Tobias Traveler

The mission of Tobias Elementary School, a dedicated partnership of students, teachers, and parents, who find inspiration in our differences, is to ensure that every individual is an empowered problem-solver and passionate learner, by creating collaborative experiences that prepare students to be successful in a changing world.

10/4 Habit Assembly and Clubs Day

10/11 Student Holiday/ Staff workday

10/14 Student and Staff Holiday

10/26 PTA Fall Festival

10/28 Apex Pep Rally

10/28-10/31 Red Ribbon Spirit Week

10/31 Book Character Parade

10/28-11/8 TES APEX Campus Fundraiser

11/1 Student and Staff Holiday

11/4-11/5 Student Holiday/Staff Workday

11/8 Apex Fun Run

Dear Families,

October is here, and while it brings cooler weather 🤞, fall festivities, and the excitement of learning, it’s also a time that can be especially challenging for teachers. In the world of education, this month is sometimes referred to as “Shocktober,” when the initial excitement of the new school year meets the realities of the workload, classroom challenges, and the energy it takes to keep things running smoothly.

Our teachers work incredibly hard every day to provide the best for our students, and this month is a great time to show our support and gratitude. Research shows that teacher morale can dip during this time of year, so it’s crucial for us to come together as a community to lift them up.

Here are some simple but meaningful ways we can support our amazing educators this October:

Send a Kind Note:

• A thoughtful note of appreciation can go a long way. Whether it’s an email, a handwritten card, or even a quick message in person, let a teacher know how much their hard work is noticed and appreciated. You could write something as simple as, “Thank you for all you do for our students—you are making a difference every day!”
  

Send a Hays High Five

• The Hays High Five program is a way for you to salute any Hays CISD employee who goes above and beyond what is expected. Whether you're a parent impressed with that special touch your child's teacher added to a moment, or you want to thank the PEIMS clerk or counselor who doesn't hear often enough about the great job she is doing - you can send a Hays High Five! Anyone can award any Hays CISD employee. Click here to send a Hays High Five to someone who you feel deserves a high five for the work they do at Tobias.
  

Be Patient and Understanding

• October can be a time when teachers are balancing a lot—new curriculum demands, classroom management, and preparing for the busy months ahead. A little patience and understanding from families can make all the difference. If there’s an issue or concern, approach it with kindness and a collaborative mindset.
  

Encourage Your Child to Show Appreciation

• Encourage your child to write a thank-you note or simply say something kind to their teacher. Students play a big role in brightening a teacher’s day with their positivity and gratitude!

Thank you for helping us lift up our teachers during this “Shocktober” and for being part of the incredible community that makes our school so special.

Warm regards,

Melissa English- Tobias Principal

Parents are highly encouraged to apply for Free and Reduced meals. Title 1 funding is directly tied to the number of families who qualify for free and reduced lunch on our campus. The percentage of economically disadvantaged students has significant funding implications beyond just child nutrition, impacting various programs and resources available to our students. Filling out these forms helps us maintain accurate data and ensure proper funding for our district.

If you need any assistance in applying, please reach out to our front office and we will work with you to support you in completing your application.

Last day to purchase Technology insurance is October 11. Click photo or scan QR code below to purchase protection in revtrak.

Arrival Reminders:

• Car rider lane AM drop-off: We encourage students to open their own car doors when their car is at a complete stop against the sidewalk. This will help our drop-off speed up with our limited available staff each morning. Students may not get out of their cars in the grass unless a staff member is present to assist them for safety.
• Arbor Knot Walkers: Please do not park in school zone lanes per City of Kyle. To minimize traffic in the neighborhoods, we encourage all students regularly dropped off via cars to use the car rider drop off lane near the cafeteria.
• Bus eligible students: we encourage all students eligible for bus transportation to ride the bus when possible. Our goal is to minimize traffic disruptions and minimize interactions between cars and walkers when possible. Any student who does not live in Post Oak, Creekside, or Four Seasons Farms is eligible to ride a bus. Reach out to our front office and we will happily work with transportation to get your student added to bus rider lists.

Dismissal:

• School Ends at 3:00. Please ensure you are in designated locations for pick up, including being in the car rider line no later than 3:10 each day. We encourage students to ride the bus whenever possible to minimize number of cars in our car pick up lines. Students who are routinely picked up late will be asked to conference with administration so that we can work together to find ways to support your transportation needs.
• Centex Pick Up on Tuesdays: Please do not park and walk to pick up students from CenTex. We need all parents to remain in vehicles and use the car rider pick up procedures when picking up students from this afterschool activity.
• Arbor Knot and Post Oak Walkers: Please remember that we encourage all families picking up students in a vehicle to use the car rider pick up lane on campus. Our goal is to minimize the number of walkers and cars interacting in the neighborhoods. Many students walk home from campus.

