3/11/2010 Juniors Prepare for Writing Exam
On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, juniors will take a practice Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE) Writing Exam. The students will have 30 minutes to compose a five paragraph persuasive essay on an assigned topic. Students must take a position on an issue and defend that position with evidence. The English department is committed to preparing its students for the writing exam and it shows. The percentage of students who meet or exceed standards on the PSAE Writing Exam has been steadily improving. The class of 2009 earned a meets or exceeds percentage of 79.8%, a 2% increase from the 77.8 % earned by the class of 2008. Will the class of 2010 outdo both? The pressure is on.

3/9/2010 Football Continues Off-Season Training in New Weight Room
Just because the high school football season ends over Thanksgiving weekend, it doesn’t mean the coaches and players stop working. Instead, football and many other sports have turned into a year-long dedication to the sport. It’s a simple product of the times. Dedication is the name of the game. At OLCHS this is certainly the case, but this year the football off-season workouts have a new look. Not only have the coaches set up a more intense weightlifting workout program for the players, where it is more focused and designed to better prepare the boys to become men next year on the gridiron, but the Spartans have a newly built weight room to give them and other athletic programs a place to perform the workouts.

3/8/2010 Speech Beats Odds, Field to Capture State Gold
When it comes to the IHSA’s State Speech Tournament, the numbers usually don’t lie. A state championship performance relies on getting competitors through the regional and sectional meet in order to have a chance. The numbers also tell us it is as rare as a four-leaf clover for a south suburban team to win the title as is evident with the last south suburban team taking home a trophy back in 1993. However the numbers don't indicate heart, hard work, or strong instruction from co-head coaches Erika Buys, T.J. Kahriman and the entire coaching staff, and sure brilliance in the heat of battle. And those were the key ingredients mixed together by the Speech team in late February, which earned the first-ever State Speech championship in school history. Despite the fact that perennial powerhouses qualified as many as 13 competitors to the state meet and Oak Lawn only managed seven, those seven individuals took down Goliath like a true David would.