Dear Hill Community,

It is Hill Hoopla week! We hope to see you at Q2 Stadium on Friday for this fun annual event. This is such an important fundraiser for our school. Please know all of the money raised supports our students. More information for Hoopla can be found here. Purchase your tickets today for this adult-only event!

Reminder: We have a Principal Check-In this Thursday, April 7th at 7:45a in our Hill library. We will host a group from AISD to discuss Long-Range Planning for the district. Long-Range Planning is a comprehensive process that will help prepare the district for the future, with an emphasis on how facilities support academic programs and other needs of students, staff and the community. The process will ultimately help determine which improvements and new facilities are included in our next bond. 

From AISD: Next week, we will host two opportunities for staff, families and community members to learn about how we’re working toward a balanced district budget for the 2022–23 school year. Here is the event flyer. There was a preview of the 2022–23 school year budget in February and now we’re ready to dive deeper. Join us to learn about how we’re working to create a balanced budget. Schedule:

• Thursday, April 7, 2022, 6–7 p.m.  Register here: https://bit.ly/AISDBudget1
• Saturday, April 9, 2022, 10:30–11:30 a.m.  Register here: https://bit.ly/AISDBudget2

3rd-5th graders will be taking part in Fitnessgram testing during PE in the next couple of weeks.  To learn more about the components of Fitnessgram, click here. Feel free to email any questions you may have to your child’s PE teacher.

A couple of reminders for providing your feedback. Our Hill Student Information Form that we will use to assist in class placements for next year for current Kinder-4th graders is due April 10th (Sunday). The district family survey to provide feedback on your experiences this year (surveys.panoramaed.com/austinisd/family) is open until April 8th (Friday). Thank you for your important feedback on both!  Have an excellent spring day.

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,

We enjoyed a fantastic week of learning as we returned from spring break. This communication has several opportunities for surveys to reflect on this year and look ahead to next year. Thanks for ensuring you check out the links below. Here are a few quick reminders before you read further. Friday is a student holiday with no school (April 1st). This is for all schools in AISD as our staff will be participating in professional learning. Also, our class picture day is this Wednesday throughout the day.

Current Kinder-4th grade families: It is that time of year for our parents/guardians to fill out a Student Information Form to help provide input as we begin to discuss classroom placements for the next school year with our staff. We value your feedback as an expert on your student both academically and emotionally. As always, we request you not make specific teacher requests as many factors go into these decisions. Please complete the linked Google Form by Sunday, April 10th if you are interested.

A reminder for our Incoming Pre-K4 and Kindergarten Parents: We look forward to seeing everyone who can make it to our annual Roundup event at Hill School this Thursday, March 31st at 9:00 am in our cafeteria space. All incoming Pre-K and Kindergarten parents, along with their students, can learn more about our school and teachers. We will take care of registration documents as well. Your students will visit a Pre-K or Kindergarten class for fun activities. Please spread the word to friends who may be interested in joining our Hill community! We are open for transfers currently, especially at the Pre-K4 level.

From AISD communications: Our district values your feedback! We are currently surveying Austin ISD families in order to gain insight into your perception of our school and district effectiveness. To ensure we continue to provide high-quality, rigorous learning experiences that meet the needs of our learners and prepare them for college and career, we need your feedback. We want to know what you think. To administer these surveys, we have partnered with Panorama Education to conduct our 2022 Family Survey. Panorama safeguards your privacy, keeping your responses confidential. The survey shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete and will be a valuable source of information for us as we work to make our schools and district as good as they can be. You may complete the survey online between March 21, 2022 and April 8, 2022 using a computer, tablet, or smartphone by visiting the website surveys.panoramaed.com/austinisd/family. We thank you in advance for your thoughtful responses. If you have any questions about the survey administration, please don’t hesitate to contact our front office.