• Arbor Knot families: please remember we will release students at the bridge.

🎯Attendance Goal: 96%

📉Current Attendance Rate: 93.04%

• Grade Level Attendance percentages for 9/23-9/27
• PreK 87.5%
• K 91.34%
• 1st 92.11%
• 2nd 89.05%
• 3rd 93.7%
• 🥳 4th 95.48%
• 5th 95.25%
• We are currently 15 out of 16 in attendance rankings for elementary schools in HaysCISD.

Hi Grown Ups!

How many times have you asked your child, "How was your day?" only to be met with the response, "Fine?" If you want to get more out of your child, it is important to be more intentional about the questions you are asking. Here are some ideas for conversation starters.

Warm regards,

Jenny Herbst

Tobias Counselor

Be on the look out for those positive referral emails as we continue our habits of success campaign. Teachers chose 2 students from each class that showed the habit "Be Proactive". Students used their kindness coins to shop for prizes. Congratulations and thanks kids for being role models and leaders for your friends.

Message from our AMAZING PTA:

Happy Sunday, Explorers!

Friday wrapped up September's membership drive, and WOW, what a drive it was! Today's membership count sits at 592. That's 81% total campus membership representation.🤯That's also a lot of new members over the last few weeks, so on behalf of the Board, I'd like to say welcome and thank you! There's nothing better than parents, students, community, and educators coming together to support the mission of the PTA: Every child, One voice!

The last classroom challenge of the month was to earn a pizza party by reaching 100% membership. Thank you to everyone sponsoring students to help classrooms get to the finish line. ❤️ We ended with 24 classrooms hitting this mark! Congratulations to the following:

Merket (125%)

PreK: Juarez (159%)

Kinder: Sentell (113%), Wilkinson (100%), Williams (133%), Wilson (135%)

First: Abuzaid (183%), Gorubec (117%), Higa-Rolls (111%), Mayers (112%)

ALL of Second: Cooke (128%), Hudgins (100%), Kauffman (124%), Jolliff (100%), Migl (100%)

Third: Callaway (116%), Randle (120%), Snyder (100%)

Fourth: Coffee (100%), Colunga (191%), Stanfield (100%), Villarreal (100%)

Fifth: Coronado (113%), Gleason (100%)

🍕Teachers, we'll reach out to you separately to get parties set up. Thank you for your patience as we work out all the details. This is so many more classrooms than expected, but we are so excited to celebrate all of you!!🍕

Our membership contest between Sunfield PTA also finished with us on top so we'll be getting a visit from former principal DiPalma for a pie-ing! We want to thank both Ms. Dipalma and Ms. English for being such good sports about this and their willingness to literally put their face on the line for their PTA. We had a lot of fun with it, and we can't wait to see Ms. DiPalma back on campus to get her pie from Ms. English!

In the spirit of the competition, we will be providing a pie bar for our staff on Friday, October 4th, to celebrate our victory and show our appreciation for the work our teachers also put in to our membership drive. From sending out information to encouraging membership, we would not be successful without their partnership! PTA will be providing ice cream and drinks and seeking pie donations from local businesses and parents. If you would like to contribute, please sign up here:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508054FAAAF2BA3FA7-51818410-piebar#/

Due to allergies, please label if your pie contains lemon, coconut, cinnamon, banana, or nuts. You can drop off in the front office anytime on Thursday or on Friday morning. Thank you! 😁

Before I close, I want to give a little shout out to the incredible team of volunteers that put in HOURS laminating, cutting, assembling, and sorting the student membership perk packs. Over the course of the month, 310 packs were put together. Jordan Long, Kimberlye Polendo, Laura Rodriguez (and her mini helper), Brandi Sanchez, and Helen Webb. If you see these ladies and little gentleman, please give them a big ole thank you!

Thank you for an awesome month of membership. Looking forward to everything we will accomplish together this year!

Kristen Lowery, Membership

Joinpta.org Hays CISD Tobias PTA

Volunteers Needed:

Tobias’ wonderful Counselor, Miss Herbst, started the Extraordinary Explorers Store last year and it’s back this year! It’s a way for teachers to recognize two Explorers each week who went above and beyond by giving them a coin to exchange for a prize at lunch time on Fridays! But we need your help! We’re looking for volunteers to help students pick their prizes during lunch hours, and also donations to the store if you’re able. Please consider signing up to help or donate, thank you!

To sign up for shifts helping Explorers pick their prizes(starting 9/13):

https://m.signupgenius.com/...

Extraordinary Explorers Store wishlist:

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/XXYZNNIZB15E...

Getting Logged In for the First Time to Schoology

• Navigate to hayscisd.schoology.com and select “Forgot your password”

• Enter the email associated with your student on the Parent Portal and click “Send My Login Info”

• You will receive an email immediately entitled “How to Change Your Schoology Password”

• Click on the link in the email within 10 minutes to set your new password.

