Sept. 20). “Unplugged” is sponsored by the parent-support group OH21 and it gives seventh and eighth graders an opportunity to enjoy old-fashioned fun with board games, cornhole, and spike ball.

Members of the high school Teen PEP (Peers Educating Peers) team traveled to ProMedica Toledo Hospital last week for the annual Teen PEP fall kick-off and training.

The Ottawa Hills Board of Education this week unanimously approved a contract with an architectural firm to develop a feasibility study for a proposed learning commons at the Junior/Senior High School. The contract is with Toledo-based The Collaborative.

Thanks to the Ottawa Hills Schools Parent Association, junior high students are grilling in style during team-building activities.

The Environmental (ECLIPSE) Club spent Saturday (Sept. 21) joining millions around the world in cleaning local waterways. 

A collaboration between teachers and grades transported junior high students to ancient Greece and a futuristic world this week. Together, they explored the meanings of allegory, free will, and enlightenment.

First graders are playing with insects at school. But that’s a good thing! All 67 students across four classrooms are conducting the science unit together. Each received an inch-long caterpillar last week. And over the course of the next three weeks, they will feed, monitor, and sometimes even befriend the insects during the evolution. If all goes as planned, the students will release Painted lady butterflies in mid-October.

A field trip to Seneca Caverns has given sixth graders a chance to apply their scientific inquiry and earth science skills in solving a mystery.

Congratulations to seniors Rhi DeMilt and Drew Hoffman who this week were named “Commended Students” by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Before you know it, it will be basketball season!  So we may plan and prepare for a successful season, the Office of Village Life needs to hear from all those who are interested in playing OR coaching basketball. If you have an interested player or you are willing to coach, please fill out a very short form by Sept. 29.

Read about how to sign up for the Oct. 3 parent-teacher conferences at the Junior/Senior High School.

Congratulations to the new leadership of the Junior/Senior High Student Councils for the 2019-2020 school year.

Students across the district reflected on the meaning of Sept. 11 through activities inside and outside the classroom this week. The day’s most visible tribute occurred Wednesday when members of the Ottawa Hills Marching Band played the National Anthem in front of the Liberty Memorial flagpole.

Parents, students, and anyone else in Ottawa Hills with questions about vaping are encouraged to attend a free webinar on the topic.

The girls’ volleyball teams are again raising money for cancer through the “Volley for the Cure” event.

Students at the Elementary School again are taking part in International Dot Day activities. And to celebrate, they are doing something they can’t at home: put stickers on furniture!

The Ottawa Hills Schools Foundation will honor many of its financial supporters of the past year at a special reception Sept. 19. The event recognizes donors who are members of its “Vendi Vidi Vici Giving Society” and above.

They are part police officer and part Chick-fil-A drive-thru window worker. They can be quick with a smile or deliver a stern gaze. They are the 39 boys and girls of the Elementary School Safety Patrol.

Ten OH seniors will be live on local airwaves Sept. 25 reading lines from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to promote Toledo Opera’s upcoming performance of the famous play.

Five notable alumni, from artists and business owners to philanthropists, will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award this Friday (Sept. 20).

To celebrate the achievements of athletes, the Ottawa Hills Schools Foundation has created a High School Athletic Hall of Fame and will induct its inaugural class Friday (Sept. 20).

Motivational speaker and author Rodney J. Walker, whose life experiences include residing in 12 foster homes on Chicago’s south side and graduating from Yale, brings his story of perseverance and success to the Junior/Senior High School next week.

OHbreathe is a student-led initiative to address student wellness. Zak Maaieh (11) and Isabelle Gray (11) are leading this year’s team. “Our team has worked hard to restructure the program to enhance the experience of all students and focus on our goals,” Zak said “We are excited to see how these changes will better help our students.”

What would a football or baseball game be without a juicy hot dog or the enticing aroma of popcorn in the air? Concessions are a time-honored tradition at Ottawa Hills. In addition to feeding hungry spectators, the concessions program represents an incredible fundraising opportunity for the OH Boosters organization.

The Ohio Department of Education today awarded Ottawa Hills Local Schools all A’s on the state School Report Card. The grades are for the 2018-2019 school year; the district now has earned all A’s for five consecutive years.

Four seniors from Ottawa Hills High School have been named 2020 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists. Congratulations to Joshua Assi, Priya Bhatt, Hank Griffin, and Jennifer Hsu!

Add the names of Priya Bhatt and Hank Griffin to the district’s growing list of perfect scorers on the ACT college-prep exam.

The broadcast journalism students leading OH News for the 2019-2020 school year promise to make this one of the best ever. Regular features on the morning broadcast include the Inside Edge (sports), Weather, Fun Facts, and updates of school events.

Does your company or organization have something to teach today’s students about the "real" world of business? Then you can partner with Ottawa Hills.

A new store opened Wednesday inside the Elementary School. The only item on the menu: books. Borrowing an idea from the world of retail, fourth-grade teacher Judy Haudan opened “Starbooks Café.” Her goal is to get her 23 students to open their reading “palettes” to different tastes.

The district’s 88 fifth graders looking for ways to work remotely and collaboratively have a new resource: Node chairs.

AFS students Aliyya from Indonesia and Federico from Italy have joined Ottawa Hills High School for the 2019-2020 school year.

Art from two seniors and a 2019 graduate is appearing in “Focus,” a juried show at Bowling Green State University through Sept. 28. And two of those pieces won awards.

The 2019-2020 Mesasa yearbook staff is ready to create another memorable yearbook for students and staff. Leading the staff are co-editors Alex McCollough and Erin Kadrovach and faculty advisor Lauren Hurst.

The high school Arrowhead newspaper staff begins the school year with 14 student journalists and faculty advisor Sara Eisenbaum.

Congratulations to the newest leadership of the Junior/Senior High Student Councils for the 2019-2020 school year.

Second graders this year are working together on a group assignment: learning to recognize and change mindsets. The 77 students and their four teachers gather twice a week to talk about how to identify and overcome “dips” in life - and the importance of the right mindset in addressing and overcoming life’s challenges.

12 new faculty and staff joined the district this week. They include paraprofessionals, teachers, a psychologist and an intervention specialist. Meet the new staff for the 2019-2020 school year:

This year’s Ottawa Hills Back to School 5K Race generated more than $6,000 to support 2020 After Prom activities. The annual event drew 217 registered walkers and runners and more than 50 volunteers, said event organizer Sally McQueen.

Organizers of the 16th annual Fall Festival and Marketplace are looking for sponsors, vendors, and volunteers. The rain-or-shine event is Saturday, Sept. 28 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The newest addition to the 2019-2020 theatrical lineup is “Noises Off,” which will run Nov. 22-24. The show takes its title from the stage direction indicating sounds coming from offstage.

Two AFS students from Japan and Pakistan are waiting to enroll at Ottawa Hills High School. It is critical that host families are found for them in the next week.

Ottawa Hills Local Schools is the No. 1 school district in the Toledo area and Lucas County, according to research company Niche.

Thirteen teachers and staff from Ottawa Hills Local Schools have received The Governor’s Thomas Edison Award. Ottawa Hills was the only district in northwest Ohio selected for the honor.

The Bear Cave is the perfect spot to find OH-themed T-shirts, sweatshirts, junior high gym sets, hats, headbands, and more! All proceeds from Cave sales support the athletics program at Ottawa Hills Local Schools.

Congratulations to the students, families, faculty, and staff at Ottawa Hills High School! U.S. News & World Report has ranked them as the fifth-best high school in Ohio for the second year in a row.