Mark your calendars for a Principal Check-In on Thursday, April 7th at 7:45 am in our Hill library. We will host a group from AISD to discuss Long-Range Planning for the district. Long-Range Planning is a comprehensive process that will help prepare the district for the future, with an emphasis on how facilities support academic programs and other needs of students, staff and the community. The process will ultimately help determine which improvements and new facilities are included in our next bond. We hope to see you there!

Have an excellent week!

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community, 

This upcoming week we celebrate Austin ISD Pride Week. This is a time to highlight the district’s and Hill’s commitment to creating a safe, supportive and inclusive environment. On Monday, we encourage interested students and families to wear a solid colored shirt so we can show our support for all students as we create a tapestry of color. At our Monday assembly, we will review our No Place for Hate pledge which is posted in our front hallway each day. We will let each and every student know they are important and have allies on campus. As our puzzle piece activity up front shows, “We are each unique and beautiful but together we make a masterpiece.”

We have two other dress-up days this upcoming week as well! On Thursday, we have Austin FC dress-up day as we look forward to our annual Hill Hoopla fundraiser that will be at Q2 Stadium. Ticket sales open this Monday. More information for Hoopla can be found here. On Friday, we encourage all students to wear yellow and gold as we “Support the Golden Rule.” This day supports our No Place for Hate initiative and was planned by our Student Leadership Team.

Each year, our students in grades 3-5 complete a Student Climate Survey online. It helps us plan for the following year and understand the student experience at Hill School. It is very important information for us. Students will be completing this the weeks following spring break in class. If you would prefer your student not to participate, you can click here to opt-out for the upcoming student climate survey. 

As we will soon begin our final 9 weeks of school, we wanted to share directions on how to access your students’ report card. They are not posted yet but will be in the next couple of weeks for our 3rd 9 weeks.

Recently, we’ve received some questions about how the state “recapture” plan affects our students and AISD as a whole. The following states things well from our district communications team:

Under the state’s school funding formula, Austin ISD has to send more than $700 million to the state each year — more than three times the next highest district.

Why it matters:  Recapture was supposed to help low-income kids in areas without as much taxable property value. But guess what? 51% of our students are low income, and we need at least some of that money to help address issues right here at home. 

What’s more, the state doesn’t even need to use the money they collect from recapture on education. It’s a back-door property tax from the state, using school districts as the middle man. While we’re making cuts to balance our budget, the state is using your school taxes to balance its own.

Go deeper: The funding formula is complex, and if you’re anything like me, numbers can often make your head hurt. That’s why we’ve written an explainer on our website on how recapture works. That’s not all, we’ve also outlined some of the possible solutions we’re hoping the state will listen to.

The bottom line: Recapture is supposed to help educate poor students, but it’s hurting our families and staff in Austin.

We will end with a friendly traffic reminder to please look for and obey parking signs on Amy Circle if you utilize that area. We want to do our Dillo Best as adults and respect our neighbors. It also supports keeping our children safe as we avoid congestion there. Thank you for utilizing a different area to park and walk in the afternoons. Have an excellent rest of the week!

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,

It is a big week at Hill School! That follows a weekend in which our UIL Dillos represented us so well at our competition. We look forward to some fun celebrations everyone can be a part of the next few days. As a reminder, Friday (March 4th) is a student and staff holiday.

While we don’t have school this Friday, our annual Hill Country Carnival is that night (March 4th) from 5:30-7:30! This is always such a fun event that also supports our school. There will be armadillo races! You can find all the needed information here, including how you can purchase wristbands now for the event. Thank you to all of our volunteers who are working hard for us to make the carnival possible.

On Tuesday (March 1st), we will finally celebrate our Hill Modernization Grand Opening Ceremony at 9:00 am in our new fitness space. While this is a closed event, we encourage everyone to watch on AISD TV or to view the recording we will share afterward. Our 4th grade students will be in attendance, as well as our superintendent, board members, and many members of the team that made our wonderful new spaces possible. It should be an exciting event that recognizes a new era for our campus.

Attention all current parents/guardians: Families can re-enroll now for upcoming school year. Just follow the link to ensure you have this step completed for the 2022-2023 school year. As a reminder, each student must be registered each year. Thanks for completing this early so we have the most accurate picture of your intentions for next year.

