Colonel Connect
The Official Newsletter of South Garland High School
Principal's Corner
TO THE BEST PARENTS AND STUDENTS IN THE DISTRICT.
As we enter the 2nd half of the 1st 9wk cycle, I am filled with gratitude for your hard work and dedication. As an example, you have been instrumental in finding alternative ways to work through the challenges of online remote learning. Parents and student, please know that your patience and commitments since March 16th have not gone unnoticed. With that said, we the staff of South Garland High School will like to extend our utmost appreciation.
The safe return of our faculty and students learning face-to-face is one that we have anticipated and planned for weeks. Throughout each day of the week, our mission will be to strictly follow our district’s guidelines in providing a safe, clean, and social distancing environment. As you may have already watched on our school’s social media sites about the additional safety measures our campus is taking in keeping our staff and students safe, please know we will also continue to monitor and evaluate each procedure to ensure effectiveness.
Like most things we do in life, more work and improvement is always required but the light at the end of a very long tunnel is there.
Speaking of work, there are some other priorities as well. How can we stay focused on the most important things like attendance and grading? Over the weekend, I was rereading an article from the School Community Journal ( Epstein, J.L., & Sheldon, S.B. (2004) Getting Students to School: Using Family and Community Involvement to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism. School Community Journal, 14, pp 39-56. In this article, it discusses how parent engagement decreases chronic absenteeism , or missing more than twenty days of a school year. It went on to say that when the school staff is engaged with parents through home visits, for example, student absences dropped by 20%. Chronic absenteeism contributes to students not performing well in school- both academically and extracurricular. Our staff will remain committed to ensuring the success of our students by keeping all of our parents abreast of concerns with attendance and grades.
Whether your child is participating virtually and/or face-to-face, we need your full support by doing the following in addition to:
1. Logging into Skyward daily to:
a. check the teachers’ comments
b. monitor your child’s attendance and grades
2. Making sure that your child is prepared for school each day. Here’s how:
a. Inquire about and review coursework with your child the evening before each school day
b. Student is present to school (both virtually and face-to-face) each day before 7:25AM
c. Student should be equipped with a fully charged laptop each day.
d. Student should have a face mask each day. We will enforce wearing a mask by all on campus.
South Family, we would like to thank you for entrusting us with your child’s educational experience here at SGHS. We also know that we can only get better as we proceed by soliciting feedback from you. I encourage you to please share any general feedback, questions, and/or concerns with me. Feel free to continue using the form below.
Thank you for your dedication to our mission. Best wishes towards an awesome start to our reopening of face-to-face learning!!
Family Return to School Information
Click the image below to access information about returning to school face to face on September 8th.
About Us
Email: a003@garlandisd.net
Website: https://www.garlandisdschools.net/sghs
Location: 600 Colonel Drive, Garland, TX, USA
Phone: 972-926-2700
Twitter: @SGHS_Coloners