COVID-19 Information
Important Message from Dr. Webb
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Hello Garza Family,
My hope is this message finds you doing well and taking care of yourself and the ones with whom you are close. With a sense of community in our hearts and a desire to keep communication open during this turbulent time, I would like to address my understanding of how the next few weeks will be set up for students, staff, and parents of Garza Independence High School. With the situation we are living in consistently changing, I want to prepare the entire school community to move into an exclusively online direction for as long as seen appropriate by health officials. I may not have all the answers, but please be assured I am working in a thoughtful, collective manner with our staff and faculty to assure that each student will have a clear plan to maintain both daily structure and academic routine. We are in the very fortunate position of being able to leverage our Garza Online platform to maintain over 95% of our current classes. All students already know how to access the platform, do daily work, and turn in assignments through Garza Online. Therefore, students may continue most, if not all, of their current “brick and mortar” academic schedule through Garza Online classes without much disruption. These classes can be accessed from your homes through the student’s school-given Chromebook and/or any other home computer with internet access. Please assure students that they will be picking up right where they left off in the curriculum prior to Spring Break. Many students have already chosen to work on their Garza Online classes while at home during Spring Break, which always brings a smile to my face. Through this email, I want to make sure all guardians and students know that - starting on Monday, April 6th - if “brick and mortar” schools remain closed, Garza teachers will implement their standard grading practices and students will be expected to log-on to their classes, daily, to work. If you are encountering any difficulties accessing Garza Online, please contact Diane Sidoroff via email (diane.sidoroff@austinisd.org) or 512-414-8622. In an effort to provide academic support and structure, administrators and faculty may monitor the amount of time each student is logged-on and engaged in their Garza Online classes. We hope to maintain, at, or close to, the same level of achievement during this exclusively online teaching period. Further, teachers will try to have all grading completed within 48 hours. I know teachers will do their best, but this is new territory for all of us and we will adjust, if needed. Beginning Monday, April 6th, teachers will be available to address questions concerning assignments, class timelines, and grading practices. Teachers will be available via the online course, email (all teachers’ email may be found on the Garza website) and via phone messages (all staff will be checking their AISD voicemail accounts daily). To facilitate communication, I want to be available directly to you via email (linda.webb@austinisd.org). As stated above, I may not have all the answers but I certainly want to address what I am able as well as hear any concerns. Of course academics is just a part of what we at Garza feel is vital to a well-rounded education. In that vein, your child’s school counselor will be reaching out via the phone to personally speak to each student over the next 2 weeks before we transition to completely online. It is my highest priority to keep communication lines open and for all of us to feel our community is supporting each other, just through different means. Parents, I need you to log-on to AISD’s ‘Parent Cloud’ to assure all contact information is current. You may do so at: https://my.austinisd.org If there are any issues with logging onto this site, please reach out to our campus contact, Mark Rosholt, via email (mark.rosholt@austinisd.org) or (512) 414-8602. The parameters surrounding the opening or closing of schools is not under our control. Yet, our ability to adapt and keep focused on the future for students definitely is in our hands. The Garza community is composed of individuals who have proven they can overcome and adapt to multiple situations and this situation will be no different. We will get through this together, Dr. Linda Webb |
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