Marlon Gayle has a goal of learning the names of each student at Colony Oak School.

The first-year principal is doing so by visiting the classrooms. He also produced a power-point presentation of each kindergarten-through- eighth-grade student at the Ripon Unified site in which each provided their first and last names.

Gayle showed that video at Thursday’s Back to School Night.

This was the whittled down version of the taping that took place during the first week of school. All told, he had 10 hours, 55 minutes of video-editing to do for the presentation.

“Looking over it (and learning the names and faces) will be my homework,” said the former assistant principal at Bear Creek High.

That’s about 400 students.

Gayle, meanwhile, is especially thrilled with his new surroundings. “I’m excited to be the principal here,” he said.

Besides the video presentation, Gayle also introduced the Colony Oak teachers and staff as well as interim Superintendent Bill Draa to those gathered in the school’s multi-purpose building.

Over the summer, he helped make possible the teachers’ new work room equipped with new carpeting made possible by a generous donation from a local flooring company.

Colony Oak, in addition, welcomed free tutoring sessions under the new program by Give Every Child A Chance.

As for the academic goals for this year, Gayle is looking to “keeping the train moving in the right direction,” following the blueprints set forth by the previous Colony Oak principals.

For Back to School Night, parents had a chance to visit their student’s classrooms, in turn, learning about academic expectations first-hand from their teachers.