HPES Update
3/20/2020
Bulldogs,
First and foremost I hope you and your family all are doing well. We are going through a situation that is unprecedented and stressful with the spread of the corona-virus. In the midst of this, I have been able to witness the amazing Highland Park Bulldog spirit we have at our campus. I am thankful and feel blessed to work with such an amazing and dedicated team. Thank you to our phenomenal staff for sending educational links to our families and offering your help in whatever might be needed in the near future! Your compassion and servant-leadership is evident and I’m beyond grateful to be a part of our team. Let’s continue to band together as a Highland Park family and support our Bulldog community.
Campus Updates: Staff are expected to be available beginning Monday, March 23rd to respond to campus communications and to support students through our campus/district efforts. We will try to accomplish our work remotely as much as possible. If any face to face work is needed, we will all be adhering to the statewide 10 person gathering limit and if people meet, arrangements will be made for there to be at least 6 feet in between people at all times. Again, we will try to accomplish our work remotely as much as possible. If for some reason you are unavailable to work remotely, please communicate this to me and plan to take leave for this time.
- I will be communicating with you regularly, please plan to check your email daily. Updates from the Superintendent and the Communications Department will be coming regularly through email as well.
- The district has created a website where all PfISD Corona-virus updates are being placed. The district will continue to update this site and will have an FAQ on the site that will be updated regularly.
- The district is working on plans for ongoing instructional support for students and this information will be shared when it’s ready. Until that time, please do not communicate any expectations to students or parents regarding work requirements.
- Hawk feeder pattern principals will be engaging in a zoom meting on Monday at 1:00 with Dr. Ohare. I will be reaching out to GLL's and our admin team after this meeting with a plan to support our students.
- Please send an email with parents to check in and let them know you are thinking about our students during this time. Feel free to communicate to them a plan is underway for district instructional support and the plan will be shared with PfISD families next week.
Communication: Please be sure you read all email communications from the district and our campus carefully and often. I’ve included Dr. Killian’s most recent communication at the end of this email message. If you have a question, please send it my way. I will share your questions with district personnel and communicate their response in a timely manner.
Campuses are closed: Highland Park will continue to be closed through April 3rd. Buildings are closed for events and deliveries. Campus buildings will not be used for any staff meetings. As much as possible we are working to keep our buildings clean. If a staff member needs something from the building, I must be present in the building when staff are there. The statewide limit of no gatherings of greater than 10 people must be adhered to at all times. You will need to schedule these times with me and adhere to the 10 person limit. Staff will not be allowed to come in and work from the building, only to come in briefly to pick up any needed resources. Please text me to pre-arrange a date/time to pick up resources, 956.587.1498.
After school events & activities: All after school events and activities will be cancelled for March 23 – April 10. Campuses are not expected to reschedule events that are cancelled. Please note that city, county and state gathering bans will impact our events as well. Currently, city and county bans are in place until May 1.
All staff updates can be found on the district’s website on the Employee Newsletter page: http://www.pfisd.net/domain/1882
Take Care of yourself and your family!
Warm Regards,
Lizbeth Ruiz
Principal
Highland Park Elementary
Communication from Dr. Killian
Dear PfISD Staff,
As many of you have heard, Governor Abbott issued orders yesterday that closed all Texas schools through April 3. While we anticipated we would have to close our campuses for an additional time frame, it has been made clear that all school districts in Texas will be out through April 3.
However, although we will close our physical campuses, it is the expectation of government officials and TEA that all districts will provide some form of instructional support for students while they are home. Our Curriculum team and Educational Leadership team is working as we speak to determine how to roll out instructional support. As you know, this is an unprecedented situation so we are trying to determine how we can best meet the variety of needs of all of our students.
We are still working through what this instruction will look like, but our initial plan includes asking teacher groups to develop weekly lessons and identify resources by grade level or course for students to use at home, as well as physical paper packets. Teachers can certainly provide additional resources and learning experiences that go beyond this work. We hope to roll out the expectations for instruction by the middle of next week. In the meantime, we ask that you contact your families, check in on them, assess if there are any educational needs that we can help with, and let them know that instructional resources are on their way. Once a system is determined, we will communicate directly with campus principals and teachers. We will also provide a call out to all parents to let them know the options for instruction. If you are interested in helping develop weekly learning experiences for our students, please contact Dr. Holly Galloway directly.
We have implemented our meal service for all PfISD students, and will provide breakfast and lunch at 10 locations across the district. At this time, all meal distribution will be handled by our food service personnel; but we want to thank all of the employees who have emailed and offered to serve as volunteers to support our students and their families.
As we stated in earlier communications, all regular PfISD employees will continue to receive pay. Although we are shut down in a traditional sense, teachers and staff will be asked to work from home as their job capacity allows. We will have finance and accounting personnel working normal hours to ensure our business processes continue. We are also attaching some best practices and tips from Human Resources for working from home. For those who have difficulty fulfilling their normal, daily job duties, this is a great opportunity to look at your processes, clean up files, clean up data and emails and do those maintenance tasks we don’t normally have time to do.
This is not the school year we all envisioned, but the silver lining is that this could give us the opportunity to take a different look at the educational process and possibly learn new methods to reach students even in times of adversity.
There are still many questions, and unfortunately not as many answers at this time. Please know that we are actively working to address all challenges and as soon as we have definitive answers, we will share them with you. This is an unprecedented situation and we are making the best decisions based on the information we have at the time.
Our top priority remains the safety of our students and staff. We know this is a difficult time and we ask that you take care of yourselves and your families.
In the best interest of children,
Dr. Douglas Killian
Superintendent