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Board Looks Forward To New School Year
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The Oakdale Joint Unified School District Board gathered for its first meeting of the 2019-20 school year on Monday night, Aug. 12 and enjoyed a short and sweet, drama-free evening. 

Highlights included members of the Future Farmers of America getting recognized for their champion marketing team.

“The state finals competition ended at the same time as prom,” Ed Hartzell, high school Ag teacher, said of the competition. “So some kids had to make a choice.”

Only three decided to compete, knowing that there would be no room for throw-away scores and that they’d have to do their best, as only the top three scores from each school counted. Surrounded by schools with plenty of students, Oakdale strode forward with their trio of competitors.

However, those three were enough to win them first place. With their knowledge of problem solving, terminology, math problems, how companies like Sunmaid and Blue Diamond work and how they’re structured, along with plenty of other topics, Oakdale’s team came home victorious.

The three students that won the competition with their dedication and impressive scores were Caleb Bairos, Russell Cope, and Lucas Goad.

Open session moved onto brief organization reports, where representatives expressed that they and their associations were eager for the upcoming school year. Emily Takaki was then sworn in and formally seated as the High School Student Board Member for the 2019-20 school year.

A notable action item on the agenda was the approval of the quarterly developer fees report for April 1 to June 30. The report showed “0” for June because they are currently in between projects and School District Superintendent Marc Malone announced that they would be moving forward with developing the new wrestling room on the J Street property.

Because the new wrestling room has a November start date, it will quickly get Oakdale High School wrestlers out of the old library and out of their shared room. This means that the high school band/wrestling room will become just a music and band room. Therefore, the building will become simply a theater, choir, and music annex which will give students the ability to freely use it as such, with no need to move things around for wrestling.

The board reminded the public of back to school nights this week: Oakdale High on Aug. 13, Oakdale Junior High on Aug. 14 at 6:30 p.m., elementary sites on Aug. 15 at 6:30 p.m., and East Stanislaus High School on Aug. 20 at 6:30 p.m.

The brief meeting lasted less than an hour, with Oakdale schools now officially moved into the 2019-2020 school year.