Please click the following link to read November 2019 Newsletter: Family Safety Matters
Welcome to the Holladay!
We are very excited to have the groundbreaking soon for the construction of the grand addition to our school, which will be completed in the Fall of 2021. This will double the capacity of our fully-accredited school, and provide state of the art new learning spaces for our students and teachers!
Holladay was the first school in Virginia to achieve Lighthouse Status as a Leader in Me school, which means that we provide guidance to other schools who want to implement the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People in their buildings. Our students all have leadership opportunities throughout the school day, and all of them set goals for their success at school. In the Spring we do student-led parent conferences where the students share their leadership notebooks containing successes, goals, and progress with their parents.
Holladay also was one of the first Henrico schools to implement Fit4Kids into daily academic lessons, which means that we recognize the importance of movement and kinesthetic learning for all students. Brain research tells us that the more parts of our bodies we use in our learning, the more the learning is imprinted on the brain. Also, we know that elementary children love to move, and integrating movement into all core content areas provides them with chances throughout the day to get the wiggles out to promote focus and attention.
In addition, our current plan is that in the Fall of 2021 when the new addition opens, Holladay will once again lead the way in the State of Virginia as we hope to introduce the first dual language immersion classes in two of the classes of first grade or kindergarten (decision still pending), where parents can choose whether or not to opt-in their children into a class where English and Spanish speaking students will be learning together in each other’s languages with bilingual teachers. All the other classes will be regular classes taught in English. Although we have much work to do before this can happen, I wanted you to know that it is a possibility that is in the planning stages.
We know that the district is currently undertaking re-districting, and we look forward to welcoming those families who will join our wonderful school community once the process is completed!
Kimberly A. Olsen
Principal of Holladay Elementary since 2012