We want to recognize and give a huge Dillo Cheer to 2021-2022 Hill Teacher of Promise Brittany Bayer! This award goes to an outstanding first year teacher on campus each year. She is a phenomenal educator, and we appreciate the gifts she has brought to her 5th grade classroom.

One more reminder: Join the Hill Counseling Team for a book study on No Drama Discipline, by Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD.  Siegel and Bryson offer a toolkit for navigating big feelings and tantrums, and lovingly connecting during challenging moments.  Our first meeting will be March 2nd at 7:45 in the cafeteria.  Subsequent meeting dates are 3/23, 4/6, 4/18, 5/4, and 5/18.  CLICK HERE to sign up to participate!

Again, it is a big week at Hill School. See you for a short but fun week of learning!

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community, 

We were excited to end the week with 0 confirmed COVID cases on Wednesday or Thursday. Dillo Cheer! While our cases in the district dropped by 58% this week from the prior week, numbers of cases were still very high. We will continue with our layered safety measures on campus. Thank you all again for the support that helped us get through a very difficult month together!

This Thursday, February 17th at 7:45 am we look forward to welcoming Board Trustee Kristin Ashy to Hill school for our next Principal Check-In. Her updates are always full of great information. We will plan to hold this meeting in our Hill library. We look forward to seeing our interested parents/guardians there.

We are pleased to announce that after several postponements, we will be moving forward with our Hill Modernization Grand Opening event on March 1st at 9:00 am. This will be a celebration of how the recent bond work has transformed and prepared our campus for the future. You can click here to view the invitations for the event in English and Spanish. This celebration is not open to the public on campus as we want to ensure it is a safe event. We do hope you can view the fun online, though!

Please mark your calendar for Spring Picture Day on March 9th! Click here for an online flier with a bit of information. More will come out in the near future for those interested families.

To wrap up, here is a friendly reminder on our No Drama Discipline Book Club for parents/guardians. We also want to wrap-up with a huge celebration and thank you from our Book Fair. It was a massive success that will go a long way to supporting literacy on campus. We are also pleased to announce that over $6,000 was raised for the library of our sister-school Graham Elementary in AISD. This is incredible and another example of how special and supportive this community is! Have an excellent night, everyone.

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community, 

We appreciate your support this week as we successfully began a new semester. Obviously, we are beginning the spring during a challenging time. Thank you all for your clear messaging to your students on the importance of masking and handwashing throughout the day. We were so proud of our community this week. We will continue with the clearest messaging possible. Please remember, Austin ISD is offering free testing still throughout this time. 

We want to ensure you have the most up to date information on our district quarantine procedures currently. They are below and can be found at the district COVID-19 website:

Fully COVID-19-vaccinated people (two weeks after the second dose in a 2-dose series of Pfizer or Moderna or single dose of Johnson & Johnson) per CDC guidelines will not need to quarantine if they come in close contact with someone who tests positive.

There are now two options for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people who are a close contact to a positive COVID case.

1. The close contact can “test to stay” at school, meaning they don’t have to quarantine, but they do have to test on day five after the exposure.  a) If it’s negative — Grab your backpack! We’re going back to school.  b) If it’s positive — Grab the Chromebook! The 5-day isolation starts.
2.  The close contact can quarantine for four days and return on day five with a negative rapid antigen or PCR test   result. For test-to-stay protocol, please visit one of our 11 testing hubs or any approved testing provider.
3. The close contact can quarantine for five days and return on day six if symptom-free.

We want to invite those interested to a special Principal Coffee this Wednesday (1/12) at 7:45 am in our Hill cafeteria. Principal Beth Newton and her team from Murchison Middle School will have a presentation for our outgoing 5th grade families. They will be able to answer questions you may have as well. All families are welcome. It is always fun to welcome back our former Head Dillo!

