Top Nav

Thursday Thunderword 04/22/2022

HAPPY THURSDAY, THUNDERBIRDS! 04/21/2022

Have an announcement or other great news to share? Please submit your info to the school the week prior to when you’d like to see it in this newsletter.

PTA News!

PTA Meeting
We have a PTA Meeting with a performance by the Kinder and 1st grade classes on Thursday 4/28 from 5:30pm-6:30pm in the gym. This will also be the time for election of a new PTA Board for the 22-23 School Year. We still have some open positions, so PLEASE consider jumping in and helping out.

May 2nd through 6th is Teacher Appreciation Week. We need parents to come and help decorate and set up goodies each day for our fantastic teachers. If you have the ability to help with this, please CLICK HERE to sign up for a time to join in. (We are still hammering out some details, so if the signup doesn’t look complete, please check back)

Also, we are still hoping to pull off a Spring Carnival on May 20th. We will need a LOT of help with this, but right now we need some help with planning. If you would like to assist with the booking of attractions and other logistics, please contact me ASAP so we can start making this happen. ptapresident@travisheightselementary.com

Hope you all have a great week and we will see you soon!

Merrideth Jiles
PTA President

THES Family Fun and Fitness Day

THES Family Fun and Fitness Day is next week! We had to switch dates for our primary and upper grades. Please look closely at the new dates. We are excited for our Thunderbirds have a morning full of physical activity and healthy eating.

There will be two separate days: UPDATED

  • April 21st for 3-5
  • April 22nd for k-2
  • Both events will take place in the morning from 8-11:30

Please consider volunteering and/or contributing towards either a healthy snack or drink for the event. Please fill out the google form to let us know if you can help.

Family Fun & Fitness Day Volunteer/Donation Form

 

A Message from Austin Parks Department

As you may be aware, Travis Heights Elementary School is adjacent to a City Park, meaning our school is directly next to a City of Austin park. The Parks & Recreation Department (PARD) has begun receiving an increasing number of questions surrounding these sites, so we would like to offer some clarification in the hopes it will provide answers to the most frequently received questions. We encourage school and community use of our parks and invite you to extend an invitation to your teachers as our parks provide great opportunities for learning and nature connection.

Who has access & when
Adjacent parks are open and accessible to the public during normal park hours, generally 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. We encourage Austin ISD schools to access and use any of the PARD-owned amenities. It should be noted that this is something that is frequently advocated for by the community, especially at schools that have a limited number of their own amenities (such as a playground or trail/track).

Process for contacting PARD about any park issues
The easiest means of determining if an amenity is owned by the school or the park is to verify on our PARD Interactive Map, which clearly denotes the PARD-maintained amenities. If the item in question is not listed on the map, it is likely owned and maintained by the school or District. If a park amenity needs servicing (such as trash overflowing), please call 311.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns regarding your adjacent park school. We know these spaces are often complicated and confusing!
Thank you,

Melody Alcazar
Program Coordinator – Cities Connecting Children to Nature
City of Austin | Parks and Recreation Department
512-974-9466 | melody.alcazar@austintexas.gov

 

PBL Showcase

Families, save the date for this THES tradition also coming back! April 26th (5:00-6:30 pm) students will showcase Project Based Learning they have worked on this school year!

Students have been engaged in collaborative learning developing creative and critical thinking skills while fostering communication and reflection by:

  • Gaining skills and knowledge across multiple subjects by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge.
  • Presenting their analysis and solutions to an intended and purposeful audience.
  • Making connections between their learning, and local and global solutions.

Stay tuned for more details coming soon!

 

Earth Week April 18-22

Austin ISD embraces sustainability not only as a way to help our planet but also as an educational tool to provide challenging and inspiring curriculum to our students. Earth Day is on April 22, and AISD and THES will be celebrating the entire week of April 18-22! We encourage everyone to take a moment to think about how you can make the earth and our community a better place and perform an action to do so. Please visit the AISD Earth Week web page to find fun and meaningful ways to engage and take action from home.

Students at THES will be engaging in Earth day activities throughout next week.

 

Water Bottles

Hello Thunderbird parents. I am reaching out to ask for help for our students who have recently arrived to THES. We need new and unused refillable water bottles for these new students. It is getting warm outside and many of these students do not have any way to stay hydrated during the day and especially during PE. Please consider helping out by purchasing and dropping off some bottles at the school.

Thank you for your consideration.
Best, Coach Hemme

 

Lunch Time with your Thunderbird is back!

Parents you are welcomed to have lunch with your Thunderbird starting next week on Wednesday, April 13th! Please make sure to check in at the front office. If this is your first time checking-in, you must bring a valid picture id.

Lunch times are scheduled by classroom. Please check with your teacher for the exact time. Parents may come and eat lunch with their child only (they may not bring other students) on Wednesdays and Fridays only starting April 13th.

There will be designated tables where parents can sit with their child to have lunch. Please remember lunch is only 30 min., and students need to return back to their class lunch tables when it is time to return back to the classroom.

Please remember you are a guest at your child’s school. Appropriate behavior is expected at all times. We respectfully ask that you do not visit with other children that are not yours, share food with other children, or take pictures of other children. The safety and welfare of all our Thunderbirds is our number one priority. In addition, we ask that you respect our teacher’s lunch time and reach them during their planning time if you need to speak with them.

If you have any questions please reach out to the Travis Heights Administration Team.

 

Access To Healthy Food

With many AISD students living in food-insecure households, access to healthy food may be challenging when the district is closed. Families can use the community resources below to find free meals in their area while AISD offices and schools are closed for Spring Break:

 

We Love Our Volunteers!

Interested in volunteering to be a lunch monitor? Or would you rather help with making copies or decorating bulletin boards? If you want to help, we have plenty that needs to be done!

If interested, please follow the process for becoming a Travis Heights Elementary Volunteer by following this link https://www.travisheightselementary.com/volunteering/.
Our new volunteer coordinators Anna Roth, anna.m.roth@gmail.com, and Sura Jasim (Parent Support Specialist), sura.jasim@austinisd.org, will be in touch with you.

 

Reminders

To condense the length of our E-folder, some important news has been moved to a page of its own.

Registration Information for all students.
You can find out about meals and snacks at THES Meals
Follow the school on FB: https://www.facebook.com/TravisHeightsES
Follow the PTA on FB: https://www.facebook.com/TravisHeightsElem

Up & Coming

April
21 Family Fun & Fitness Day for 3-5
22 Family Fun & Fitness Day for k-2
26 PBL Showcase
28 PTA General Meeting & K-1st performance

For district-wide events you can view the AISD calendar here: https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/calendar/Calendar_2021-2022v3.pdf

Top