Kilpatrick Elementary

Good afternoon OKE Families,

It has been an amazing and challenging week in the Outback! We hope you are all doing well and staying safe. Our students, teachers, and parents have been working hard and all of our efforts show.

We have our face to face students returning to school on Tuesday, 9/8. We are so excited to welcome them back! We have safety protocols in place and have shared many of them throughout this newsletter as well as several embedded links. Our staff has worked diligently to continue to create the best instructional environment for our koalas whether it be virtual or in person. Thank you for your continued support, patience, and encouragement as we work through so many obstacles.

We will continue to work together for our students, school, and community. Please reach out if you have any questions. We know it is going to be a year to remember for sure. Have a safe and wonderful Labor Day Weekend.

With much gratitude,

Mrs. Rodriguez

Katy ISD asks all students and staff to provide their own face covering from home. Katy ISD will make every effort to provide a face covering to those unable to provide their own or should an individual’s face covering become ineffective during school hours. Katy ISD safety protocols for student masks/face coverings/face shields have been updated to ensure consistency and to maximum safety protocols and protections across all buildings and grade levels.

· All staff are required to wear a mask, face covering, or face shield when in a Katy ISD facility.

· Students, grades 4-12 are required to wear a mask, face covering, or face shield upon arrival to school and dismissal, when riding buses, in hallways, common areas, and in classrooms.

· Students in grades PK-3 are required to wear a mask, face covering, or face shield upon arrival and dismissal, in the hallways, common areas, on the school bus and, when developmentally appropriate, in the classrooms.

· Katy ISD recognizes our younger students and their range of abilities, including the wearing of a facial covering during classroom instruction, may vary due to the child’s stage of development. Alternative measures of safety are available for our younger students who may not be able to wear a facial covering at all times when inside the classroom. Parents of PK-3 grade students are encouraged to contact their child’s campus principal or campus nurse with questions regarding the wearing of a facial covering within the classroom.

Face coverings include non-medical and medical grade disposable face masks and cloth face coverings (over the nose and mouth), and face shields. Full-face shields may be used in place of a mask to protect eyes, nose, and mouth and must cover one’s face, extending below the chin.

Non-Compliance with Mask Requirement

Katy ISD is offering parents the option of virtual or in-person instruction. Students who do not comply with safety protocols in place for in-person instruction will be transitioned to Katy Virtual Academy for the duration of the grading period. KVA students participating in in-person school related activities before and after the start of the instructional day must also follow the same safety protocols. Students who do not wear masks/face coverings as required by District safety protocols will not be allowed to participate in school related activities. Should a student have a medical condition that would preclude him/her from wearing a mask, the parent is requested to provide the campus nurse documentation from their medical provider.

If your student received any textbooks or planners in their Grab 'n Go bags, please be sure they bring those back to school with them.

Each family should have received three parent dismissal tags when Grab 'n Go bags were picked up. If you did not receive it with your Grab 'n Go bag, it will be sent home with your student on the first day of Face2Face instruction.

Each student will be given a grade level colored dismissal tag on the first day of school. Teachers will attach these to backpacks in order to ensure that every student has the correct dismissal tag and that it is properly labeled with all the necessary information. We will match students to parent tag numbers when dismissing car riders, bikers, and walkers. On days we call Rainy Day Dismissal, we can expedite walkers/bikers in the car rider line with everyone having a dismissal tag. Please remember if your student is in Pre-K, Kinder, or 1st grade and is a walker/biker, they must be released to an adult with the matching dismissal tag. If you would like for your Kinder or 1st grade walker/biker to be released to an older (2nd-5th grade) OKE sibling, you must provide a note to the front office on/or before dismissal.

We need your support during dismissal by wearing your facial covering and socially distancing while we release your student(s) to you. We have protocols in place to allow for social distancing as well as other safety procedures during dismissal for our students and staff.

Please take a moment to view the screencast on the link below to view our dismissal locations & procedures.

Pre K, Kinder, and 1st grade bikers/walkers will not be allowed to bike/walk home without an adult or sibling (2nd grade or older) escort. Parents picking up their child must have the matching dismissal tag. If your student in grades PK-1 will be going home with an older sibling in grades 2-5, a note must be on file with the front office. Plan for longer than usual dismissal times the first week of school. We want to make sure our koalas stay safe and are in the correct place. Therefore, dismissal will go slower during the first week. We appreciate your patience.

As the first day of Face2Face instruction approaches, we would like to review the process for student pick-up and drop-off in our carpool line. Beginning on the first day of Face2Face, vehicles will stack along Cinco Ranch Blvd. (in front of the school only) and wrap up Gaston Road along the Northeast side of the school as it did last year.

Although there is a second lane in our front driveway, this lane will be closed during the pick-up and drop-off times in order to ensure the safety of our students, staff and other vehicles. The second lane is designated for emergency vehicles and patrons who have school business at our campus. The actual pick-up and drop-off procedure for students remains the same. In the right lane, we will continue to maintain the same single file line and stopping point at the first orange cone for student pick-up and drop-off. Vehicles may pull in the drive in a single file line for arrival and dismissal.

Please remember that when you come through the car rider line, you will need to have your orange dismissal tag displayed in the windshield throughout the entire line.

For the duration of pick-up and drop-off times, we also request that you not park in the staff and bus parking lots. These procedures are in order to continue to provide a safe environment surrounding our students, campus, and community and comply with county requests.

The Katy ISD Transportation Department is excited to communicate that all 2020–2021 route buses are equipped with GPS systems. With the GPS systems, parents, campuses and transportation personnel are able to track buses in real-time through a downloadable application from Edulog. For parents and patrons having children who are eligible for transportation services in Katy ISD, the link below contains information on how to download the application. Your campus code is: 81160440.

The hours for our school day are from 8:25 a.m. to 3:35 p.m. Please note this is a slight change from previous years.

Please be reminded that morning student drop off time begins at 8:00 a.m. Starting at 8:00 a.m. each day, teachers are on duty in posted locations all around the school. Students should not arrive to school prior to 8:00 a.m. without parental supervision. Please be reminded that children should not be on the playground before school begins. There is no adult supervision at this time of the day and could present a dangerous situation. Thank you for your assistance in keeping our students safe.

When a student arrives after 8:25 a.m. an adult will be required to walk the student to the front doors & follow our NEW check in procedure. There is now a QR code posted in the front vesitbule for you to scan and fill out the google form prior to your student being admitted.

If you need to check your student out prior to dismissal, please scan the QR code posted in the front vestibule. You will be required to show a photo ID on the intercom camera. Once the form has been submitted and ID has been verified, your student will be called to the front office.

At this time, we are unable to accept any deliveries. Please be sure your child has everything they need for the day - homework, glasses, water bottles, lunches, etc. If your child forgets their lunch, they will purchase a grab 'n go meal from the cafeteria.

With safety being the number one priority for Katy ISD, we have launched our new ‘COVID-19 Case Dashboard.’ As a District, we want to ensure that you have access to the information and tools you need in order to make timely decisions about your child’s schooling, health and well-being as we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dashboard provides daily updates on the number of overall self-reported COVID-19 positive cases throughout the district, and by campus. Families and staff can review the Dashboard at any time by visiting the Katy ISD website homepage and clicking on the COVID-19 Case Dashboard icon.

The Dashboard is populated by data that is submitted by students and staff who have self-reported a positive COVID-19 test result through Katy ISD’s COVID-19 Self- Reporting App in the MyKaty Cloud.

For more information on Katy ISD’s COVID-19 Case Dashboard, or the COVID-19 Self- Reporting App, please visit the District’s Smart Restart webpage.