We also want to give everyone a heads up that soon in the coming weeks, construction is scheduled to begin on a sidewalk that will be on the north side of Austin Woods. Parking will be affected in that area if you have utilized the street or Amy Circle to walk your students to school. We encourage you to utilize Robbie Lane or Hyridge to keep this area as safe as possible during the construction period. More information will come as we receive it. And as a safety reminder: if parking and walking students up from Robbie Lane, please use crosswalks and our sidewalks as you avoid the bus loop itself. Drop off in the back of the school should be done by our cafeteria near our driveway for the main building.

Have a wonderful week, everyone. Please remember there is no school on Monday, January 17th in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday. We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow.

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,
It was an awesome week of learning on campus. Below are a few notes and reminders.

It is with mixed emotions that we share with you all that our amazing nurse, Dianna Pierson, has taken a position as a Public Health Nurse with the CDC Foundation. We will miss her greatly as an employee but will continue to see her as a Dillo parent! We know she will do special work in this position with a large impact. Thank you to all of you who helped celebrate her on Friday.

Reminder to our virtual families: Hill School wants to invite all of the parents and guardians of our virtual students back to campus! We will hold an information session just for you this Thursday, December 9th at 4:30 pm in our Hill Cafeteria. Our goal is to present the information you need for a successful and safe return for school, while also answering questions you may have. Please email Principal Drummond with any questions and spread the word! If you can’t attend, know we will reach out to all families by December 13th with more information.

We have ten fun days remaining in the fall semester. Thank you for all your support of our school and classrooms this time of year during the holiday season! We want to send a special thank you to everyone who supported our annual Hill Families Helping Families this month. Thank you to our Sharing and Caring Committee, as well as our counselors Ms. Kelton and Ms. Winfrey, for their support and organization. This help around the holidays goes directly to our students. Have a fun week, everyone!

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,
As we wrap-up the fall semester this week, I want to truly thank our entire school community for the support you have shown our campus so far this year. Our teachers and staff have gone above and beyond to meet our students where they are and grow every one of our Dillos. Our parents and guardians have shown flexibility and understanding throughout an ever-changing few months. Looking back now, we can be very proud of the work we have done together!

We wanted to let everyone know that one of our childcare workers, Alejandro Descalzo, will be leaving Hill following the winter break. We want to thank him for all he has done for us and our students over the past few years. He is still a Hill parent so we know we will see him around! If you see him on campus this week, be sure to say thank you. We are working on hiring for his childcare position. If you know anyone who may be interested, please encourage them to contact me.

As the holidays near, please be aware of supports all of our Austin ISD families can utilize for if you are concerned about food insecurity:

FREE Drive-Thru food distributions: Food Resources

– Monday, December 13, 10:30am-12:30pm, drive-thru food and winter coat distribution by Austin Voices at Burnet Middle School, 8401 Hathaway, 78757: Click here for more information.

– Tuesday, December 14, 10:30am-11:30am, CTFB food distribution at Gus Garcia Middle School, 7414 Johnny Morris Rd., TX 78724

– Wednesday, December 15, 4:30pm-6:00pm, CTFB food distribution at LBJ Early College High School, 7309 Lazy Creek Dr., 78724

– Thursday, December 16, 9:00am-11:00am, CTFB food distribution at Northeast ECHS/Nelson Field, 7105 Berkman Dr., 78752

– Families with children may apply at an Austin Public Health Neighborhood Center for free food delivery to their home:  Click here for more information.

This is a reminder that the winter break begins after this week on December 18th and students will be on holiday through January 4th. We look forward to welcoming students back on Wednesday, January 5th. Until then, enjoy the winter break and holiday season with your families!

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,
We hope everyone had a fantastic holiday week! We now look forward to three weeks of fun learning as we wind down the calendar year.

This week is the last chance for fall retake pictures for your student(s) on Wednesday, December 1st. You can click here if you are interested to sign up. This is our second retake day after some logistical issues with our first one.

