Thorndale ISD

Volume 1, Issue 7: 11/10/23

Posted on November 10, 2023

Volume 1, Issue 7: 11/10/23

Greetings Bulldogs! Happy Friday!

Happy Veteran’s Day! Thorndale ISD wants to thank every one of you for your service to our country. On Thursday we honored our Veterans through our Veteran’s Day breakfast and at our Veteran’s Day Assembly. Thank you to all of those who were able to attend!

TISD Student Shout Outs:

I really hope you have been able to like and follow our Facebook Pages so you can keep up with all of the amazing things our students are experiencing and accomplishing. As a reminder, here are the pages to follow:

Now, if you are not able to keep up with us on Facebook, I would hate for you to miss out on all the celebrations! I can’t possibly capture them all in my Blog that comes out every two weeks, but let me give you a glimpse of just a sliver of the excellence here in TISD:

There are SO many great things happening in TISD. I am very proud of the strong start to the school year and all of the things the staff and students have been able to accomplish in only 3 months! It is, as always, a great day to be a bulldog.

Upcoming Events - November 14th - November 30th, 2023:

For the most up-to-date information on upcoming events, please visit our Thorndale ISD website. However, here are some highlights of important dates below:

Parent Square App:

Parent Square is a big part of our communication at this school. One way to help parents organize the messages is to download the free app!

Our data shows that currently only 46% of parents have the app. Here is how you can add it to your phone:

How to Download Parent Square

How to Download Parent Square - Espanol

If you have any trouble, please simply email Lindsay.Franklin@thorndale.txed.net

Attendance Matters:

Last week we talked a little about school funding and one of the big takeaways was that Public Schools are funded based on our ATTENDANCE not on our ENROLLMENT.

Thus, attendance has a huge financial impact on our district and the things we can afford to do for our kiddos.
Last year we finished with approximately 95% attendance as a district. Being that our budget is roughly $8 million, that 5% loss in attendance equates to roughly $400,000. Put another way, that is the cost of approximately 5-6 teacher salaries or 8-10 teaching assistants salaries!

Now we know that no district will have 100% attendance. Sickness, family-related absences, etc. are bound to occur.

This year, we set a goal to improve attendance from 95% to 96%. Below is the summary report for our first three months of school. You can see our totals are higher than last year but are not at our goal. We also need to be prepared for some historically lower holiday weeks.

In fact, this week we were hit very hard by flu and strep. We are able to apply for a waiver on certain campuses where the attendance dropped below 85%, but that is rare.

How can you help? Remind your kids like we do to wash their hands frequently, stay home if they are really sick, and come to school every day otherwise. It also really helps to plan holiday trips and vacations around the TISD Calendar so that your child isn't pulled out of school for those days right before and right after a holiday.

Here are tables to show you each grade levels attendance by month:

Kudos to:

3rd Grade
4th Grade
7th Grade
9th Grade
11th Grade

For the amazing attendance rates across all 3 months!

Kudos to:

2nd Grade

For improving every month!

Holiday Season:

November, December, and the start of January are often welcomed for their long holiday breaks! Please note that Thorndale ISD will be closed from November 20th - 24th for Thanksgiving. Then we will close down again from December 20th - January 8th. December 20th and January 8th will be staff development and work days (no students).

Are YOU Registered to Vote?:

Although Thorndale ISD did NOT have anything on this November ballot, I hope you were able to take a moment to exercise your right to vote.

If you are not registered to vote, now is the perfect time to register for the May elections. If you are unsure how to do so, here is a super easy link:

Voter Registration

Note: My wife and I just updated our voter registration to reflect the move from Travis County to Milam County, so if you need any help, I would be happy to assist you on the process!

As discussed above, Thorndale did NOT have anything on the November ballot. However, we do have our annual school board elections on the May ballot.

Additionally, the work of our Community Facilities Committee includes potentially identifying projects to propose to the school board to put on the May ballot. There is no better time to start voting than NOW.

The May 2018 ballot had 3 school bond propositions for TISD school improvements/land purchases.Although all three of those propositions failed, they were all close, infact one failed by approximately only 40 votes! Thus, if you are passionate about TISD needs and projects, know that your vote counts.

Community Facilities Committee:

Our community committee has now met twice! Attendance at the first meeting was roughly 36 members: 26 community members and 10 staff that live in the community + facilitators, architects/project managers, etc.

The second meeting had roughly the same number of folks, with a handful of new and a handful of previous members who couldn't attend.

Here is a copy of the presentations thus far:

The summary and intentions of each of our two meetings and the next meeting:

Tour campuses, clearly define the process and role of the committee, and begin to discuss the district big picture needs.

Tour other buildings (band hall, AG, field house, sped portables, etc.), discuss bonds and school finance 101, review facilities assessment, and make wish lists.

Finance presentation related to TISD-specific bond capacity and historical tax rates, re-prioritize wish list with price tags on items and bonding capacity.

We are on schedule for our timeline to have the community committee present the committee's work at our January board meeting.

We will share our agendas each time, after each meeting so everyone can be in the loop.

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Most sincerely,

Zack Kleypas
Superintendent
Thorndale ISD
#TISDStrivingForExcellence

“Keep improving, always, in all ways.”