The Hoot Owl

September is upon us which means we have completed 3.5 weeks of school already. Your children are doing so well and learning so much.

Attendance is vital for academic success. It is important that if your child is well, they attend school every day. Our attendance goal for the year is an average of 96%. Please help us reach this goal by sending your child to school daily.

We also need your child to be in school for the full day from 8:00 - 3:10 p.m. Coming in late or checking out early causes loss of instruction. Just 15 minutes daily causes a student to lose a total of 45 hours of instruction which equals 7.5 days out of the school year. While that 15 minutes daily might seems like a little at the time, it all adds up.

Make sure and note that Parent Information Night will be on Thursday, September 14 from 5:30 -7:00 and Fall Pictures will be Thursday, September 28.

As we get further into the year, I want to ensure that we are all clear on a few things and ask your support and patience in understanding our expectations. Everything we put into place is for safety and security of all present at our school.

• Visitors will enter through the front office. Specials events might be an exception but only for those events.
• ALL visitors must present picture identification in the form of a drivers license, a passport, or other picture id. If you do not have a picture ID, you will not be allowed into the building. Please note this is for the security of all our students and staff.
• When you email, text or dojo a staff member, we are asking that you allow 24 hours for them to respond. When they have students in their rooms, teacher are asked to be fully engaged with students which is their first priority. They will respond before school, during planning, or after school before 5:30. In an effort to support self-care of our staff, I am personally requesting that they not respond to email, text, dojo, etc...after 5:30 during the work week unless it is an emergency. Our staff works hard while they are on campus and I am encouraging them to "unplug" in the evenings and on the weekends.

Conroe ISD is convening a School Cell Phone Committee to evaluate the District’s current cell phone guidelines and the recommendation by the School Health Advisory Council Mental Health Subcommittee. Any parents or community members interested in participating should complete the form at the linked site by Wednesday, August 30th. https://www.conroeisd.net/school-cell-phone-committee/

Student Handbook is located online. Below is a link to the handbook in both Spanish and English.

Student Handbook - English

Student Handbook - Spanish

School hours: 8:00 - 3:10 p.m.

Doors open at 7:35 a.m. Please do not drop students off before that time as there is no supervision.

Students are tardy at 8:01 a.m.

Dismissal begins at 3:10 p.m.

Students should be picked up by 3:30 p.m.

Visitors on campus:

Things to know about visiting our campus.

*Arrive at the front door and ring the doorbell (facing the doors to your right)

*Let the front office staff know what you need.

*Once you have communicated with front office staff, you will be buzzed into the front vestibule.

*An ID will be required to enter the main part of the building or check a child out. Please make sure you have it with you as you will be sent to get it.

Volunteering on campus:

Please remember that in order to volunteer on campus (reading to a class, going on a field trip, helping with PTO, attending class parties, etc...), parents must have completed the Volunteer Background check for the district. This must be completed each year for every school where you will volunteer so if you have students at 3 different schools, you must complete it for all 3 schools.

Volunteer Background Check

Just a reminder that it takes 3-5 days for students to be routed on busses. If you haven't registered your child, please take a moment to do so, even if they are not currently riding. It is better to have them registered than have to wait for routing throughout the year. Register for bus here.

Transportation is improving every day! Our car rider line went from 1 hour to 40 minutes from day one to day two. Having your car rider signs visible will help us continue to decrease the wait time for all.

BUSSES -

Things to know about bus riders:

• PK and Kinder students will receive a "PK" or "K" sign added to their backpack. Please leave it on there.
• Parents of K and PK students should have received a bus rider sign where you will add your child's name. A person over the age of 18 must be present at the stop with the sign, in order to get the child off the bus. If no one is there, the child will be returned to school and the parent will have to come pick them up at school.
• Good behavior is expected on the bus. For the safety of all, please review expectations with your child.
• talk to your seat mate or the students across the aisle
• remain seated at all times
• use an "inside" voice when talking to friends on the bus, refrain from yelling or screaming
• keep your hands to yourself

CAR RIDER LINE

Things to know about car rider line:

• Parents are not allowed to park and walk up to the porch for drop off in the morning or the afternoon.
• Students may not be dropped off in the parking lot nor near the playground fence.
• Students may not be dropped off or picked up on the outside of the covered drive-through.
• Car rider signs must be displayed in window when picking up students.
• Parents may not enter car rider line from our driveway entrance. See map below.
• Parents coming north on I-45 feeder must join the line using Oak Ridge School Road, between the hotel and Saltgrass.
• Please allow merging at that stop sign.
• If you need to help your child do their seat belt or get them buckled into their car seat, we ask that you pull up past the car rider line and stop. This will allow our car rider line to keep running smoothly.

If you forget and come in our main entrance to join the car rider line, please note that there are cones blocking the right turn lane. That is a reminder that you may not join our line from this direction. You will be forced to turn left and find the end of the line.

