Dear Hayfield Secondary Families:

Welcome to the 2007-08 school year! Our administrative team is probably more excited than ever about the year ahead. Ms. Jean Bell, our new Associate Principal, was announced in June. Mr. Neil Kyle, former Director of Student Activities at Lee High School, will be returning to Hayfield as the Washington Hall Subschool Principal (he taught English here prior to 2000), and Ms. Valerie Winter, our middle-school Instructional Coach, will be serving as the Lafayette Hall Subschool Principal. Ms. Winter will be supervising the middle and high special education programs; Mr. Kyle will supervise the middle and high science programs; and Ms. Lewis will now be supervising middle and high ESOL and English programs.

As predicted with the second boundary adjustment, our enrollment has begun to increase once again. We currently have 963 middle school and 1590 high school students enrolled in our database. Thus, we will open with eight middle school teams and some additional ninth-grade sections. However, we have no need for trailers in our near future. We have expanded our AVID program into tenth-grade, written and received several instructional grants, one of which will continue to fund our College Board SAT Online initiative, free for all of our high school students, built a new TV broadcast center to host online languages to be streamed to students throughout FCPS and eventually throughout Virginia, hosted the FCPS system-wide Leadership Conference once again, and we will host the first ever Middle School Teacher Conference with several nationally recognized educational speakers for over 2400 middle school teachers in late August — in the middle and proud of it!

Our College Board Advanced Placement (AP) students have done very well, once again. AP course offerings are our signature instructional program. In spring 2007, the number of exams on which a score of 3 or higher was obtained (on a scale of 1 – 5) rose to 57 percent! The best results I can find on record for our school. Last year, 46 percent of the students scored 3 or better. Monday late buses will begin on September 17 and Wednesday late buses will begin October 1. A very late activity bus will run once a week exclusively for middle school students. We are continuing to expand our middle school after school program. More information will be forthcoming once school begins as we develop our available resources into clubs and activities.

Please sign up for the Hayfield Secondary “Keep in Touch” email system via the www.fcps.edu homepage. It will be used to communicate with you during emergencies and other special times throughout the year.

The fall sports teams have begun their initial practices, the Marching Band is practicing on the field, ROTC cadets have returned from their summer experience, the high school student leaders have had their retreat, and the building has been thoroughly cleaned- our floors could star in a floor wax commercial! With all teachers returning by August 27, we are primed to have a terrific and positive school session. I recommend glancing at our home page, www.fcps.edu/HayfieldSS, to note upcoming events, to obtain staff email addresses, and to gather other pertinent information throughout the year. All the best to you and your families as you enjoy the remaining summer days.

Go Hawks!

William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D.
Principal
william.oehrlein@fcps.edu