A Letter from Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,
We look forward to a fun and engaging week of learning with all of our friends at Hill School as we wrap up an unforgettable semester. We will miss some of our traditions from this time of year but appreciate all the effort our teachers and staff are putting in to ensure this week is special for our students.

With 5 days left until the winter break, we want to remind everyone of our general calendar for the next few weeks:

• Friday, December 18th: This is the last day of school for the fall semester for students and staff. Our office will be closed beginning Monday, December 21st.
• December 21st-January 5th: Winter break and no school for students. Our staff will return for professional development on January 5th but will not be instructing students.
• Wednesday, January 6th: The first day of classes for all virtual and face to face students for the spring semester. Our campus will reopen this day.

As we look to the next semester, we want to encourage all families to let their teachers know as soon as possible if they will be switching from virtual instruction to on-campus, face to face learning to begin the new semester. This information is crucial so we can ensure we plan for the physical needs of the classroom. Your teacher may be reaching out or surveying in many cases. Thank you all for helping us have the most accurate information possible!

All families should receive a survey through email from Austin ISD to gather information on their preferences if we were to need to make up time this year due to another virtual learning period or closure. This is in response to Travis County possibly moving to Stage 5 of the COVID protocol. For now, we anticipate having students report back to campus on January 6th. As we have seen this year, that could change. We will again ensure that students take their devices and learning materials home as a precaution. We will keep our community updated if we receive any information in the coming weeks.

Some of this information is covered in the recording of our Hill Principal Check-In from this last Wednesday. There is no check-in this upcoming week, but we will continue in the new year!

This is also report card time and that looks different this year than it has in the past as well. We want to ensure everyone knows how to access this information through the parent portal. Thank you for understanding report cards may not appear until early January. Thank you to our registrar, Christine McBride, for sharing this step set:

• Login to my.austinisd.org with your parent credentials.
• Click on the magnifying glass and type in “report”
• A tile called “Report Card” (yellow tile with ABC on it) should come up. Click on it.
• Click on your student name (if you have multiple students).
• A pdf should open with your student’s latest report card. It may be downloaded to your downloads directory, if you are set up to do that on your device.
• This tile is DIFFERENT THAN THE TEAMS tile where grades are.

Finally, we thought it would be fun to end this letter with some positive notes as we wrap-up 2020! Monday’s assembly video will feature an amazing 50th anniversary celebration video created by the Maestro that some of our staff and students participated in to get some good vibes going. Check out his amazing work! And a special thank you to all of our parents/guardians who supported our Families Helping Families tradition we continued this year to ensure all of our Dillos are taken care of during the holidays. We love this community and appreciate all you do!

Have an amazing weekend, everyone!
Mr. Drummond