| Only two more full weeks until Thanksgiving!Have you marked your calendars yet? Our Middle School Fair is set for 9 a.m. -1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13 at Eastside Early College High School.听Also, don鈥檛 forget to set your clocks for daylight savings time. We all get an extra hour of sleep! Unless you鈥檙e like me and you have young kids at home, in which case you鈥檙e just getting up when they do, daylight savings or not.And now, the news鈥 |
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| Family Newsletter |
| By Scott Thomas 鈼 Nov 05, 2021
Smart Brevity鈩 count: 4.5 mins... 1144 words
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Only two more full weeks until Thanksgiving!
Have you marked your calendars yet? Our Middle School Fair is set for 9 a.m. -1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13 at Eastside Early College High School.听
Also, don鈥檛 forget to set your clocks for daylight savings time. We all get an extra hour of sleep! Unless you鈥檙e like me and you have young kids at home, in which case you鈥檙e just getting up when they do, daylight savings or not.
And now, the news鈥
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1 Big Thing: Vaccines now available for ages 5-11
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果冻传媒app ISD will be ready in the coming days to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to students ages 5 through 11.
Driving the news:听The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday听.
By the numbers: The newly authorized age group听mostly consists of students in kindergarten through fifth grade,听approximately 35,000 students in 果冻传媒app ISD.
Yes, but:听The COVID-19 vaccine is not required at our schools.
What鈥檚 next:听Families will be contacted through email as vaccine opportunities become available, or they can check the听COVID-19 vaccine page for all upcoming clinic dates.
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2. Our enrollment numbers are in
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Each October we send our official enrollment number to the Texas Education Agency, and this year we clocked in at 74,727.
Why it matters: our funding is tied to enrollment.听To put it in perspective, every 1,000 students represent about $6.1 million.
Go deeper:听While we didn鈥檛 hit the enrollment target, we did stop the decline we鈥檝e seen in the past several years. Increasing enrollment is going to take a few years.听
We鈥檙e continuing the day-to-day work of connecting with families who live within the district but may not be going to 果冻传媒app ISD schools.听
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Last month, Central Office staff called more than 700 sixth-grade students who had attended AISD elementary schools but who hadn鈥檛 shown up this year to their middle schools.
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Not-so-fun fact: We lose the most students during the transition grades, like sixth and ninth grade.听
Scott鈥檚 thought bubble: The days of schools opening their doors and watching the kids pour in are over. We鈥檙e working hard to reconnect with families who might have left and bring in new ones.
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3. Have it All: Partnerships open up hands-on opportunities for students
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果冻传媒app ISD students are working with business partners to get hands-on experience and training in some of the area鈥檚 most high-demand fields.
Why it matters: We offer programs 鈥 called P-TECH 鈥 that allow students to get two years of free college while also earning industry certifications, and these partnerships open up training, internship and interview possibilities for our students.
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Industry partners include Dell, Ascension Seton, 果冻传媒app Board of Realtors, 果冻传媒app Hotel and Lodging Association, Visit 果冻传媒app, the 果冻传媒app Board of Realtors, and IBM.
Dive deeper: Students in these programs 鈥 called P-TECH 鈥 earn two years of free college, can get industry certifications, and earn an associates degree at the same time as their high school diploma.
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Programs offered include cybersecurity, health careers, Tomorrow鈥檚 Teachers, real estate, construction technology, and more.
Yes, but: Programs are campus-specific, but transportation is available if a student who doesn鈥檛 live in the campus boundary attends a P-TECH program.
What鈥檚 next: You can apply for any P-TECH program via our
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4. District proactively monitors aging infrastructure 听
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District staff are proactively monitoring our aging infrastructure to hopefully deter issues like we saw this week when Bowie High School lost water due to a leak 鈥 twice.
Why it matters: Our infrastructure is aging and the winter storm in February further stressed many of our systems. Our families should know we鈥檙e not sitting around waiting for issues like Bowie鈥檚 to happen, we鈥檙e constantly monitoring to try to prevent them.听
Yes, but: No amount of monitoring or preventative work can stop all issues across the district.
To make sure we鈥檙e staying on top of things, we鈥檙e going through the long-range planning process now.
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5. COVID cases decline again听
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Our COVID cases are down again last week with 43 total cases, a 21% decline from last week.听
Why it matters: 鈥You know the drill 鈥 we keep cases down, we keep kids learning and each week we get one step closer to getting our youngest students vaccinated.听
Big picture: Our cases are still way lower than surrounding districts.听
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6. Let鈥檚 Talk Question of the Week: What鈥檚 going on with report cards?听
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| 6. Note: This week鈥檚 question is a composite. |
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Families can ask us anything via听Let鈥檚 Talk, our two-way question and answer platform. Each week, we highlight some of the questions we get that might help you.
Question: Why don鈥檛 I see comments on my student鈥檚 report card? How do I get the report card?
Answer: First of all, if you haven鈥檛 received a report card, check that your contact information is updated in the .
You can view the PDF version of your student鈥檚 report card by clicking on the Student Documentation tile in the portal as well.
We鈥檝e also gotten reports听that the teacher鈥檚 comments aren鈥檛 filled out.
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To close our week, Halloween photos.
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Thanks for sending your awesome Halloween photos. We wish we could have used them all, but here are a few of our favorites.
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Like this style and format? to Axios HQ 鈥 the tool and templates you need for more engaging team updates.
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