If you missed it, here is a recording of our UIL informational session for those families who signed up to participate. We also wanted to alert all of our 5th grade families about an opportunity to participate in the UIL Ready Writing Competition (information linked). All AISD elementaries will participate in this event this year. This was not in our original sign-up. You can email hanna.curran@austinisd.org this week if interested in this activity as well, whether you had signed up for previous events or not.

Hill School wants to invite all of the parents and guardians of our virtual students back to campus! We will hold an information session just for you on Thursday, December 9th, at 4:30 pm in our Hill Cafeteria. Our goal is to present the information you need for a successful and safe return for school, while also answering questions you may have. Please email Principal Drummond with any questions and spread the word!

We love and want to share these pictures as more and more of our campus opens up. The images include the detention pond that is almost completed, the sidewalk extension being finalized at the entrance of our car line, as well as our field that is now open to our students! Have an excellent week, everyone.

Principal Drummond

Dear Hill Community,

We have one week of school until the fall break! Hill School will be closed from November 22-26. We hope everyone enjoys the nice time with family. Here is a recording of our Veterans Day assembly we held virtually Thursday. Thank you to Ryan Kelly who shared his story, as well as Allison Brundidge for her help organizing.

If you missed our Principal Check-In on Thursday, you can click here for a recording of the virtual meeting. Several topics revolving around COVID protocols were brought up and discussed. We are excited that a number of our students have already received their first dose of the vaccine! Please know that there is guidance around what to do if students experience symptoms, as many adults do, following the shot:

• Individuals may display flu-like symptoms (fever, fatigue, headache, chills, muscle or joint pain) after receiving a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Symptoms should not last longer than 72 hours (3 days) after receiving the vaccine dose. Individuals should stay home if and while they are experiencing symptoms from the vaccine.
• If an individual is displaying symptoms after 72 hours from receiving their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, or is experiencing symptoms that wouldn’t be a result of the vaccine (e.g. cough, congestion, etc.), they will be required to isolate for 10 days or will need to follow the district’s return to work/school criteria.

We also have updated protocols that began this past week for students who are deemed to be “close contacts” to another individual who tests positive for COVID-19. Up until this past week, there was a mandatory 7 day quarantine period. Now, we will follow the protocol below until further notice from district health services. The family of a student who is a “close contact” and not fully vaccinated now has 3 choices in terms of procedure they can follow:

Option 1: Students can test to stay. This means that a student will continue attending school and will be required to test on day five by AISD staff or a testing partner.  If negative on day five, the individual will continue as usual. If positive on day five, the individual will be required to start the ten-day isolation at that time. If an individual does not get/provide consent to test, they will need to be quarantined for a ten-day period.

Option 2: A student may quarantine for four days and return on day five with a negative rapid or PCR test result that is documented.

Option 3: A student may quarantine for the entire ten-day period and return on day 11.

We realize this is a big shift. As always, if your student/family is in this situation in the future, we will walk you through everything. Additionally, you can access free testing at one of the AISD hub sites from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm Monday-Friday. The one nearest our community is Pillow Elementary. Tests can be accessed for any reason now! A list of the testing hubs and additional information can be found at https://www.austinisd.org/student-health/covid-19/rapid-testing. Thank you and please let Principal Drummond know if you have any questions. 

We are excited for the return of our UIL competition that will be held at Doss in February. Letters with more information on how your child can participate were sent home in Wednesday folders. You can access that letter here as well. Please note that we will be holding a UIL Virtual Information session after school tomorrow (Monday) at 3:30. Here is the Zoom link. We will work to answer your questions but also ensure we take down questions we may need to find the answer to! It has been a few years. We are looking forward to getting this program back on track for those families interested.

To wrap up, the excellent Murchison Middle School Fine Arts department wanted to share this flyer with our outgoing families on their programming. Also, as the holidays are coming up, we wanted all of our families to know about a home delivery opportunity for food if you are experiencing food insecurity. You can check out this flyer for more information on this great resource from the Central Texas Food Bank. Please also reach out to administration and/or your counselor if you could use support during this time.

Have an amazing week!

Principal Drummond