Uplift Elevate Secondary

I hope this month's newsletter finds each of you having a great weekend as we get ready to head into some exiting events for our campus, including Red Ribbon Week, the Secondary Book Fair, Parent Teacher Conferences, ACT exams for our seniors, and the start of our Uplift Elevate Blue Jays basketball season!

We are now just a little over a month since our Head of Schools, Kendra Castro, departed for maternity leave, welcoming a healthy pair of twins to her family in late September, and we look forward to her return for the second semester. In her absence, please feel free to reach out to our Secondary Director of Academics, Jeremy Green (jgreen@uplifteducation.org), if you have any questions or concerns; however, please review the below "Who's Who" section if you want to reach out directly to any particular staff member responsible for various aspects of our Uplift Elevate Secondary campus.

Heading into the second week of quarter 2 next week, we encourage you to engage early with your scholars, and teachers, if and as needed, regarding your scholars' performance and growth in the classroom. Too often, scholars wait until too late to get back on track when the best practice would be to remain on track in the first place. As a reminder, our teachers have open tutoring in the mornings, Monday through Friday, and our doors open at 7:30 a.m., and our grading policy allows grace for scholars to retest and improve, but they have to take advantage of doing so early to maximize that opportunity.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out. We look forward to partnering with you to ensure we build a legacy at Uplift Elevate that will carry each of our scholars to success.

Sincerely,

Jeremy L. Green

Secondary Director of Academics

Uplift Elevate Preparatory

jgreen@uplifteducation.org

Please review through the following section of this month's newsletter for information on upcoming events and activities, as well as any campus or community updates.

Monday kicks off our observation of Red Ribbon Week! We encourage scholars and staff to dress down to show their commitment to being drug free.

The Secondary Book Fair starts October 28th and ends on November 1st. Scholars will have the opportunity to visit the book fair, create a wish list, and buy books that spark their interest. This year, scholars can shop without cash thanks to Book Fair eWallet. Please visit the link in the flyer for more information and to set up your eWallet!

As a reminder, parent teacher conferences will be held on Wednesday, October 30th from 2:00-6:00 pm.. Families should enter through the main secondary entrance, and upon arrival, you can pick up your scholar's Quarter 1 report card and visit with each of their teachers. Conferences are designed to be about 10-15 minutes with each teacher, so please be respective of other parents' time as well. If you need more time, or if you are unable to make it to Parent Teacher Conferences, please reach out to the teacher individually to schedule an alternative time and date to discuss any concerns or questions.

Please note that scholars have an early release at 12:30pm on this date. As the shortened schedule creates complication to manage an effective lunch rotation, scholars are allowed and encouraged to grab a lunch to go upon dismissal.

Lastly, while we are excited for the opportunity to meet with as many of our families as possible, we are strictly adhering to the time schedule of 2:00-6:00 p.m. Conferences will not begin until 2:00 p.m., allowing time for our staff to help manage dismissal and to eat lunch prior to conferences, and an all call announcement will occur at 6:00 p.m. to allow each of our teachers to go home to their families. Thank you for helping to restrict your meetings during this time frame! We look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!

As we allow scholars to dress up for Halloween, we do want to ensure scholars adhere to the following guidelines:

• Dress down must still adhere to standard dress down protocols
• Masks are not allowed to be worn
• No accessories or part of your costume should include any weapons or anything that could potentially be misconstrued as a weapon

This is meant to be fun, so let's keep it that way and have a great day!

Our seniors will be taking the ACT exams on Tuesday, October 29th. Scholars have been communicated some potential incentives they can earn for reaching improvement and/or college readiness goals, so please help us encourage your scholars to do their very best, to get a good night's rest the night before, a good breakfast, and to ensure they arrive early to campus as ACT has strict rules to follow regarding the start times of the examination.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Carlos Alvarado, our Dean of College Prep. Good luck, seniors!

To both make you aware and to help seek your support in partnering with our campus, we have a few areas in which we would like to improve our campus. Please bear with the length of this section as the attempt is to be as clear as possible, which also tends to be lengthier than desired. Please reach out if you have any questions regarding any of these updates and/or concerns.

Protecting our Local Community

Unfortunately, it was reported to our campus that a few middle and high school scholars were allegedly responsible for damages to private property near one of the nearby community parks. The local HOA is coordinating with local authorities regarding these concerns, and it has been asked that we remind scholars that they should avoid loitering in such areas if you are not a member of that neighborhood, and even by local HOA regulations, children are not supposed to be there unsupervised. As we want to maintain a positive working relationship with our local community, many of which you belong to as well, we ask that you talk with your scholars regarding making good choices and remain respective of all property, both on and off campus.

Secondary Scholars in the Primary Campus

Our middle and high school scholars are not permitted within the primary building. In times in which our secondary scholars are supporting one of their primary siblings, the expectation is to drop off scholars at the entry and allow primary staff to help guide them to class, if and as needed. After school, our secondary scholars should not be picking up any primary siblings directly as primary sibling walkers are walked to the gate to meet their siblings, and those being picked up in carline should be picked up in their separate, respective areas. Given these expectations, there should be no need for scholars to enter the building and roam through any hallways, offices, etc., of which has been reported several times this year. Please help us in reminding your scholars to avoid entering the primary building.

Afternoon Dismissal, Carline, and Walkers

Overall, although we are aware of communicated concerns regarding various aspects of afternoon dismissal and carline issues, our dismissal typically runs fairly smoothly and quickly. The final bell for secondary occurs at 3:40, and we are generally completed with our carline pickup by 4:00 p.m. each day. However, we would like to improve our systems even further, and to do so, we are in need of your help.

