Gifted and Talented Parent Meeting will be held on Friday, September 18 at 4:00 PM. Hill Elementary will begin accepting nominations for the Gifted and Talented Program from September 21 – October 2, 2020 for ALL grades K-5. If you would like to learn more about the GT identification process please join us at the Virtual GT Parent Information Meeting on Friday, September 18 from 4:00-5:00 PM. Zoom link here (password: hillgt)
For more information about the Hill Elementary GT Nomination Process, please visit our Hill GT Newsletter.
For more information about the Austin ISD GT Program, please visit the Austin ISD Advanced Academics website.
Hill GT Advocates:
Chelsea Stover, chelsea.stover@austinisd.org
Stephanie Winfrey, stephanie.winfrey@austinisd.org
Is your student interested in joining the Hill Leadership Team? HLT program is designed to promote leadership skills for 3rd-5th grade students. The Hill Leadership Team will consist of students who are interested in learning leadership skills, serving the Hill Community while also modeling positive behaviors at school and in the community. By being a part of the Hill Leadership Team, you will have the opportunity to utilize your talents at Hill Elementary and in the community. If you have a passion to help and serve others and you have the time, Hill Leadership Team would be a perfect fit for you. For more information, please view the Hill Leadership Team Information slide deck.
Click here to apply! Please review the information slide deck before applying. Applications are due by September 18, 2020. *LATE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED*
The first General PTA Meeting of the year will be held virtually on Thursday, September 17 at 6:30pm. You will need to register to attend the meeting here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
WE NEED YOU! If you have not signed up for a PTA membership, JOIN TODAY!
Now that you know your student’s teacher, you can learn a little more about his or her “favorite” things and see wish lists! The questionnaires are now online for easy access!
Click here to meet the AMAZING Essential Areas teachers at Hill!
Dear Hill Community,
We hope you are enjoying a relaxing three-day weekend as we look ahead to our first day of school on Tuesday! It has been a team effort in our school community to rally and get to this point. While it is not the typical start to school we would love to see, we will ensure this is the best possible experience for our Dillos.
For next week, our virtual classes will begin on Tuesday, September 8th, at 7:45 am. All students will begin the day with classroom community meetings, then follow their normal Tuesday virtual schedule. If you feel unsure on what to do, always begin with your teacher’s BLEND page as everything can break out from there. More information on BLEND support is shared below. Also, be sure to reach out to your teacher with any questions to ensure a successful start. Our school day will end at 3:11 pm for all but our Pre-K students.
We do want to note one change to our normal schedule for week one. To ensure that we start the year with consistency and momentum for our students and staff, this Wednesday will not be an asynchronous day. Please treat this Wednesday as if it is a normal Monday! Students will have synchronous time for classes as if it is a Monday. They will see the essential area A day class synchronously they would normally attend on a Monday. We hope this lets everyone get further connected week one. Thank you for being mindful of this. In the weeks following during virtual learning, we will get back to our published, normal schedule.
To begin each day with our students, we also hope families can tune in to our virtual asynchronous assemblies we will continue to publish for each day. We plan to bring back some of our consistent traditions, including our Dillo Best student awards on Friday! These can be viewed prior to 7:45 am if you wish or at any asynchronous time in the day that works for families. We hope this further supports our students feeling connected to Hill School while not there physically. Click here to find the consistent link for our Daily Virtual Assemblies. The Tuesday video will be ready to go soon.
The Virtual Principal Check-In was pretty short this week with many great questions. Be sure to check it out. One statement I made was that I thought a new parent survey may be going out this week to see family plans on learning once the return to in-person is available. It looks like that is on hold so my apologies. No survey will be coming out quite yet. Our next Principal Check-In will be this upcoming Thursday, September 10th, at 4:00 pm. We hope many of you can join us as our counselors will be sharing resources for families this week for a nice change of pace.
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 844 8826 6009
Passcode: Dillos
This week, Austin ISD shared a really wonderful resource for our families to support BLEND and Seesaw. Please explore this Parent Handbook for BLEND & Seesaw that is also available on our Hill Community BLEND page under Tech Resources. We hope this helps support you in supporting your student(s).
We want to share our first working draft of our Hill Reopening Plan. This is similar to the Austin ISD plan but will have more Hill-specific information. Schools worked off of a template to support consistency. Please know this will be consistently updated in the coming weeks and is a living document. For now, it focuses on virtual learning but please know we will be adding in-person learning sections as well once we feel that is ready to share. Hopefully most of the information is review and presents a good overview of all of our basic information right now. Please know we will be seeking feedback from different groups on campus soon to ensure our community input is present.
Don’t forget to visit hillelementary.com as our Online Open House for PTA ends Monday. We wish you all a fabulous first day of school! Thank you for being flexible and understanding as we put our schedules and platforms into practice. Please know we value your feedback and will work as a community to keep making the best situation we can for our students in the coming weeks.
Principal Drummond
Online Open House closes at midnight on Monday, September 7th. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT MORE THAN EVER! Join the PTA, purchase birthday books and birthday posters for your students and DONATE to support Hill teachers and programs! Click here to complete.
Our next Hill Principal Check-In will be on Thursday, September 10th, at 4:00 pm.
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 844 8826 6009
Passcode: Dillos
Hill Elementary is a blue ribbon school located in Northwest Hills in Austin, Texas. It serves the communities of Northwest Hills, Great Hills, Lakewood and Jester Estates, near the greenbelts of northwest Austin.
