Riojas Elementary School
March 31, 2020
School Rules: Be Safe. Be Responsible. Be Respectful.
From the Principal
Grace and Patience
I would bet that you are asking for some grace and patience from your own children, as I'm certain they have told you, "That's not how my teacher does it." Our staff and I are also hoping for your grace and patience as we move through this week. We teach our children to become "life-long" learners. We are all learning together. I hope your week continues to get easier and better!
Smile and Say Cheese!
New information shows that we will be closed through the "shelter in place" orders, April 13, so let's have some PFUN while we are at home! Next week will be a Virtual Spirit Week. We know EVERY day is a Great Day to Be a Patriot, but let's show everyone we really mean it! Join in using the schedule attached and post your pictures all over your social media and share, share, share! I will post on our RES Facebook page each morning so you can comment there with your pictures, too. #greatdaytobeapatriot
I have had a few families respond to our request: I hope you will share your ideas and fun stories with me and our RES community by using the link below: RES Community Stories.
Make Sure You Are Getting Our Emails
We have many email addresses and families that are on this email list, however, if you hear that someone is not receiving my emails or district emails, please send their email address and name to me at Christi.Siegel@pfisd.net. Spread the word by forwarding: the more informed we are, the better.
Please stay safe and healthy. Take care of each other, follow the CDC guidelines and wash your hands! www.pfisd.net/coronavirus will be the best place to check updates on PfISD decisions, and an FAQ page is in the works.
I hope to see you at school sometime soon,
Christi
PreK Families
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Live Interaction Opt-Out Survey
ONLY COMPLETE THIS FORM IF YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR SON / DAUGHTER (S) TO PARTICIPATE IN LIVE INTERACTIONS WITH PfISD TEACHERS AND STAFF.
Dear Parents and Guardians:
Teachers and staff have the opportunity to use Zoom as a way to connect with your child (ren) to provide instruction and support through technology. Zoom is the leader in modern business video communications, with an easy and reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars on mobile devices, desktops, phones, and room systems.
As we start educating with Zoom, we want to share some rules with you and give you the opportunity to exclude your student from live interactions.
All meetings will be held under district-established guidelines.
Click this link to see more details and fill out the form.
Do you need devices or Internet?
Don't forget to fill out the Technology Assistance Survey if you need devices or Internet access at home for your student.
Leagues for survey and distance learning are here: http://ow.ly/dojV50z0gam
Special Area Menus
The Special Area Menus that are coming from me and the teachers are meant to be choices for your child. You do not have to complete all of them. Pick from any area as often as you would like. These are meant to be fun for your child and easy to accomplish at home. If you do not have all the supplies needed for a project, no worries! Just choose another item.
Some were having difficulty downloading the .pdf documents attached for the menus, so I am linking google docs below.
1st Grade Specials Menu Week 1
2nd Grade Specials Menu Week 1
3rd Grade Specials Menu Week 1
From Our Counselor - Mrs. Patterson
Resources Below
Mrs. Patterson has some resources in the documents linked below. Please let her know if you need assistance with these or any other resources.
Please remember - I am here if you need me!
-Mrs. Patterson
RES Community Stories & Ideas
We have been having fun creating chalk murals for neighbors to view as they go on walks. We also have been writing messages to our teachers to let them know how much we miss them.
If you would like to submit your story, please click here!
Copy of Dr. Killian's Email 3/31/20
Dear Parents/Guardians,
We hope your first day of remote learning went well! Whether you are working online or if you picked up a paper packet during our grab-and-go meal services, we wish you and your students’ success during the closures due to COVID-19.
I want to jump right to the main focus of this update for you and provide early notice that we are extending the school closures through May 1 in accordance with orders from Governor Abbott. Our projected return date to school at this moment would be Monday, May 4.
This is tentative as this still remains a very fluid situation with new information coming in not just daily, but by the hour. The district continues to discuss this matter with area government and health officials and will make every decision with the health and safety of our students and staff in mind as that is our top priority.
