Great evening fantastic families,

We are excited to welcome everyone back to the final stretch of the Spring semester. In this final stretch we are planning many exciting events for our scholars and focusing on making sure Kealing is a great environment for teachers and staff members as well. We are planning our Algebra II movie nights on 3/25, 4/1, and 4/8. The March service day will be this Saturday, March 26th. We are also planning our Spring Dance and Spring sports. I am excited for Ultimate Frisbee, Chess Club, Track & Field, and Tennis seasons to start this week. Please make sure your scholars are signed up and present for the introductory meetings. This upcoming week we will go back to in person Principal's Coffee meetings. We are scheduled to have a follow up meeting Tuesday morning at 8am, please use this link to RSVP. This will let us know if we need to move the location from the library. We will also have a follow up CAC meeting this Thursday with representatives from Human Capital Management and our very own Trustee Latisha Anderson. This past week I had an opportunity to review the 3/7 campus climate survey and conducted more exit surveys from teachers who departed prior to the end of the school year. More details in the next section. The findings were very insightful and will be used to help make our campus an even better place for teachers and students to learn and grow. Thank you for choosing Kealing Middle School and Austin ISD, feel free to reach out to me directly for any reason at all: jerald.wilson@austinisd.org

This Past Week

• Conducted 2 more exit surveys for teachers who have left this year. (not completely done yet )
• Reviewed 3/11 Campus Bi Weekly Climate Survey results. We will extend the survey until Monday afternoon to get more staff feedback.
• So far most staff members have reported a 4(1 is not happy & 5 is elated) on a scale of 1 to 5 about coming to work and have suggested student written notes, improving the building cleaning efforts, and continued administrative support as suggestions that can improve morale on campus. We will close the survey at 4pm Monday 3/21.

This Upcoming Week

• Principal's Coffee follow up meeting on 3/22, in person, please use this link to RSVP
• Conduct more exit surveys from former teachers
• Conduct more stop and chats with teachers and staff members

Please view our current vacancy status below:

KMS Current Vacancies

Hornet Parents,

It is time to start planning for next year. We need three volunteers to serve on the nominating committee to find people to serve on next year's executive board. If you would like to serve on the committee or would like to serve on the board, please send an email expressing your interest to president@kealingpta.org.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the We Love Kealing Spring Fundraising Drive! We have reached our goal and can fulfill our promises to our students, teachers and staff. We will be able to purchase items for fine arts and science, fund field trips, pay for the 8th grade end of year celebration, and much more. We appreciate every donation of any size. If you were planning to donate, it's not too late. We will continue to accept donations. Huge thanks to Helen Yang, Shannan Reimer, Jen Loving and Nisha Rocap for working hard on the campaign.

We have a lot of volunteer opportunities on campus - lunch and hallway monitoring, helping build IKEA closest for the choir room, coffee cart treats and distribution, Costco pizza pick up, copy room help, food pantry distribution and more. Our volunteer scheduling is now being done through Konstella. Various volunteer sign ups will be live later in the week, so if you have time in your schedule, we would love your help.

If you haven't signed up for Konstella, PTA's new communication tool, yet, please do. You can find volunteer information there as well as PTA and school announcements.

Monday -March 21st - A Day (1st - 4th Periods)

Pride week Theme : All are Welcome and Pride History

Tuesday - March 22nd - B Day (5th - 8th Periods)

Principal's Coffee 8:00a - 9:00a, in person in the KMS library. Please use this link to rsvp, so we will know if we need to change venue

Pride week Theme: Differences are Awesome

Wednesday - March 23rd- A Day (1st - 4th Periods)

Pride week theme: Know your rights

Thursday - March 24th - B Day (5th - 8th Periods)

CAC Meeting 4p - 5p

Pride week theme: Pride and You - Creative Expression

Friday - March 25th - A Day (1st - 4th Periods)

Attendance Celebration during advisory

Algebra II Movie Night

Pride week theme: Local Pride and Spirit Day

Saturday - March 26th

KMS March Service Day 10a - 12p

Pride week theme: Connect and celebrate

Pride out party at Eastside ECHS

The event is geared for high school students in the greater Austin area in grades 8-11 who are interested in the field of engineering. We want students to start thinking about their futures now and show those who come from underrepresented populations have a supporting community within the Cockrell School. Activities include a panel of Black engineers and UT students, geocaching and scavenger hunt, and hands-on experiments and activities.

More information and registration is located on this link: https://cockrell.utexas.edu/events/dei-events/black-youth-day#

Also, lunch will be provided for participants. 😊

Calling All Chess Players!
Kealing Chess Club is starting Tuesday, March 22 at 3:30
Where: Kealing Library
When: Every Tuesday at 3:30 (For the following 10 Tuesdays)
How to Sign Up: https://www.kealingchess.com/
We help students become innovators in the fields of science, engineering, technology, art, and mathematics (STEAM) by improving their cognitive skills with chess - a game for thinkers.
See you on Tuesday!

Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/KealingMS/

Hornet Herald - https://kealing.austinschools.org/parents/archive

Twitter - @KTXHornets

Webpage - https://kealing.austinschools.org/