| 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. Also, don’t forget to set your clocks for daylight savings time. We all get an extra hour of sleep! Unless you’re like me and you have young kids at home, in which case you’re just getting up when they do, daylight savings or not.And now, the news… |
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| Family Newsletter |
| By Scott Thomas ● Nov 05, 2021
Smart Brevity™ 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.
Also, don’t forget to set your clocks for daylight savings time. We all get an extra hour of sleep! Unless you’re like me and you have young kids at home, in which case you’re just getting up when they do, daylight savings or not.
And now, the news…
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1 Big Thing: Vaccines now available for ages 5-11
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Austin ISD will be ready in the coming days to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to students ages 5 through 11.
Driving the news: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday authorized the use of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on students as young as 5.
By the numbers: The newly authorized age group mostly consists of students in kindergarten through fifth grade, approximately 35,000 students in Austin ISD.
Yes, but: The COVID-19 vaccine is not required at our schools.
What’s next: Families will be contacted through email as vaccine opportunities become available, or they can check the 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. To put it in perspective, every 1,000 students represent about $6.1 million.
Go deeper: While we didn’t hit the enrollment target, we did stop the decline we’ve seen in the past several years. Increasing enrollment is going to take a few years.
We’re continuing the day-to-day work of connecting with families who live within the district but may not be going to Austin ISD schools.
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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’t 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.
Scott’s thought bubble: The days of schools opening their doors and watching the kids pour in are over. We’re 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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Austin ISD students are working with business partners to get hands-on experience and training in some of the area’s most high-demand fields.
Why it matters: We offer programs — called P-TECH — 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, Austin Board of Realtors, Austin Hotel and Lodging Association, Visit Austin, the Austin Board of Realtors, and IBM.
Dive deeper: Students in these programs — called P-TECH — 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’s Teachers, real estate, construction technology, and more.
Yes, but: Programs are campus-specific, but transportation is available if a student who doesn’t live in the campus boundary attends a P-TECH program.
What’s next: You can apply for any P-TECH program via our Common Application for Schools of Choice.
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4. District proactively monitors aging infrastructure
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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 — 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’re not sitting around waiting for issues like Bowie’s to happen, we’re constantly monitoring to try to prevent them.
Yes, but: No amount of monitoring or preventative work can stop all issues across the district.
To make sure we’re staying on top of things, we’re going through the long-range planning process now.
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5. COVID cases decline again
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Our COVID cases are down again last week with 43 total cases, a 21% decline from last week.
Why it matters: You know the drill — we keep cases down, we keep kids learning and each week we get one step closer to getting our youngest students vaccinated.
Big picture: Our cases are still way lower than surrounding districts.
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6. Let’s Talk Question of the Week: What’s going on with report cards?
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| 6. Note: This week’s question is a composite. |
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Families can ask us anything via Let’s 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’t I see comments on my student’s report card? How do I get the report card?
Answer: First of all, if you haven’t received a report card, check that your contact information is updated in the Portal.
You can view the PDF version of your student’s report card by clicking on the Student Documentation tile in the portal as well.
We’ve also gotten reports that the teacher’s comments aren’t 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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