The STAAR Redesign includes the following components:

• Online Testing and Accommodations
• New Question Types
• Cross-curricular Passages
• Evidence-based Writing

These redesign components match with best practices of effective teachers to:

• Provide various open-ended question formats for students; and
• Coherently build students' background knowledge and vocabulary in all subject areas; and
• Ask students to write about what they read using evidence from the text.

These are instructional strategies already implemented by our teaches to prepare our students for college and career through AVID. Students are becoming familiar with these new questions through interim assessments and classroom activities.

As we approach the end of the semester, students taking high school courses will be taking midterm exams. Below is the midterm and final exam exemption policy for the Parent-Student Handbook.

Midterm and Final Exam Exemption

Students in grades 9-11 and any middle school (grades 6-8) who are enrolled in a high school course for credit who meet all the criteria below are eligible to exempt up to 2 midterm or final exams per semester. Seniors (grade 12 students) who meet all the criteria below are eligible to exempt up to 3 midterm or final exams per semester. Students must meet all eligibility requirements below.

Midterm and Final Exam Exemption Eligibility

• 85 or above for semester cumulative average

• No more than 3 absences per semester - NOTE: 3 tardies = 1 absence under this exemption

• No disciplinary referrals

The following reasons count towards absences for final exam exemptions:

• Unexcused
• Parent Notes
• Suspension
• More than 3 absences for a funeral (funeral documentation still needed for the first 3 absences)

All other absences, as listed in the Parent-Student Handbook under "Excused Absences" for each campus, will not count towards the absences to be eligible to exempt semester and final exams.

Do you have family, friends, and neighbors interested in enrolling for the current school year? We are still accepting applications for this school year and have immediate openings at Kingsland, Nolan Creek, and Gateway Tech Schools along with Gateway Prep at select grades.

New Horizons School educates youth residing at the New Horizons Ranch residential center. "The Ranch," located new Goldthwaite, Texas, provides individualized, intensive treatment programs for boys and girls suffering from emotional. behavioral, and trauma-related challenges. Special, handmade Christmas gifts mean so much to the students at New Horizons. Thank you to our Kingsland community for your generosity to New Horizons.

December 17 - January 1 - Orenda District Office and All Campuses Closed for Winter Break

January 16 - Orenda Charter School Board Meeting, 5:30 pm at Gateway College Prep