Orenda Superintendent Newsletter

BELONGING - INDEPENDENCE - MASTERY - GENEROSITY

It is time again for parents to complete annual forms for each of their enrolled children. Annual forms need to be completed for ALL students prior to the first day of school.

Annual forms are completed through the Orenda Education Frontline Parent Portal. Instructions for accessing and navigating the Frontline Parent Portal are found here.

The 2022-23 Parent-Student Handbook and Code of Conduct for each campus have been posted on the district and campus websites. The direct links to each campus handbook are below.

Gateway College Preparatory School

Gateway Tech High School

Nolan Creek School

Kingsland School

New Horizons School

Back-to-School events are an opportunity for students and families to meet the teachers and staff, drop off school supplies, bring needed updated immunization documents, and other activities needed for the start of school, such as athletic forms, PTO, and afterschool supervision. Below are the event dates for each campus.

Gateway College Preparatory School

Kinder and 1st grades - August 10, 5:00 - 6:00 pm

7th - 12th grades - August 10, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

2nd - 4th grades - August 11, 5:00 - 6:00 pm

5th - 6th grades - August 11, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Gateway Tech High School

August 11, 6:30 pm

Nolan Creek School

August 16, 5:00 - 6:00 pm

Kingsland School

August 15, 5:00 - 6:30 pm

As you may know, we have an exciting construction project happening this summer. The renovations and improvements to the Kingsland Plaza are on schedule to be completed for teachers to start setting up their classrooms on August 11th and to start school on August 16th. All classes and offices will then be located together in the Kingsland Plaza..

Williamson County started the Westinghouse Road Project this summer which will upgrade the existing roadway to a two-lane roadway with shoulders and provide preliminary planning for an ultimate six-lane divided urban roadway.

Currently, the previous entrance is the only entrance and exit for the campus due to the road construction. Orenda Education has been working directly with the city and county to have access to our previous exit starting next week for Back-to-School Nights and the start of school on August 16th. Any delay and/or changes to this plan will be communicated through the Gateway App.

In response to the Uvalde tragedy, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas State Safety Center (TxSSC), under the leadership of Gov. Abbott, released several summer action steps for all Texas school districts to complete prior the start of the 2022-23 school year. Below are the summer safety action items that will be completed by Orenda prior to the first day of school:

• Conduct a Summer Targeted Partial Safety Audit
• Conduct an Exterior Door Safety Audit
• Convene Safety and Security Committee to review the multi-hazard emergency operations plan (EOP) and the active threat plan
• Train all campus staff (including substitutes) on the district and campus safety procedures
• Schedule all mandatory drills for the school year
• Ensure all threat assessment team members are trained
• Review and update access control procedures (exterior doors and visitor procedures)
• For the new school year, access control procedures must include exterior door sweeps (ensuring doors are closed and locked) at every instructional facility at least once each week while instruction is being conducted.

In addition to the required state summer action items above, Orenda Charter School will be implementing the additional safety items below.

• Update the Emergency Operations Plan based on the 2021-22 Full Safety Audit
• Train all students on access control procedures (i.e. securely close all exterior doors after entering, don't let anyone in through exterior doors, don't prop open any exterior doors, etc.)
• Conduct an active threat exercise with staff on an non-instructional day in the Fall 2022
• Review, update, and implement delivery and key control procedures
• Relaunch anonymous threat and bullying reporting tool, StopIt, for all campuses

The Texas Department of Health and Human Services updated their COVID-19 School Readmission criteria for student this week found here.

The readmission criteria for COVID-19 is as follows:

• If symptomatic, exclude until at least 5 days have passed since symptom onset, and fever free, and other symptoms have improved.
• Children who test positive for COVID-19 but do not have any symptoms must stay home until at least 5 days after the day they were tested.

The Orenda Return to In-Person Instruction Plan has been updated and is located here.

On-campus COVID testing will continue to be available in the 2022-23 school year.

Remote Conferencing will continue to be available for the 2022-23 school year. The procedures for remote conferencing are the same as the 2021-22 school year. Information on remote conferencing can be found here.

Starting on August 15th, parents will be able to view the rating for their child’s school, plus much more, by visiting TXschools.gov. Parents will also be able to search for schools using their address and compare their child’s school to others. Parents have shared that the detailed profile information along with school ratings, school offerings, and additional parent resources help paint a more complete picture of their child’s school. Parent School Rating FAQ documents created by TEA are below.

Carla Silber, Superintendent

Email: carla.silber@orendaeducation.org
Website: www.orendaeducation.org
Location: 2951 Williams Drive, Georgetown, TX, USA
Phone: (512) 869-3020