The following areas of concern, much of which has also been shared by parental feedback via Possip surveys and/or emails and phone calls to administration, pertains to those that are not following our expectations, leading to increased safety risks and inefficiency of our dismissal time.

As a reminder, no part of our afternoon dismissal process involves scholars being picked up in the front part of the school. Doing so creates a number of logistical and safety problems, such as...

• Crossing the exiting dismissal carline creates the possibility of accidents, and it often backs up the vehicles that are trying to enter the campus to join the carline. The backup often creates spacing issues that slow down the exiting of vehicles that have already picked up their scholars, as well as congests the exterior road, which limits the visibility of scholars that are walking home or attempting to cross the street (with the officer's support).
• Additionally, the vehicles that are coming in the front part of the campus to pick up scholars create even more issues as they are attempting to exit the campus. The intent of our carline dismissal is that all vehicles should enter through the same path and exit in the same path. Vehicles coming from the front part of the school cause delays in vehicles exiting the campus, which then creates growing frustration for those that are waiting in lines longer than they should because of interference occurring that is beyond their field of vision.
• Lastly, there are some vehicles that are bypassing the pickup lane in the secondary carline (the right hand lane) and moving to the exiting lane (the left hand lane), then stopping and asking your scholar(s) to cross the lane to get in to depart. The left lane should only be used for vehicles that have already picked up their scholars. Scholars will not be permitted to cross through any lane of our carline traffic, and if you are not in the right hand lane, you may find yourself being asked to exit without picking up your secondary scholar and then reenter as this is a safety risk that we cannot continue to allow. In this, we do know that there are times in which a vehicle may have picked up a primary sibling, yet the secondary sibling is not being picked up because of after school practice or tutoring. That is not a problem, although we would caution and ask that you drive at a safe speed through the left hand lane; however, we should not see that secondary scholars have failed to report to the appropriate carline pick up area and are already in the vehicle before approaching the secondary carline pick up area.

Note: To these "violations" of our afternoon dismissal process, along with the concerns that this affects safety and the efficiency of our dismissal, I would also ask you to consider the messaging that is being sent to your scholar(s). When you ask your scholar to meet you in the front of the building or to cross over lanes, for whatever reason you are doing so, you are encouraging your scholar to defy the school's rules, to defy their teachers and administrators. At what point is a scholar to determine which rules then to follow, when they should or shouldn't listen to a teacher or an administrator?

I am asking that you please adhere to our campus procedures and our afternoon dismissal process to help us improve the safety and the efficiency of our dismissal. Thank you for all that do!

As you seek to reach out to our campus, in order to help connect you to the most knowledgeable and appropriate staff member responsible to address your concern, please use the following "chart" that indicates commonly addressed topics and the staff member responsible.

Please note, if you have questions or concerns regarding your scholars' grade, or questions regarding the instruction associated with a given classroom, the expectation is that you reach out and discuss such questions and concerns first and foremost with your scholars' respective teacher. If, after having that conversation, you need additional follow up with an administrator, we are prepared to intervene and support; however, we also believe most areas are able to effectively addressed by our teaching staff. Please click on the following attachment (below) to access the email of any Uplift Elevate Secondary staff member you are needing to contact.

As we head into fall and the weather gets cooler, scholars are still required to be in their Uplift Elevate uniform. All sweaters, jackets, and outerwear must be within uniform guidelines. Please do not send scholars to campus wearing out of uniform sweatshirts or pants.

Scholars are welcome to iron or sew patches onto plain navy, grey, or black sweaters. We have patches for sale for $5. Additionally, slides, crocs, and slippers are not acceptable footwear, even on dress down days.

Please reach out Ms. Ruddock with questions (eruddock@uplifteducation.org).

On Tuesday, October 29th, our campus will host our initial Uplift Elevate Basketball Tipoff, with each of our middle school AND high school teams tipping off for the first games of the 2024-2025 season! We hope to see our stands filled with fans, and we wish each of our teams good luck on the upcoming season!

Below, you will see our home basketball schedule, as well as downloadable full schedules for each of our teams. Please note that the TCSAAL charter league is notorious for schedule changes throughout the season, so please be aware that such changes may be communicated "last minute," but it will be shortly after we have received any updates. Coaches will communicate directly with their respective players, and our campus athletic coordinators will push notifications through ParentLink via the assistance of either our administrative or operational leadership teams.

While we hope that we have our scholar spirit sections crammed for every home game, helping to do their part to build a growing legacy of our Uplift Elevate athletic programs, we do want to make sure scholars are following all school rules and some additional, standard participation expectations.

Please ensure your scholars are prepared to...

• Follow the Uplift Code of Character, Conduct, and Support at each Uplift event
• Pay any entrance fees associated with games and/or activities
• Arrive to gym no earlier than 20 mins. prior to tipoff

• Support OUR Blue Jay teams and players by cheering for OUR team and players and NOT by addressing opposing teams' players, coaches, fans, and/or parents
• Remain in the gym during the duration of the game; scholars will NOT be permitted to come and go throughout the game and may have to pay to re-enter
• Be picked up upon conclusion of the game, noting that most games will last approximately one hour

Failure to follow any of these expectations may result in the scholar being removed from the game and potentially forfeit opportunities to attend future games.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to our campus athletic coordinators, Coach Steel (MS) or Coach Chavira (HS), and/or campus administration.

Go, Blue Jays!

For regular season games, entry is $3 for scholars and $5 for adults. However, for the initial Uplift Elevate Tipoff, entry is free for Uplift Elevate scholars!

Email: jgreen@uplifteducation.org
Website: https://uplifteducation.org/uplift-elevate/
Location: 10800 Chapin Road, Fort Worth, TX, USA
Phone: 817-764-3600
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Upliftelevatepreparatory