Superintendent of Schools

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Final days of this school year and looking ahead - May 28, 2021

05/28/2021

Dear SAISD Staff:

We are just three weeks away from the last day of classes and about two weeks from the first of our graduation ceremonies. This year, for the first time, we will be celebrating a graduating class from CAST Tech High School, and I will be so excited to see their inaugural cohort cross the stage.

It seems like yesterday that we started this school year completely in virtual learning. Now, after increasing in-person instruction over time as the pandemic loosened its grip on our community, we are able to celebrate our commencement ceremonies with our high school seniors in just a matter of days. It is a triumphant moment for our seniors. They have persevered what may be one of the most difficult years of their lives. And they have excelled.

One of this year’s seniors has managed a feat that no other SAISD student has yet accomplished. Travis Early College High School Senior Samuel Torres has earned the triple crown of scholarships – he has been awarded the prestigious Dell, Gates, and QuestBridge Scholarships. While Samuel is the first SAISD student with this distinction, I know future SAISD students will follow in his footsteps. Samuel is now headed to Princeton to study economics, with plans for law school. I wish him, and all of our seniors, much success on their futures.

Before our seniors leave us, though, we will continue to hold vaccination clinics so that they can receive both their COVID-19 and meningitis shots. We want nothing to hold them back from pursuing their next steps.

The COVID-19 vaccination clinics also are open to all eligible students – currently as young as 12 – as well as eligible family members, and of course, our staff. We will continue our vaccination efforts through the end of this school year, all summer, and into the fall. To ensure our efforts are successful, we are launching a fun, incentive program to reward the campus with the highest percentage of eligible students vaccinated. The goal is to start next school year safe and strong!

I’m sure many of you know that after June 4, we can no longer require face masks as the result of an executive order from the governor. However, we will still encourage the wearing of masks. Thankfully, our vaccination efforts are going well with strong turnout.

As we look ahead to the fall, we are seeing some strong annual registration numbers. I want to congratulate the staff at Sam Houston High School for their recent registration push that took the campus from one-third of students enrolled to more than 90 percent enrolled in only three weeks. They effectively made outreach to their families with phone calls and tapping the influence of students, parents, and community partners. I know many of you have discovered what works best for your campus community, too. Overall, our District is at about 80 percent of its current students enrolled – a sweet spot for this time in the registration cycle.

We are expecting a good number of our students to begin the new school year with us during our Summer Jumpstart program in July. We can’t wait to immerse them in enrichment and interactive activities that not only will engage them, but also prepare them academically for the fall and beyond – including programming in STEAM, social-emotional learning, visual and performing arts, gaming and robotics. I want to thank our teachers for the development of such innovative offerings and for their student outreach. I value their continued support of student learning this summer after such a challenging year.

This spring, we had among the highest student participation rates in the state for STAAR and End of Course exams, and as a result, we have accumulated good diagnostic data to drive our academic recovery efforts. Like schools across the state and nation, we are seeing assessment scores lower than we would normally see. These reductions are not solely a reflection of our students’ ability, but also are an indication of the circumstances of this unusual year. School districts everywhere anticipated this, and we also are expecting to see differences when we compare the data from remote learners to in-person learners. This is a national education issue that we will be tackling over the next few years.

Fortunately, we are better positioned than most of our counterparts to leverage our diagnostic data to get our students back on track – through our summer initiatives, the structure of our instructional calendar, and the federal funds to implement our post-pandemic plans. One of our most critical components involves campuses working with parents to personalize plans for each student. It’s this ability to customize learning that is the value of having information and data as the foundation of our recovery. This is a learning experience for all of us, but I believe we will come out stronger and be able to model and give insight to other districts facing the same struggles.

As tough as this past year has been, it also has been one of great accomplishments, too. As I look back on the achievements our staff and students have earned, I am so proud. And, I want to leave you with one more.

This spring semester, three more of our campuses using an International Baccalaureate framework have been fully authorized as IB World Schools. Please join me in congratulating Huppertz and Woodlawn Hills elementary schools and Fenwick Academy for being authorized to offer the Primary Years Programme. This rigorous, multiyear process did not slow down for any of these schools because of COVID-19. Right on schedule, they attained their designations, and as a result, their students next year will have the benefit of attending first-class IB World Schools. Next year, Fenwick is expected to receive final review for the Middle Years Programme, too.

There is so much to be grateful for as we enter a three-day weekend, and I hope you all have a restful break. And on Monday, this Memorial Day, for those of you honoring a loved one lost during military service, I wish you peace.

Sincerely,
Pedro