
Our Voice
Issue #29 | August 11, 2020
Good afternoon LISD staff,
This afternoon, we are sending Launch to Learning 2020–21 Update #16 to families. In addition, we’ve got lots of information to help you prepare for the upcoming school year, including:
Remind Update
Virtual Open House Dates
New Slack Webinars
Remind Update: Things you need to know to start the school year
Back by popular demand, Leander ISD will be providing all staff with the premium version of Remind, enabling additional features like larger class sizes and the ability to communicate directly with families through texts, emails or phone calls, all while masking personal contact information.
Like in the Spring of 2020, the district will also connect Remind to the student information system, creating pre-rostered classes that we will update daily as changes are made in eSchoolPlus.
GETTING STARTED
For those new to Remind, visit the Login page and choose the “Login with Google” option, which enables you to use your employee email address and password.
Note: If you’ve used Remind before with a non-@leanderisd.org email address, follow these instructions on how to merge your account.
On Tuesday, Aug. 11, for middle schools and high schools and on Wednesday, Aug. 12, for elementary schools – once schools have finalized class schedules – Leander ISD will send Remind the 2020-21 class roster data. Remind will prompt you to “Claim your new classes” once you log-in on the computer.
Note: If you claimed classes rostered during the 2019-20 school year, you will also be prompted to archive those classes, as those are no longer connected to the student information system.
CLEANING UP OLD DATA IN REMIND
Additionally, as part of the rollover of class information, we will be cleaning up historical courses and memberships in Remind. This process will affect those logging into Remind with a personal account rather than the district-provided profile that is connected to your district email address. Those users in this situation will likely run into some of the limits of Remind’s free product.
Here are some steps to take full advantage of the premium version of Remind:
Log into Remind using your official @leanderisd.org email address and follow the merge profile instructions to bring over any classes from a personal account.
If you wish to continue to use non-rostered or manually created classes, connect these to your school in order to avoid limitations of Remind’s free product.
Consider archiving classes you no longer need (Note: you can always restore them if needed).
SUPPORT
Please visit the Leander ISD Remind support page for additional information and features available with the premium version of Remind. Also, consider joining the #remind-teachers Slack channel to see updates and ask questions.
Virtual Open House Dates
As we approach the new school year, one thing is certain: we cannot wait to see our kids!
Our virtual Open House dates are:
Elementary Meet the Teacher - 5 and 5:45 p.m., Tuesday, August 11
6th Grade - 6:45 p.m., Tuesday, August 11
7th and 8th Grade - 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, August 18 @ 6:30 p.m. *Please note change from original date of Aug. 20
High School - Monday, August 24 - start time determined by campus
Each campus will be sharing details about these events with our families through email and/or on their campus websites.
New Slack Virtual Webinars, including the advanced user training
We’re excited to offer five new virtual training sessions for Slack, including four options to take our 2.0 training, covering strategies for personal and team organization.
Please join Corey LIVE via Zoom or check back next week for more recordings of sessions to learn about our new collaboration and communication tool for LISD staff.
New Workshops:
To access training materials and to learn more about Slack in Leander ISD, please click here.
Launch to Learning Guides and FAQs
As the upcoming school year takes shape, we want to ensure the information our staff needs As the upcoming school year takes shape, we want to ensure the information our staff needs to make important decisions is easy to access in our Launch to Learning 2020–21 format. The following guides are now in our online knowledge base and available to print in English and Spanish.
COVID-19 HEALTH RESPONSE - English PDF version | Spanish PDF version
TEACHING AND LEARNING GUIDE - English PDF version | Spanish PDF version
SPECIAL PROGRAMS GUIDE - English PDF version | Spanish PDF version
We know that our community will still have questions; if you are unable to locate your answer, please feel free to submit your question using the Let’s Talk button on our Launch to Learning site.
LEEF Grant Cycle is Open!
LEEF Emergency Fund
Benefits: Download FREE Headspace App for Mindfulness Tools
Distractions are everywhere. But 4 weeks of Headspace has been shown to increase focus by 14%, making any task at hand that much easier to handle. Stay on track with a Work & Productivity meditation. Details are on LNET.
About Us
Website: www.leanderisd.org
Location: 204 West South Street, Leander, TX, USA
Facebook: facebook.com/leanderisd
Twitter: @leanderisd