In the meantime, I would like to provide a few more updates on exciting things that have been happening.
The district officially launched its remote learning yesterday, and I appreciate your patience while district leadership worked with our curriculum team to ensure we were able to provide educational services for all our students. We don’t want to leave any of our students behind while they are learning from home, so we worked to find a solution we felt included all students by providing both online options directly from your teachers or paper copies of lessons. We delivered more than 5,500 packets to families on Day 1! A big thank you goes out to our Curriculum & Instruction team for all their efforts in making both online learning and the paper materials a possibility for our students to learn.
We will begin delivering technology devices to students later this week so look for that information in your email and on social media. If your student does not have access to an electronic device or Internet, please use one of the links below to apply for technology assistance.
- English Access Survey: https://forms.gle/iFBapTtCJGczPmWaA
- Spanish Access Survey: https://forms.gle/9h1DRgpgF4Lsn5QW9
- Vietnamese Access Survey: https://forms.gle/Fq8zAjsumAPc7xHQ6
For students and families that do not have access to devices or the Internet, the District will provide alternative paper-based learning plans. These plans include activities students can complete on their own, with either teacher or family guidance. Paper-based learning plans will be available for pick-up at district meal locations on Mondays or anytime at newspaper stands located at the PfISD Administration Building, 1401 W. Pecan. The paper-based learning plans can be returned for grading and feedback at any meal pickup site the following week. If you need to access our paper-based learning plans, please let your campus teachers know so they can develop a plan with you to monitor this instruction.
The district’s Remote Learning website includes recommended learning resources for core contents in all grade levels and requires a student ID and password as the information is copyrighted. Once you have signed in, please click on the Scope and Sequence link at the top of the page to see curriculum. The district Paper-Based Instruction learning packets will also be available on this website for access and download.
To provide manageable expectations for staff, parents, and students during the extended school closure, all elementary and secondary teachers will have set office hours to engage with students and provide instruction.
- All elementary teachers will have scheduled time to engage with students and instructional content Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to Noon with Friday of each week designated as professional flex time.
- All secondary teachers will have scheduled time to engage with students and instructional content. Monday-Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with Friday of each week designated as professional flex time.
Another exciting addition we have made this week was PfISD and Aramark began providing hot meals to our students for dinner in addition to the breakfast and lunch we already were providing. Yes, hot meals! During lunch pickup times, Aramark will provide food with instructions for proper warming/cooking for dinner that night. I’m so happy we can provide this additional meal service to our students during this time. Although the dinners are not available at Kelly Lane Middle School due to USDA regulations, all other nine locations will have dinner available.
I thank you for your continued passionate service toward the education of our students. You the parents have always played a big role in the education of your children, and it is our passion at PfISD to guide your children on their educational journey. We know you have been asked to take on some additional responsibilities during this time and I cannot thank you enough for stepping up the way you have.
The decision to close schools is never made lightly, and we know the impact of this closure is far-reaching. Any decisions made are based upon the current reality of COVID-19 activity and the recommendations and information provided by government and health officials. We will always place the safety and well-being of our students and staff as the first priority.
Please continue to monitor our website for further information and updates, www.pfisd.net/coronavirus.
We are all in this together as one big Pfamily and we will continue to passionately serve in the best interest of students in PfISD.
Thank you,
Dr. Doug Killian
PfISD Superintendent of Schools
RES Art, Music & PE Learning Opportunities by Grade Level
Food Service
PfISD has also implemented a plan to distribute lunches to all children starting Monday, March 23 at ten campus locations across the District.
Grab-and-go meals will be available for curbside pickup from 8-9 a.m. for breakfast and 11 a.m.-1 p.m. for lunch.
Locations
Pflugerville High School
Dessau Middle School
Kelly Lane Middle School
Park Crest Middle School
Westview Middle School
Copperfield Elementary
Northwest Elementary
Pflugerville Elementary
Wieland Elementary
Windermere Elementary.
