Parent/Teacher Conferences:

Thursday, September 25 & Tuesday, September 30, 2025

• 3:45 -4:45 pm: Collaboration between teachers & families by phone to learn about your student's progress at Irving

• 4:45-6:45 pm: Drop-in conferences to learn about your student's progress at Irving

Elective/ACES & PE/Health teachers: Conferences in the cafeteria

• 6th Grade teachers: Conferences in the library

• 7th grade teachers: Conferences on the 2nd floor 

• 8th grade teachers: Conferences on the 3rd floor

I will be at a table in front of the Counseling Center with flyers and information about High School and Focus Program Open Houses.  

Hello families!  I want to call your attention to a rising issue here at Irving.  We are seeing a lot of students struggling to keep their hands, feet and bodies to themselves.  I just want to remind our students and families that part of being SAFE at Irving means being safe with each other.  These physical interactions do not always result in physical injury, however, they often lead to hurt feelings and negative consequences.  

Please remind your student to continue to practice SAFE behavior at school.  Thank you!

• Ms. Fiero

Students are learning to talk about their class schedules, preferences and asking questions. We have exchanged pen pal letters with Lincoln Southeast and will write another one next week (Sept 22-26). We will be learning to read analog clocks and tell time. There will be a test on October 5 and 6 about school. It will include reading about school schedules and preferences, as well as a writing about their own class schedule, who their teachers are, when and where the classes are, what is needed for class and their preferences. 

Students are wrapping up a lesson about Anthony Johnson, a man from Angola who found success in Virginia after being freed from indentured servitude. Unfortunately, his family was not able to take advantage of his prosperity due to the slavery laws that were put in place after his death in 1705. It is an interesting story that illustrates the labor shift from indentured servitude to racial slavery in 17th century America. We will be learning more about the slave trade in preparation for our first DCA, about the Middle Passage. 

Students have wrapped up their first District Common Assessment (DCA) of the year focusing on the purpose of historical writing with the example of Equiano’s first hand account of the Middle Passage. We move on with the Atlantic Slave Trade as we see how the nature of slavery in America Changed with the example of Anthony Johnson in Virginia. The next unit is the American Revolution where we focus on causes. 

Students in Publications 8 have finalized the 2025-2026 yearbook theme, color palette, and font choices! We are very excited to put our creativity to use in creating the yearbook.  Students are learning about photography composition and are looking at examples of such in various photography websites. Students are also learning to use our cameras and are completing an assignment which will allow each student to use the camera. 

Students continue to read their class novels. On-Level reads The Rock and the River while Differentiated English reads Wolf Hollow. We are diving into character analysis and using evidence from the book to back our opinions. We will continue to read these books through the end of September; then write a personal narrative based on students' own experiences with growing up. 

We are entering our second unit of the year!  In Unit B we are exploring likes and dislikes, food and comparing school lunch menus in Mexico to that of the United States. For their assessment, they will pretend that they are going to study abroad in a Spanish speaking country and will record an introductory speech to send to their host family. As a reminder, Spanish is a high school credit class, if you have any questions about your students grades in Spanish grades, please reach out to us:  rzetter@lps.org and nkapustk@lps.org 

Students are currently learning how to study for tests, how to use a planner or calendar to keep AHEAD of assignments, how to keep their learning binder organized, and how to make habits or systems of doing tasks to save time.  

Each day students are reading their independent reading book for ten minutes before we start with the lesson.   Also, we go to the library once every two weeks to learn more about reading. 

Coming up, students will be learning how to send emails and manage their inboxes.

Students in Family and Consumer Science have started working in kitchens to complete food labs. The next few weeks of the quarter we will have units on families, food science, Blue Zones, and parenting styles. With each unit, we will have a food lab that fits with the topic of that unit.

Students in Reading Rewards Secondary are continuing to build reading, vocabulary, writing, fluency, spelling, comprehension and phonics while using a variety of sentence structures and passages.  We are finishing up Unit 1 and will be testing by the end of next week!  Continue to practice spelling words and reading at home!

Students in Reading Rewards Plus are finishing Unit 1 where they have been working on a variety of sentences, vocabulary, writing, fluency, spelling and comprehension tying into a passage about ecosystems.