WALKERS/BIKERS

Students can be walkers ONLY IF they live in the no bus zone. This is typically the 1 mile zone of the school according to transportation. If your child is eligible for bus service, they are not eligible to be a walker. We do monitor this and will notify parents if your child cannot be a walker.

Walkers are delivered to parents in the cul de sac at the fence cut through. We expect parents to be present to get their children from this area. If there is not adult at this location, your child will be brought back to school and you will need to walk over and get them from the front office.

If weather dictates that children cannot be walkers, parents will receive notification via text message through the district notification system. At that time, parents will be able to join the car rider line or walk to the art room door to retrieve your child. This decision is based upon lighting, heavy rain, or other hazardous weather situations. Our goal is to make the call by 3:00 p.m. However, in the event a storm pops up after 3, we will send out a text as soon as possible.

TRANSPORTATION CHANGES

If you find that you need to change your child's method of transportation, there a couple of ways to make that happen.

If you know ahead of time, the best option is to send a handwritten note to the teacher in the child's folder.

If you need to change during the school, please email the change to contactore@conroeisd.net including your child's name, teacher name, specific change of transportation requested. This will only be put into place for the one day requested.

As a last resort, please call the front office and let them know the change of transportation.

Once the school day has started, we ask that you NOT email or text change of transportation to the teacher. This will help prevent a miscommunication due to something like the teacher being absent or not having time to check email during the school day.

ALL CHANGES MUST BE MADE BY 2:30 P.M.

If you need to check your child out before the end of the school day, please note that the cut off time for that is 2:45 p.m. After 2:45, you will be directed to the car rider line.

Oak Ridge Elementary is a Title One campus based on our percentage of students who qualify for free/reduced lunch. This provides our school with extra money to help our students. Currently we use the money to hire 2 paraprofessional interventionists who pull small groups of students. We have a Parent Liason, Mrs. DeAlencar, who is here to support our parents and serve as liason between the school and the parents. We also have a full time behavior coach on campus. The remaining funds are spent on staff development opportunities for our staff as well as supplies and tools our students need.

Each year parents need to reapply and qualify for assistance. We encourage all of our parents to apply for meals. Even if your child might never eat in the cafeteria, it is best to have it in place just in case.

If you need assistance with the online application or have questions concerning free/reduced lunch or Title One status, please call the school and ask for Mrs. DeAlencar. She can assist you.

As offers come in from different organizations to assist students with back to school clothes/supplies, Christmas gifts, food, etc...only families who are on free/reduced lunch will be considered to receive these services. Please use the link below to update your application:

https://www.myschoolapps.com/

Breakfast and lunch menus can be found at the link below:

Menus

Officers for the 2023-2024 school year will be:

Co-Presidents: Kaylie Dearing & Rachel Walker

Vice President: Robin Alexander

Treasurer: Heather Smoot

Secretary: Marlene Mondragon

Parliamentarian: John Alexander

Social Media Manager: Kristie Sturgeon

Volunteer Coordinator: Cynthia Bailey

Members at Large: Kayla Salinas & Stephanie Lindsey

Membership Coordinator: Christina Williams

Please consider joining our PTO. We have 2 online ways you can join. Scan the QR code or use the link below. The cost is $5 per family.

Join PTO here

If you wish to help in an area, please contact Kayli Dearing or Rachel Walker. They will get you plugged in immediately.

kayli.gee@gmail.com racheliwalker80@gmail.com

Lunch reservations are currently open. If you would like to come have lunch with your child, please use the link below to make a reservation. If the day you wish to come is full, please go to the next.

In the event you show up without a reservation, we will check availability. If we have availability, we will let you have lunch with your child. If we are full that day, unfortunately, we will have to ask you to reschedule.

Reservations can be made from our school website. Our school website can be found here. On the website is a button that says Lunch Reservations.

When you arrive, you will need to present the front office with your picture identification to enter the building. If you do not have a license, passport, or other form of picture identification, you will not be allowed in the school. All adults coming to lunch will need their own form of identification.

Parents will meet their child in the lunchroom and go to room 300 to enjoy lunch. We want to allow this to be a special time with your child so we have created this location for you.

SEPTEMBER

4 - School holiday

8 - Goodies with Grands (7:00- 7:45 a.m.)

14 - Parent Information Night (5:30 - 7:00)

28 - Fall Pictures

OCTOBER

6 - Student holiday/end of 1st nine weeks

9 - School holiday

19 - Family fall night

25 - ORHS Homecoming Parade

27 - Storybook Character Parade

NOVEMBER

2 - 50th year celebration

3 - Group pictures/retakes

7 - Student holiday - election day

20 - 24 - Thanksgiving Holiday

DECEMBER

15 - Early release, end of 2nd nine weeks

18 - January 1 - Winter Break