Dear Theiss families,

Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year! We have been preparing all summer to return to the best yet in Klein this year and are glad you are joining us for the journey. This has been one of the best first week's we've had! We have many new families moving to the area this year, and we couldn't be more excited to welcome you to the neighborhood. The Theiss family is one of a kind!

At Theiss, we want to embrace the whole child to become successful citizens, educate to achieve high expectations and empower through an equitable culture of learning. Our staff is committed to embracing, educating and empowering our students so that they can live out Klein's vision of every child entering with a promise and exiting with a purpose.

We hope you will stay connected with us by reading announcements via Remind, following us on Facebook and checking our website often for updates. We look forward to working with you and your child this year!

Sincerely,

Jessica Taylor

Principal

We are committed to safety for our students and, in doing so, have updated our drop off procedure for students and staff to align with our feeder schools.

Starting Monday, August 28, 2023:

• Food deliveries for staff will be dropped off on a cart on the front porch, so no unauthorized delivery people will enter the school.
• Food delivery service drop offs for students will be turned away.
• We highly discourage dropping off fast food meals for our students.
• Student drop offs (food or forgotten items) will be left on a cart in our vestibule.
• Only parents/guardians can drop off lunch for their child, and their child only.
• Parents will need to write the student's name and teacher on a sticky note and leave it on the cart.
• Students will come through the front office to pick up their items and return back to class through the front office.
• Parents are responsible for making sure students know to come get the dropped off item by coordinating in advance. For forgotten items (glasses etc...), please send the teacher a Remind. The teacher will send the student to pick up when possible.
• Please note that our teachers are focused on teaching the class, and may not immediately see any messages about forgotten items or lunch drop offs. Please make sure that your child has everything they need for the day each morning as they come to school.
• We will follow standard protocols and require IDs to enter the vestibule to drop off items.

Thank you for understanding and following these new procedures.

There has been much concern for safety with regard to the parents parking in the community center parking lot and trying to exit the lot while our true walker/biker students are accessing the sidewalk. We still encourage all our parents to access our car rider line in lieu of parking in the community center. The flag pole walker designation is meant for students to meet parents who are walking/biking home together. This is how the bus circle side of our building operates, and we do not have any of the same issues with safety.

The community center is private property, so my involvement with the use of this lot is limited. I encourage homeowners to address specific concerns with the use of the lot to your HOA board. We have been able to make adjustments to improve the safe crossing of our walker/biker students across the 2 driveways. The staff member(s) assisting our students as they cross will also assist in prioritizing the right of way for our families accessing the car pool line as intended. Over the last 2 weeks, the car line has been quick and allowed families to pull up, get their children near the front door and, on many occasions, exit Theiss' parking lot before the line of cars in the community center leaves.

One concern still remains, though, that the drivers zooming in and around the community center, pulling out in front of other vehicles, stopping in front of the crosswalk preventing access to our students, vulgar language and hand gestures are not making this process safe. Many of these drivers are people picking up our students.

My plea is to all our families, to help remind each other to drive with patience, caution and understanding. Should the behavior of our drivers continue to make our dismissal process unsafe, we will have to look at other options to remove the access to the community center during our dismissal purposes. Our students' safety has to be the bigger priority.

Expectations for all drivers (flag pole and bus circle) during dismissal, many of which are laws:

• School Zones are 20 MPH zones
• No drivers should be using their cell phones while driving in a school zone
• High acceleration should not be used, especially in the parking lot
• Do not block the cross walk when trying to exit the parking lot
• All children must be buckled up with a seat belt
• Follow all staff directions
• Refrain from using vulgar, inappropriate language to our staff and around students
• Be a model and example for your children to follow

• Please keep your car number visible to staff until your car is loaded.
• Car tags are most visible when hanging in the middle of the windshield (ie: from a hanger on the rear view mirror, or hanging from the visor etc...). When simply placed on the dashboard, we cannot see when walking by your vehicle.
• Dismissal can be a great time to network with other families. We highly encourage families who want to stick around to chat or play during dismissal to utilize the park near the clubhouse until dismissal is complete.
• The playground is off limits until dismissal is complete, usually by 4:00.

Our school district publishes a Student Handbook annually and posts this online for easy access for all parents and community members. We often receive questions about specific topics at the beginning of the year and have had to address the following problems more often in the last couple of years. Please take note of a few of these important guidelines and review these expectations with your students.

Cell Phones Highlights:

Cell phones or other telecommunication devices (watches with ability to call and message) must be turned off during the instructional day. If these guidelines are not followed, the device will be confiscated by staff members and turned in to the principal for disciplinary action.

Dress Code Highlights:

Hats and head coverings, with the exception of those worn for religious or medical purposes, will be worn in the building unless. This includes hoodies, hats, scarves, bandanas, and caps.

Appropriate footwear is required and must be worn at all times while on school property.

Any attire (including accessories) or hairstyle that is distracting, disturbing or disruptive will not be permitted.

Electronic Communication Highlights:

Students are prohibited from possessing, sending, forwarding, posting, accessing, or displaying electronic messages that are abusive, obscene, sexually oriented, threatening, harassing, damaging to another’s reputation, or illegal. This prohibition also applies to conduct off school property, whether on district-owned or personally owned equipment, if it results in a substantial disruption to the educational environment. This includes messages with or about other students and/or staff.

**For more details about these guidelines and more, please see the Klein ISD Student Code of Conduct at www.kleinisd.net.

Attendance is very important to your child's education. We know that sometimes students will need to be absent due to illness, family emergency etc. Please arrange vacations, out of town trips and doctor appointments to limit school disruption as much as possible. You can view student holidays here on the Klein ISD student calendar. When students accumulate absences at 5, 10 and 15, letters are sent to parents to keep you updated. After 18 absences, a committee must review the child's case to determine if the child needs to be retained due to absences.

It's also important for students to be on time to class. This year, the tardy bell rings at 8:10. Tardies will be entered into Skyward. Classes begin right after this bell rings, so student entering late are missing out on key instruction and interventions. Tardies will prevent a student from earning attendance recognition and awards each quarter.

Process for Reporting Absences: All parent notes regarding absences must be either handwritten or reported using Skyward Family Access. Visit this link for directions on how to report an absence through the Skyward Family Access app and through the web application. You can also use Skyward Family Access to report an early dismissal request. Truancy letters are automatically generated after 3 unexcused absences in a short period of time. Please make sure to send notes through Skyward Family Access to ensure your child's absences are excused.

If you know that your child will need to leave school early, please send a note with your child the morning of the early dismissal or submit a request through Skyward Family Access. Office staff will give your child an early dismissal pass to ensure students and teachers know what time he/she needs to report to the office so he/she is ready for pick-up. Any student waiting for more than 15 minutes will be sent back to the instructional setting until the parent arrives. Parents are required to come in and sign the child out before he/she will be allowed to leave the school. Any early dismissal requests after 2:30 may be delayed due to the start of the campus dismissal procedures.

If you have legal paperwork regarding your child's custody arrangement or regarding people who need to have restricted access to your child, please bring the original document with the judges signature to the office so we can make a copy to retain in your child's cumulative record. We follow all the legal requirements of court ordered documents, and are able to fully comply best when we have the records on file.

One of the service projects and fundraisers for Theiss Elementary is the operation of our school store. Students can purchase spirit shirts, spirit items and school supplies from the school store from 7:45 - 8:00 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday beginning 8/14.

We'll post links to all the previous newsletter from this school year here!

September

October

November

December

January

February/March

April

May