Head U Gator News
Nov. 12, 2021
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Veteran's Day program
A special thank you to Mrs. McCauley and Coach Maupin who have worked after school for many weeks to practice with the choir and work out the issues before the big day.
In addition, these parent volunteers worked hard to facilitate a perfect day: Anne Marie George,
Jamie Wike, Dawn & Tom Nguyen, Kelly Mitchell, Marisa Perry, Swati Jain, Jessica Miles,Natalie & Mark Lumpkin, Jennifer Winstead, Sunni DeCosta (who doesn’t even have a child in choir but helped anyway.)
Additional staff who helped: Beth Fountain-videographer, Holly Ihrig, and Lauren Dickinson. Staff soloists: Colleen Patton, Bryan Hendrickson. Facilities employees who hung the "ginormous" flag: Martin, Bert & Chris.
A special thanks to Dr. Paul Sikes, Director of Fine Arts and the GHS Mustang Band directors James Rees & Bill Redd for loaning the speaker system.
If you'd like to see a video of the program, here's the link: https://cloud.swivl.com/v/8080d315116c4a90e530bb003f8d8b23
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All Parents are Invited and Encouraged to Attend!
We see the terrible stories in the news, like the recent school shooting at Timberview High School in Arlington, and of course we hope nothing like that ever happens in our community. Because these incidents can be very challenging to discuss with our children, the Glenhope PTA is proud to offer a parent program to help navigate these tough conversations.
Please join us November 15th at 6:30 pm in the Glenhope Cafeteria to learn about safety measures within our school and district. Jill Tate from the Texas School Safety Board will be discussing key school safety topics, relevant Texas laws, the Standard Response Protocol and parent resources available to help us discuss school safety with our children. We look forward to seeing you all there.
Please note this is an adult topic, childcare will not be available at the meeting.
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Gratitude Tree
If you have someone at Glenhope you would like to say thank you to, please use this link and complete a quick thank you:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtkf8XnP1mJD--Z-6C7ERyHqL-b_veNpsl1DgHZjcfH1oFYw/viewform
We have put up a Grateful Tree in the Teacher's Lounge and would love to add your thoughts to our tree!
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GCISD Reads 2nd Quarter challenge
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REPEATED INFORMATION
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Cafeteria Volunteers
The GCISD Nutrition Services Department is looking for volunteers! Come get to know the students while serving them a nutritious lunch in the school cafeteria. You can volunteer at your child's school or any school in the district. You must be registered as a volunteer in the district, or get signed up as a volunteer today so you can join the amazing kitchen staff serving the students. Please see the flyer for details and a link to sign up!
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Donation Bin
It's also nice to have someplace to drop items when Goodwill or GRACE are closed!
Closet Clean Out?!!!
It is that time of year when World Wear Project offers an incentive of $100 to each and every school that is able to collect 2,500 lbs. or more of shoes, clothing and other items we accept during the month of November in conjunction with American/Texas Recycles Month.
This $100 is over and above our check for regular collections during the month. When you clean out closets in November, please drop the old clothes and shoes off in the school World Wear bin.
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Lunch visitors
If you plan to come to lunch, please email your child's teacher the night before so they know to have your child come to the office to meet you for lunch.
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Confused about COVID notifications?
If your child was in the same class with a COVID positive individual, you will receive an additional notification saying that they were in the same class so that you can be on the lookout for the development of any symptoms.
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Notes from the nurse:
For students that wear masks:
Please put 5-6 masks in a ziplock bag and place it in your student's backpack. We know masks provide comfort for some students and we wouldn't want them to worry if they get lost, soiled or forgotten. Thanks to a generous donation from Mr. Wang, we have some replacement masks in the nurse's office. However, some kids are resistant to accepting a mask they aren't used to wearing, so please plan accordingly.
GCISD 2021-2022 COVID-19 protocol highlights:
· Students, teachers, and staff who have symptoms of infectious illness, such as influenza (flu) or COVID-19 symptoms should stay home and be referred to their healthcare provider for testing and care.
· If the individual has symptoms that could be COVID-19 the individual must obtain a medical professional's note clearing the individual for return based on an alternative diagnosis or obtain an acute infection test at an approved testing location that comes back negative for COVID-19.
· In the case of an individual who has symptoms that could be COVID-19 and who is not evaluated by a medical professional or tested for COVID-19, such individual is assumed to have COVID-19, and the individual may not return to the campus until the individual has completed ALL three-steps listed below:
- At least 24 hours passed since resolution of fever without using fever reducing medications.
- The individual has improvement in symptoms
- At least 10 days have passed since the first symptoms began.
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COVID status in GCISD
GCISD COVID-19 Resources
Please visit www.GCISD.net/COVID19 for lots of resources from the District pertaining to COVID-19. There you can find updated frequently asked questions, current GCISD COVID-19 protocols, information on the GCISD COVID-19 Testing Center, information on remote conferencing, statistics regarding COVID-19 cases in GCISD and more.
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Cafeteria Menus
GCISD school cafeteria follows a calendar-cycle menu at breakfast and lunch. This menu begins on September 13th, 2021. During the first 4 weeks of school, all schools will follow a simplified lunch menu to allow all students to adjust to the new school year and to re-familiarize themselves with the cafeteria and their PIN number. The simplified menus can be viewed online using our menu system MealViewer. Printable copies of all menus can be downloaded here. If you have questions please contact child.nutrition@gcisd.net. GCISD Nutrition Services looks forward to serving your family in the upcoming school year!
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You can control your child's internet access!
To support strong communication with our families beyond the school day, we are pleased to introduce a new resource available to our parents. Parent Internet Reporting is an on-demand tool for parents that allows guardians to view their children's online activity and increases the measures already taken to protect our students while using a District device. Through this platform, parents will receive weekly email reports summarizing internet activity on District devices, as well as the ability to access real-time reporting of what their students are doing online. In an effort to help our parents control screen time while students are home, the system will also allow for a guardian to pause the internet on a GCISD device.
There is an online course that will explain the Parent Internet Reporting that will be launched on April 21. If you cannot attend the virtual training on April 20, you must complete the course to receive access to the parent internet reporting tool. The course can be found at www.gcisd.net/ParentInternet.
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Emergency drills information
GCISD partners with the I Love U Guys Foundation and uses the Standard Response Protocols (SRP) to respond to any situation or emergency that takes place at school or in the district.
Each campus will conduct drills throughout the school year. These drills are based on the Standard Response Protocols of Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter, and Hold. GCISD developed one additional protocol known as Clear.
Completion of the drills is mandatory for each campus during the first two weeks of school, so that students and staff are prepared. Drills help us learn and know how to respond in the case of a real emergency at school. Our drills also help us to check certain equipment and responses. Our emergency management leaders on each campus will work with students and staff to complete our drills and document the results.
We had our first lockdown drill today. It was very low key. MRs. Vise said over the intercom, "Lights, Locks, Out of Sight." The children went to a corner of the room, and the teachers turned off the lights and made sure the doors were locked. The hall quickly became empty and quiet as we checked for locked doors.
We have added so many barriers in the last few years to protect students, from the locked entry (when I first came to Glenhope a locked door was considered "unfriendly") to the locked doors into the hallways and finally locked classroom doors. Our district has worked hard to implement all the recommended protocols designed to keep campuses safe, including having our children practice these drills on a regular basis.
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Attendance procedures
mailto:holly.ihrig@gcisd.net) if your child is ill and will be out. It would be helpful to include your child's teacher(s) as well.
Also, please try to call early in the day with changes to after school pick up arrangements. The later you call, the greater the chance that something might be missed due to the level of activity that occurs around dismissal.