Parent / Senior Information • COVID-19 Grading Guidelines
Parent / Student Q&A • Coronavirus Information

ABILENE – The Abilene ISD is wrapping up its first week of mandatory work turn-in by students who are now using the district’s online learning platform during the school shutdown because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week (Monday) and continuing through the remainder of the district’s school shutdown, it became mandatory for all students to work on the online lessons (students don’t have to go back to the earlier weeks, but can start with Week 4 lessons). Students must submit one sample work assignment to their teacher for each class taken each week.

The AISD won’t be giving out grades on any assignment, but teachers will monitor student progress and provide feedback. The best way to submit an assignment is to take a picture of the completed assignment each week and email it to the teacher or send it through the Remind app.

“The decisions related to education during the COVID-19 crisis are evolving day by day,” said Dr. Dan Dukes, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction. “Two weeks ago the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency made it clear that all districts providing instruction during closure must ‘monitor student progress’ along the way. The TEA is increasingly emphasizing that districts must provide ways for students to show master of grade-level TEKS and one way to do this is first teachers to collect student work samples as evidence of progress monitoring for possible future auditing purposes.”

For information on grading guidelines for current seniors and other students in the district, as well as a Parent / Student Q&A, click here.

PARK AND LEARN SITES STILL IN OPERATION

The district — in conjunction with WesTex Connect — currently has eight mobile learning spots and plans are in the works to add more “park and Learn” sites throughout the city. WesTex Connect set up three hot spots throughout the city that are accessible all day, and those are located at the following sites:

• Shotwell Stadium parking lot
• Convention Center north parking lot
• Hugh Sandifer Stadium west parking lot (Wylie ISD football stadium)

In addition, AISD buses — outfitted with WiFi hot spot equipment — are parking in the following spots from 9-11 a.m. each weekday to providefree internet access students can use to complete their online lessons:

• Continental Villa Apartments off Arnold Blvd.
• Parking lot off Kirkwood St. between North 2nd and North 3rd
• Parking lot of old Wal-Mart on North Judge Ely Blvd.
• Parking lot of Southwest Park Baptist Church on South 20th and Matador
• Parking lot of North Park Baptist Church at Anson Ave. and Beech

In addition to those sites, students can also go to any of the parking lots around AISD campuses and use the AISD Visitor WiFi, which is free.

AISD STILL PROVIDING BREAKFAST AND LUNCH

The district’s meal service – which began on March 17 – had served 53,488 meals through Thursday (April 16). Since the first meal service began, the district has handed out 16,095 breakfasts and 37,393 lunches.

Free breakfast and lunch is served to all children 18 and under, no matter if they are AISD students or not. Meals can be picked up in drive-thru fashion at Bowie, Bonham, Dyess, Johnston, Lee, Martinez, Ortiz, Reagan and Ward elementary schools, as well as Clack, Craig, Madison and Mann middle schools.

Breakfast is served at each site from 7-9 a.m., while lunch is served from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.