Owl News

All parents need to be aware of HISD attendance guidelines. The new guidelines counts all absences regardless of excused or unexcused. It is very, very important that you turn in any documentation around illness, doctors appointments, etc. to document the reason for the absence. Students must meet attendance guidelines and be present for at least 90% of the school year. Students that are absent more than 10% of the school year will be automatically retained due to attendance.

Students in danger of being retained due to attendance, will need to make up the academic seat time before the final report card. The campus attendance committee will meet this week and will notify any families if their child's absences has reached the point where they have gone over the 10%. Making up the academic seat time does not impact your child's grade in a class, but it will provide an opportunity to not have attendance be the factor that puts them in retention status.

Our students generally do very well with dress code and electronics. Since returning from winter break however, I have seen more and more Crocs worn to school. A reminder that Crocs are not apart of the student dress code and should not be worn to school. I have also had a few questions from parents about smart watches. Smart watches are treated the same as cell phones. Students may have them, but they should be turned off and put away in backpacks during the school day.

The TELPAS assessment is February --March for emergent bilingual students. This assessment test how well our emergent bilingual students are acquiring the English language. TELPAS is a standardized state assessment and it's just as important as the STAAR assessment. To support our students with preparing for TELPAS, students are using Summit K-12, which is on online resource. Students are using the resource here at school and should also use it at home. The practice provided on Summit K-12 is very similar to what students will see on TELPAS. Students can log in to Summit K-12 through Clever.

The week of January 16th, students took MAP middle of the year testing. Kinder and First grade students take the math assessment, while second through fifth grade take reading, math and science. The middle of the year testing is compared to the beginning of the year(BOY) test and the scores indicate how much growth has taken place since the BOY. The family report was sent home on Friday, February 2nd with progress reports. The link below will provide more resources to families to understand MAP.

To help support students with growth our campus has purchased a resource called Edmentum Exact Path. All students now have access to a learning path created just for them based on their MAP scores in reading and math. I love this resource because if differentiates for all learners, meeting them where they are. If your child has skills they are struggling based on the MAP data, they will see those skills assigned to them in Exact Path. If your child is excelling, they will be challenged with skills to push them. Students are using Exact Path here at school, however we want students to also access at home. Students should alternate between reading and math practice. AIM for 15-20 minute each night alternating the subjects. For kinder and first grade, they will have a individual learning path based on their MAP data and an on grade level reading learning path on their grade level. We want students to get to mastery on as many learning paths as possible.

To learn more about Exact Path, please join us at the virtual PTO meeting on February 8th @6:45 p.m. In addition, please see a quick guide to Exact Path below. All students already have access and should know how to access through Clever

Students in grades 3rd-5th will take the STAAR Test in Spring of 2024. The test is given online. There is no paper pencil option. Preparation is an everyday effort. We focus on high quality instruction everyday and we need students to focus on engaging during the learning and giving their best.

How you start now with helping your child prepare for testing?

• Work on keyboarding skills at home

• Encourage writing and focus on capitalization and punctuation.

• Do your very best to get them to school everyday and ontime

• Encourage daily participation in the learning and work completion

• Complete homework when assigned

Testing Window:

STAAR Reading: Grades 3rd-5th: April 9th-April 19th

STAAR Science: Grade 5 only: April 16th-April 26th

STAAR Math: Grades 3rd-5th: April 23rd-May 3rd

Click here for an online STAAR practice test

https://login6.cambiumtds.com/student_core/V29/Pages/LoginShell.aspx?c=Texas_PT&a=Student

Check out the flyer below for free STAAR Math Prep Session from Mathnasium

Don't forget to get VIPS certified. Our community has done a great job with this! If you have not already, please don't forget to get VIPS certified. This is an important step to keep our students safe. See the link below for more information.

Website: www.houstonisd.org/LovettES
Location: 8814 S Rice Ave, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: 713-295-5258