Letter from our superintendent last night:
Greetings Peaster ISD families and community!
We are having a phenomenal school year in Peaster ISD! Our students, staff, and parents have partnered together to provide a traditional school experience that our students need and deserve in order to grow to their fullest potential.
We are currently serving almost 1400 students with 200 staff members. This school year has proven to be consistent with previous years in Peaster ISD. We have seen enrollment continue to grow, and our attendance rate through nine weeks of school is 97.5%. We will typically average around 96% attendance rate on the year, so we are on track to meet or exceed that average. The largest number of employee absences, due to any documented illness we have had on any given day as a district, is eight.
When I walk the halls and see kids that are happy, healthy, safe, and learning, it reassures me we are answering the calling placed on our hearts to have kids in school where they can thrive both socially and emotionally. We do not take this calling lightly, and will remain steadfast in our mission and commitment to providing the best educational experience possible.
We have received a few calls and emails regarding possible COVID cases in our schools. The COVID event continues to generate many emotions around our country, our state, and our community. Many times, those emotions are driven by which set of data you read and believe, which news station you watch, and which doctor you listen to. Fear seems to remain high, largely due to the narrative that continues to be aired on the nightly news stations. We appreciate each position on this topic, and will answer parents questions the best we can. The fact remains, through ten months of the COVID event, Parker county and the state of Texas currently shows that 99.9% and 99.8%, respectively, of our population is not active with COVID.
At our town hall meeting, we made a commitment to you to open our schools, keep them open, and provide as close to a traditional school setting as possible under the circumstances. We pleaded with you to partner with us using three primary strategies to help keep our schools healthy. We asked you to use common sense, personal responsibility, and to pray for us. This means daily screening and keeping your kids home when they are ill, providing healthy meals for your family, and ensuring you and your children get the amount of rest they need to keep their immune systems high. By the large majority, you have done just that and our schools have remained a safe and healthy place for our staff and students. That does not mean that people won't get sick, or catch an illness. We will have, and have had, both staff and students that have caught a plethora of different illnesses, including STREP, the common cold, a stomach
virus, Texas allergies, staph infections, and COVID. Illness is inevitable and part of daily life. These illnesses combined have been minimal in PISD as the aforementioned data shows.
As we mentioned in our town hall, the district will not communicate illnesses to the public to respect the rights to privacy by those who are ill. One of the benefits of living in a small community is that everyone knows everyone. It would be very easy for our students and parents to draw a conclusion on who is ill if we made an announcement each time someone reported an absence from the flu, or COVID. We will not be a platform to drive the fear narrative around any current illness, including COVID, or to create hysteria around any employee or student that may have had an illness, including COVID. This goes along with operating a traditional school year. The simple truth is, people have always gotten sick, and people will always get sick. Flu, COVID, and Texas allergies are not going anywhere. We can choose to live and trust, or be paralyzed by fear, but our district will not report those illnesses out, because that is between the individual and their family.
Our protocol remains the same. If our attendance drops below 10% of our average daily
attendance for three consecutive days, that is an indication that we have several students ill, which could be a result of multiple illnesses, and we need to close that campus for five days to allow students to recover. We deep clean each classroom daily, provide hand sanitizer, and reinforce good hygiene practices. Our schools are clean and safe. If a concern arises that requires us to change our protocol and practice, we will do so immediately and communicate the changes to our parents.
I stand behind the decision to open school on August 19 on time in a traditional setting. Our students need to be in school, and it is hard to argue the success we have had through nine weeks of school. We provide the highest qualified professionals each day to serve our community, and will continue to do so, with your continued partnership.
Thank you for trusting us with your children, and know that we love them. May God continue to bless each of us.
Respectfully,
Lance Johnson
Superintendent
Peaster ISD
Greetings Peaster ISD families and community!
We are having a phenomenal school year in Peaster ISD! Our students, staff, and parents have partnered together to provide a traditional school experience that our students need and deserve in order to grow to their fullest potential.
We are currently serving almost 1400 students with 200 staff members. This school year has proven to be consistent with previous years in Peaster ISD. We have seen enrollment continue to grow, and our attendance rate through nine weeks of school is 97.5%. We will typically average around 96% attendance rate on the year, so we are on track to meet or exceed that average. The largest number of employee absences, due to any documented illness we have had on any given day as a district, is eight.
When I walk the halls and see kids that are happy, healthy, safe, and learning, it reassures me we are answering the calling placed on our hearts to have kids in school where they can thrive both socially and emotionally. We do not take this calling lightly, and will remain steadfast in our mission and commitment to providing the best educational experience possible.
We have received a few calls and emails regarding possible COVID cases in our schools. The COVID event continues to generate many emotions around our country, our state, and our community. Many times, those emotions are driven by which set of data you read and believe, which news station you watch, and which doctor you listen to. Fear seems to remain high, largely due to the narrative that continues to be aired on the nightly news stations. We appreciate each position on this topic, and will answer parents questions the best we can. The fact remains, through ten months of the COVID event, Parker county and the state of Texas currently shows that 99.9% and 99.8%, respectively, of our population is not active with COVID.
At our town hall meeting, we made a commitment to you to open our schools, keep them open, and provide as close to a traditional school setting as possible under the circumstances. We pleaded with you to partner with us using three primary strategies to help keep our schools healthy. We asked you to use common sense, personal responsibility, and to pray for us. This means daily screening and keeping your kids home when they are ill, providing healthy meals for your family, and ensuring you and your children get the amount of rest they need to keep their immune systems high. By the large majority, you have done just that and our schools have remained a safe and healthy place for our staff and students. That does not mean that people won't get sick, or catch an illness. We will have, and have had, both staff and students that have caught a plethora of different illnesses, including STREP, the common cold, a stomach
virus, Texas allergies, staph infections, and COVID. Illness is inevitable and part of daily life. These illnesses combined have been minimal in PISD as the aforementioned data shows.
As we mentioned in our town hall, the district will not communicate illnesses to the public to respect the rights to privacy by those who are ill. One of the benefits of living in a small community is that everyone knows everyone. It would be very easy for our students and parents to draw a conclusion on who is ill if we made an announcement each time someone reported an absence from the flu, or COVID. We will not be a platform to drive the fear narrative around any current illness, including COVID, or to create hysteria around any employee or student that may have had an illness, including COVID. This goes along with operating a traditional school year. The simple truth is, people have always gotten sick, and people will always get sick. Flu, COVID, and Texas allergies are not going anywhere. We can choose to live and trust, or be paralyzed by fear, but our district will not report those illnesses out, because that is between the individual and their family.
Our protocol remains the same. If our attendance drops below 10% of our average daily
attendance for three consecutive days, that is an indication that we have several students ill, which could be a result of multiple illnesses, and we need to close that campus for five days to allow students to recover. We deep clean each classroom daily, provide hand sanitizer, and reinforce good hygiene practices. Our schools are clean and safe. If a concern arises that requires us to change our protocol and practice, we will do so immediately and communicate the changes to our parents.
I stand behind the decision to open school on August 19 on time in a traditional setting. Our students need to be in school, and it is hard to argue the success we have had through nine weeks of school. We provide the highest qualified professionals each day to serve our community, and will continue to do so, with your continued partnership.
Thank you for trusting us with your children, and know that we love them. May God continue to bless each of us.
Respectfully,
Lance Johnson
Superintendent
Peaster ISD