This program serves students 18 and younger regardless of Pflugerville ISD residency or enrollment. Families can pick up meals curbside in the carpool lanes at the campuses listed. Students must be present in order to receive meals. Parents may pick up breakfast and lunch at the same time. For those who do not drive and need to walk to pick up the meal, you will be allowed to walk and pick them up to go. Access to enter the buildings will not be available.
PreK and Kinder Registration Postponed
Scroll to the bottom of this message for CANCELED events.
RES Community Stories and Ideas
One of the critical factors to ensuring the success of our students and families at this time will be continuing our sense of family and community. In an effort to share our stories and our fun, or even our frustrations, I have created a google form. Please submit your stories of how you are spending your time, your funny anecdotes of things like “You’ll never believe what my kids said!” or “You’ll never believe what I learned when I was home schooling my child!” and any other great ideas you have. You can ask that your story be anonymous or include your family’s name, but I will put them together to include in my newsletters over the next few weeks.
7 Habits of Happy Kids
https://www.leaderinme.org/family-resources/
The link below is to the amazon page with ordering information for the kid friendly book 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey. I'm sure you can purchase this book from many other vendors as well.
Reflex Math Practice at Home
At Riojas, students use a variety of tools and resources to practice and retain their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. When students are fluent in their facts, they are able to gain confidence in their problem-solving abilities and free up mental resources needed for learning.
Here are a few ways you can help at home:
- Games – Games provide real, relevant, connected, and fun ways to use math facts repeatedly
- War: This game is played with a deck of cards (minus the face cards). Each person turns one card over, and the first person to announce the sum takes both cards.
- Go Fish with Facts: Instead of looking for the same number as in the original “Go Fish” card game, players try to pair cards with equal sums.
- Domino Top It: Have players place dominoes face-down between them. Each player turns over a domino and calls out the sum of the dots on the two halves.
- Traditional/Triangle (Fact Family) Flash Card
- Students 1st - 5th Grades can log on to http://reflexmath.com using their teacher provided login and password.
ABC Mouse
View the attached PDF file for more information.
Boosterthon Support for RES
Hey Riojas Team!
I hope that you are doing well and spending some quality time with your family. Please stay safe and healthy!
After schools started closing around the nation, we decided to open up our Character Video Library to all of our partners. You may have gotten an email about that on Friday from our founder and CEO, Chris Carneal. If you didn’t get the email or haven’t been able to register yet, here is the information:
- www.BoosterthonCharacter.com Click on Register. (Access Code: home)
- There’s no cost to register
- 75 + streaming videos with character topics and fitness exercises (PBIS, SEL, STEAM, etc.)
We hope this resource serves not only as a helpful diversion while the kids are home, but also as an opportunity for families to engage in character-building conversations while also staying active at home. Please feel free to share this resource with your school community, family, and friends!
Stay healthy and safe!
Walker Burns
Program Director
(817) 269-9042
ChooseBooster.com
Support Your Child's Social and Emotional Awareness
FaceTime with Friends
RES CANCELED Events
Mar 23 - Kinder Field Trip
Mar 26 - Parent Night with Patterson
Mar 27 - Kinder Rodeo
Mar 30 - RES Peace Path (Now in our Virtual Spirit Week)
Apr 1 - Mystery Reader Day
Apr 2 - Dual Language Spanish Immersion Incoming Kinder Parent Meeting
Apr 3 - Nine Weeks Awards Assemblies
Apr 7 & 8 - STAAR Testing Grades 4 and 5
Riojas Elementary School
Counselor: Lori.Patterson@pfisd.net
Assistant Principal: Carrie.Quinney@pfisd.net
Principal: Christi.Siegel@pfisd.net
Email: christi.siegel@pfisd.net
Website: http://www.pfisd.net/riojases
Location: 3400 Crispin Hall Lane, Pflugerville, TX, United States
Phone: 512.594.4100
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Riojas-Elementary-School-903788353020395/