Hello ROCS families,
In just a few weeks, we’ll officially kick off the 2022-23 school year. How exciting! And, how quickly summer has passed! We hope you are having a joyful, restful, adventurous summer season, and we absolutely cannot wait to see your smiling faces soon.
Below, you’ll find key takeaways from August’s regular meeting of the ROCS Board of Directors. Expect to receive these takeaways once a month, after each regularly-scheduled board meeting. For more information on the Board of Directors, visit the “Our School” section of the ROCS website. In the meantime, here’s what happened!
(1) We approved a series of small edits to the employee handbook, which will be shared with staff very soon. For families, perhaps the most exciting change is that ROCS is re-starting field trips this year!
(2) Dr. Mary Goral (who leads some of our Waldorf training for staff) will give a Family Talk to the full community next Wednesday, August 10th at 6:00 pm at the school. All are welcome to attend!
(3) We know that many of you have been patiently waiting for the big reveal on our permanent location. Unfortunately, we have not-so-great news to report.
As our development partners presented on Wednesday night, the project is currently delayed. We’ll send a longer explanation and formal letter from our partners in the next few days, but here is the 2-minute summary. We are under contract on a piece of land and have been performing due diligence for quite a few months now. We’ve drawn up multiple site plans and gotten very, very close to approval.
However, in this wild-west, post-pandemic economy, construction costs have risen drastically, and the expenses are now too high for us to keep moving forward. The good news? This location is still a strong possibility. We are still working on it and are not giving up. We’re simply postponing it for a while, which means we will not be ready to move into our permanent home in 2023, as we once had hoped. More likely, we will move into that home at the start of the 2024 school year.
We do have the option to extend our lease at 9400 Forum Drive through July 2024 and are currently talking out the details. We know this will be disappointing news, and we are grateful for your patience and grace throughout the long process. As always, we’ll keep you posted with necessary information when things change.
(5) The building is currently undergoing our big summer cleaning, and there are a number of small tasks we’d love your help with! Take a look here for ways to contribute — and thank you in advance!
(6) If you or anyone in your network is interested in joining our substitute teacher list, please email adawson@raleighoakcharter.org for more information.
You can watch the full meeting recording (Part 1 | Part 2). For those most interested in the Facilities update portion, that begins around the 17 minute mark of Part 1.
Have a wonderful day, and thank you for being part of our community,
The ROCS BOD
