Week 22

 Hello, Ms. Carpenter’s families, 

 

I want to ensure you received the following information from Lewisville ISD yesterday. The district was faced with a very difficult decision, so we thank you for continued support at Coyote Ridge. We appreciate our families so very much! 

 

All Lewisville ISD campuses and facilities will be closed beginning Wednesday, Jan. 26 through Sunday, Jan. 30. Classes will resume and all facilities will reopen Monday, Jan. 31. 

 

For additional details, refer to the email below that was shared with all LISD families yesterday evening from Interim Superintendent Gary Patterson. To stay up to date on the latest information, visit LISD.net.

 

For resources regarding free curbside meals Wednesday, Jan. 26 through Friday, Jan. 28, visit

LISD.net/freemeals.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

LISD Families, 

 

As I mentioned in my update to you this weekend, our staffing shortages have reached significant levels due to the latest COVID surge. We do not have enough staff members to cover the expected staff absences, despite our best efforts to find substitutes and coverage for classes. The numbers simply are not in our favor. 

 

After reviewing our most recent trends and data over the last two days, we have made the difficult decision to close the district beginning Wednesday, Jan. 26. Classes will resume Monday, Jan. 31. It is our hope this district-wide closure will stem this alarming trend and provide relief to both students and staff. 

 

The positive cases reported by middle school and high school students over the last 10 days have increased by almost 500%. Absences for on-campus staff are running between 7-800 daily, while district-wide staff absences have been over 900 and peaked at 1,048 last Friday. That is more than double the number we would expect during non-COVID years. It is important to understand, not all these absences are positive COVID cases in staff. Many may be COVID-related, but we are seeing extraordinarily high numbers with other illnesses, personal reasons, sick family members, family medical leave, and the list goes on. Regardless of the cause, these staff absences impact our ability to maintain our daily campus operations. 

 

We know you may wonder why we can’t offer virtual or remote learning for a period of time, and that is a reasonable question. The answer still comes back to the lack of staff availability to conduct those lessons. We are conscious of the lost instructional time, and are considering all options to address those concerns.

 

Student activities such as fine arts and athletics will continue at the high school level. Middle school athletics for this week will be canceled and rescheduled for a future date, while some optional fine arts practice sessions may be held virtually. Campus-specific information will be shared by campus administrators and program sponsors regarding practices or other important information.

 

We understand the impact this has on our more than 50,000 students and their families and our 6,500 staff, and we do not make this decision lightly. We have heard from concerned families on all sides of this issue. Some believe we should have closed the district earlier. Some believe we shouldn’t close schools at all. We know this is not a perfect solution, and certainly a measure we wish we didn’t have to take. I want to be clear - we have used every resource available over the last two weeks to keep the district open. 

 

I want to thank our teachers, campus support staff, campus administrators, along with the district’s central office staff, for covering classes in addition to their already full workloads. I want to thank our extended day staff members for coming in early to cover classes. And I want to thank all the substitute teachers for sticking with us, and our HR department for trying to recruit more substitutes to our system. We are doing everything we can to keep schools open, and we have simply reached the limit of tools at our disposal. 

 

We will continue to communicate with you as early as possible regarding the decisions we are considering and making. My sincere appreciation for your patience and support for our staff and students. I know the majority of our community understand and appreciate what hard-working and dedicated teachers, principals and staff we have. I ask that you treat these folks with kindness and give the benefit of the doubt that we are doing all we can to serve and support our students and families. 

 

My best wishes for the safety of your family.

Gary Patterson

Interim Superintendent

 

Week 21

 Dear Parents,

        This week in math we had many different skills utilized with numbers to 1,200. We read clues, used reasoning to identify a number, we compared numbers to see which was greater than, less than or equal to each other, and we ordered the numbers from greatest to least and least to greatest. I was really proud of my students as they picked up these skills easily.

         In writing we continued drafting poems and visualizing some to put in our poetry book. Reading also was focused on poetry as we read poems about weather, discussed them, talked about interesting words and what the poems were mainly about. We pointed out all the elements of poetry we saw in these poems and then we took a comprehension check over three poems.

          In social studies we are beginning our map skills and will focus on a different one each Monday. This week we learned about the differences between maps and globes.

           In science we worked on our performance task about using resources to build a very strong house that would keep even the Big Bad Wolf out. Not even he could blow our house down! We took a cloze procedure paper over the vocabulary we learned and took our assessment on Friday.

Week 20

 Dear Parents,

    In math this week  we focused on base ten relationships to 1,200. We also took our middle of the year math CBA. This test covers all the skills covered the first half of the school year. We use the information to reinforce skills that we feel need more practice. This assessment will not be used as a grade in the gradebook.

     In writing we began our unit on poetry and  we will continue this unit next week as we learn about the elements of poetry and draft a few poems as well. We will take one or more to the final copy stage and collect other pages to put in a poetry book. We will be reading poems during our reading block of time as it is also our reading focus. We will visualize as we read and draw our mind movies.

     In Social studies we read a Scholastic News about Martin Luther King, Jr. and made a project telling about each child’s dream for our world. 

      In science we continued learning about natural and man made resources as we found them inside and outside our school. We did a picture sorting activity and created a bumper sticker to help promote the conservation of a natural resource. We watched a brainpop jr. video, discussed the contents of it and took a quiz.

 

Week 19 B

 Dear Parents, 

        Although it was a short week, we were all glad to be back to school and get back to our daily routine. In math we began by writing numbers to 1,200 in word form, model/sticker form, standard form and expanded form. On Friday we compared numbers, ordered numbers, and added 100 more or subtracted 100 to make a number 100 less.

         In writing/ reading we read a Scholastic News about making New Year’s Resolutions and how to make one. We answered comprehension questions about the article. We then wrote out own resolution and included steps on how to be successful to accomplish it.

           In reading we read two The Mitten stories, filled out a graphic organizer with the story elements, then compared the stories on a double bubble map. We even had a fun science experiment using a mitten to help us observe the melting of a chocolate kiss as our Science extension.

            We began a new science unit about natural and manmade resources. We talked about their differences and sorted some objects . We then compared two of those objects on a double bubble map.

 

• Tutoring resumes Jan. 24^th. (There will be no tutoring next Monday, Then the following Monday is a holiday.)

 

• On Monday our refreshed Reading Logs will go home. They are now also Math Logs. There is a paper in their log that explains the math portion. There will normally be one fact sheet, but we are starting off with two- the plus 0’s and the plus 1’s. This sheet is to be cut apart, the answers written on the back. These are flash cards for practice. They are to be kept throughout the semester. Your child will get one new math flashcard set each week. The goal is two know these facts quickly, but your child will not be timed. There will be a quiz over just that week’s facts on Friday.

 

• See the attached letter for information about international Culture Week: 
• Here are the details:
• -students and/or parents may bring items that represent their culture and share a display 
• -displays will be in the main hallway of the CRE building during the week on January 24-28
• -students will be scheduled to “man” their tables during CRE lunch times 
• -science fair boards are encouraged but not mandatory for participation
• -small discussions / presentations are suggested for participation
•  
• Items to include in the presentations: (Items that represent their culture)
• -currency
• -food-for demonstration purposes only
• -clothing
• -maps
• -festival information
• -jewelry (not anything of value
• -sporting equipment
• -religion