Cómo iniciar sesión por primera vez en Schoology

• Vaya a hayscisd.schoology.com y seleccione “Olvidó su contraseña”

• Ingrese el correo electrónico asociado con su estudiante en el Portal de Autoservicio para padres de familia y haga clic en “Enviar mi información de inicio de sesión”.

• Recibirá un correo electrónico inmediatamente titulado “Cómo cambiar su contraseña de Schoology”

• Tiene 10 minutos para hacer clic en el enlace del correo electrónico para configurar su nueva contraseña.

• While we welcome families for lunch, please note we encourage students to spend time with their peers when possible. The social skills and interactions that happen during lunch help students learn important social skills that are crucial to their developmental success.

• Please note that students eating with families will be asked to eat on the stage area and families may not invite other friends to join them during lunch.

• District policy prohibits any parents from dropping off meals in the front office from outside restaurants. This policy includes parents bringing food from a restaurant to drop off at the front desk.

• If you are brining a student a forgotten lunch box or dropping off lunch, please do so at least 30 minutes prior to student lunch times. We will call students down to get their lunches.

• Our front office staff is usually very busy during lunch time and depending on the day, they may not be able to bring a lunch down to the cafeteria right at the start of student lunches.

• Please note that for special campus events such as Grandparents' lunch and Thanksgiving Lunch we allow families to eat in the cafe and adjustments to lunch schedules are made in order to accommodate our increase in people using the cafe.

• 🥪 Designated Nut Free Zones
• Students with nut allergies and food allergies will have designated areas at cafe tables to help keep them safe
• Students will sit with their classes at their class cafe table
• Students who have similar allergies or get a tray from our cafe are permitted to sit within the nut free zone
• Custodians will utilize safe cleaning procedures to avoid cross contamination and we will follow district guidelines and policies to ensure students with allergies are able to remain safe in our cafes.

• MEAL APPLICATION: Complete the meal application. We are asking that any eligible or families who may possibly qualify please complete the form. Even if you are not sure if your student will qualify, we ask you apply so that we don't miss an opportunity to support a student. A large portion of our funding comes from this information. Meal Application
• Information about meal applications.
• MEDICATION at SCHOOL: If you will be bringing medication to school, please visit the website

🎯LEADING @ HOME —I AM A LEADER

Hello Parents and Caregivers! You have a little leader in your home! Over the next few weeks, we will be learning all about The 7 Habits of Happy Kids and how we can practice leadership habits at school and home. Each week your little leader will share a family activity with curious questions. We invite you to explore and learn together the many ways you already show leadership at home and the ways in which you hope to grow. Thank you for joining us on this leadership adventure!

👓 This Week's Focus: Paradigms

Paradigms are ways of seeing the world and they drive our decisions, behaviors, and results. Our paradigms about ourselves and others are powerful because they can limit or maximize our potential.

PARADIGM-POWERED LENSES

1. Cut out the glasses parts on the next page.

2. Tape the sides to the frame of the glasses.

3. While wearing the glasses, take turns answering the curious questions.

CURIOUS QUESTIONS

1. What does it mean to be a leader?

2. Imagine that wearing the glasses helps us see how we lead at home. What do we notice about how we lead ourselves at home?

3. What do we notice about how we lead other people?

4. How might we do a better job of noticing and celebrating how we lead at home?

Please utilize these calendars to plan vacations or make appointments for students. Attendance plays an enormous role in student success. Please use our district calendar student holidays when planning any vacations or trips during the school year.

Hays County Food Bank

https://haysfoodbank.org/get-help/

Attendance: tes.attendance@hayscisd.net

Transportation: transportation@hayscisd.net

Cafeteria: tescafe@hayscisd.net

Principal-Melissa English

melissa.english@hayscisd.net

Assistant Principal-Jenne Brauchle

jenne.brauchle@hayscisd.net

Principal Secretary: Becky Rodriguez

becky.rodriguez@hayscisd.net

Counselor: Jennifer Herbst

jennifer.herbst@hayscisd.net

Counselor Website

Hays Hope Line

Nurse: Ashley Armstrong

ashley.armstrong@hayscisd.net

October 4: Habit Assembly and Clubs Day

October 11: Student Holiday

October 14: Student and Staff Holiday

October 26: PTA Fall Festival

October 28: Apex Pep Rally

CONGRATULATIONS to NEW PTA Board for 2024-2025!

President-Chelsea Stogsdill

Vice-President-Jordan Long

Secretary-Gabrielle Morgan

Treasurer-Kristen Lowery

Parliamentarian-Karen Snyder

Membership Drive has begun. Come join PTA and support our school in 2024-2025

Email: melissa.english@hayscid.net
Website: hayscisd.net/tobias
Location: 1005 FM 150 Kyle, TX 78640
Phone: 512-268-8437