Hornet Herald

Happy New Year fantastic family members!

Thank you all for a warm welcome and for choosing Kealing Middle School as your child's primary educator. We are excited to welcome everyone back for a great semester and will resume on campus learning and remote learning for the remainder of the school year. Safety continues to be our top priority for the students and staff. We will continue to keep our campus' safety protocols in place. Some of these protocols are:

- Screening prior to campus entry

- Temporal scanning

- One way stairs & hallways

- Staggard releases for transition

- Bottle filling station on campus

- Rapid tests are still available

We will continue to do all we can to provide a safe learning space for our scholars and educators on campus. We will also continue to deliver high quality lessons both online and in person for our scholars. Our top priority is safety but in a very close second place is preventing the "COVID Slide". Our educators are excited to deliver rigorous lessons and to provide necessary interventions as necessary to assure all students still receive a high quality education from Hightower Theodore Kealing Middle School.

January 4th - (No school for scholars)

January 5th - District of Innnovation / Staff Development (No school for scholars)

January 6th - 1st Day of Spring Semester Instruction

January 14th - Honor's Assembly (during advisory 2:30p - 3p)

January 14th - CAC Meeting (3:15p - 4:15p) & PTA Meeting (4:30p - 5:30p)

*Join PTA with this link

Spring Semester schedules will be emailed out to student and parent emails Monday, January 4th evening. Students can access their most up to date schedules in Frontline (TEAMS). Yearlong courses will have the same BLEND courses whereas, new spring semester elective BLEND courses will appear on the first day of school. Students should access all zoom links from the BLEND course.

Students will be able to request a spring semester elective change through Advisory during the 1st two weeks of the spring semester. A list of available courses will be provided. Courses that were placed on a student's top 10 choices will not be eligible for a course change and only lateral changes will be permitted.

All in-person learning students will receive a physical copy of their schedule with room numbers at the entrance of the school.

We are excited to announce that we have secured approval from AISD to have an outdoor day of service to honor Martin Luther King Jr's legacy of service and bring our Kealing community together safely to spruce up our gardens and grounds.

This service day will be the first step toward establishing more outdoor learning spaces that our teachers, neighbors, and community can use flexibly during covid, but also for years to come. We hope you will join us for this first service day of 2020-21 and come learn about the opportunity to get involved monthly if you end up loving your experience! In addition to leading the reimagining of the design and usage of our outdoor space, Science and Gardening Teacher Catherine Bergman will be conducting some mini nature talks/walks to share information about the various ecosystems around our school and how we are exploring enhancing them.

The service day will be on Saturday, January 16th, 2021 from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm (Rainout day will be MLK day, Monday, January 18th, 2021).

Signup is required to ensure we have enough supplies and space to work safely.

Sign up by Thursday, January 14th here: https://signup.com/go/XJuJRWj

Do you have gently used books at home that you don't want any longer? As a community, we are looking to collect as many books as possible to eventually distribute to our feeder schools, Kealing students and elsewhere. We will collect books starting in mid-January but want you to start creating a book giveaway pile at home NOW! 🙂 Types of books: ALL books, levels Pre-K to 12th grade. Books written in all languages will be accepted.

Collection sites: Kealing will be a collection site but we need more sites! We would like collection sites all over the city. If your family is willing to host a collection site, please contact Ms. Fernandez at kiersten.fernandez@austinisd.org to submit your address as a potential contactless, drop-off location.

Thank you!

We have a large number of students who are not in TEA compliance when it comes to required immunizations. Prior to Thanksgiving Break, we contacted families with outstanding immunizations requirements. Please submit the required documentation ASAP. You can email the documentation to stephen.mansolo@austinisd.org or drop it off at campus.

Thanks,

Mr. Mansolo

Hello Hornets,

We are making plans for Girls Soccer and Boys Basketball Seasons. We need you to complete this Google Form to let us know if your child will be participating in tryouts. Tryouts will most likely be taking place the first week of January after the Winter Break. There is information on the form about physicals and mask requirements.

Please contact Coach Gardner (justin.gardner@austinisd.org) if you need more information.

The 2021 Kealing yearbook staff is hard at work producing a book for our school community to commemorate this one-of-a-kind school year. It’s going well, but we need your help.

1. SUBMIT PHOTOS - we’re currently looking for photos from summer travel or summer camps, online school/clubs, extracurricular sports or fine arts, Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, election & activism, kindness, art, etc! We’ll take just about anything!!

Use this form to submit: https://forms.gle/1iaymHHDj6EPGdwf7

1. YEARBOOK COMMUNITY BLEND - stay tuned to the yearbook community Blend page for surveys, interview requests, and submitting school pics. Not a member of this class yet? Email Ms. Scott for an invitation: kristen.scott@austinisd.org

1. PURCHASE YOUR YEARBOOK TODAY - Yearbooks are on sale now for $35, the lowest price of the year. Order here: https://www.jostens.com/apps/store/customer/1077699/Kealing-Middle-School/

Important note:so PLEASE don’t wait to order your book. If we order fewer books, we will sell out and you will miss your chance to own this very special publication!

AISD to Continue Free Meals through the 2020-21 School Year

The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) recently announced an extension of current school meal programs through the 2020-21 school year. Through the federally-funded program, all Austin ISD students will receive free school meals through June 3, the last day of school.

For students participating in remote, off-campus learning, free 7 day meal packs will be available each Thursday at more than 40 curbside locations throughout Austin. While Austin ISD plans to continue curbside service as long as needed, meal sites are subject to change as more students transition to on-campus learning.

Curbside meal sites and more information can be found here

Austin ISD is committed to putting health and safety protocols in place that will prevent the occurrence and/or spread of COVID-19. However, we must be prepared to quickly and effectively respond to and communicate a lab-confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19 at a school or other Austin ISD facility.

The Austin ISD COVID-19 Dashboard will be updated by noon each Tuesday, starting the week of Sept. 21. All lab-confirmed positive cases on campuses will be communicated directly to the campus community. Individuals who may have been exposed will be contacted directly and provided information on the next steps, including a quarantine timeline if needed.

FREE COVID-19 Testing is available through Austin Public Health (APH). NEW RESOURCE!

COVID-19 testing is recommended for those who:

• have COVID-19-related symptoms

• have had close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19

• have traveled in the last 14 days

Students can schedule free testing by using this link: https://www.austintexas.gov/covid-testinfo

View APH testing site locations here

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