If your child is going to be absent for any reason, please be sure to email (a phone call is not required) your child's teacher, Ms. Paola, and Nurse Katy. It's important for all of these staff members to be contacted in order for your child's attendance to be entered in correctly in Skyward. Thank you so much for emailing paola.cervantes@gcisd.net and katy.faught@gcisd.net along with your child's teacher each time your child is absent from school. 

Absences from class may result in serious disruption of a student’s learning and educational experiences. Up to eight days per year (four per semester) may be excused by a parent note for missed attendance beyond medical, approved excused, and statutorily exemptions. Vacations taken during the school year will be coded as unexcused absences.

Learn more about attendance by visiting the GCISD attendance page on gcisd.net.

If you find your child must go home a different way than planned, please notify the office by a phone call by at least 2:00 p.m. Teachers and our front office staff do not always have access to email or are busy teaching or helping others. A phone call is required. Sometimes we have only one person in the front office, so we want to provide ample time to be able to meet your needs.

Students will check out a new book from the library weekly as long as they return their old books. Please help your child remember to put library books back in his/her backpack after reading them at home. This will help ensure that your child gets to check out a new book at the library every time!

Mrs. McNamara - Tuesday  

Ms. Welch - Wednesday

Mrs. Duncan - Thursday

Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for outside play. We go to recess at 11:30 in the morning. Temperatures can still still pretty chilly at that time. Now that the weather is much cooler, please send your child to school with a jacket. Please label your child's sweatshirts and jackets with his/her name. That way we can make sure it is returned to him or her if it gets misplaced. Thanks!

Students will continue to take home the HMH Into Reading myBooks as we finish reading the stories inside of them in class. Your child can keep these books forever at home or recycle them, if you prefer. Your child does not need to finish any of the activities inside the books at home. Your child DOES NOT have to keep these books inside his/her backpack. These books are for your child to keep at home. Thank you!

Nonsense Word Fluency 

Nonsense word fluency measures a student’s ability to decode individual phonemes and then blend them together to read. They’re an indicator of a student’s progress in acquiring early alphabetic principle skills. By using nonsense words, we can find out whether a child knows the most common sound for letters (letter–sound correspondence), and whether a child can blend the sounds to read words he/she has never seen before.

Please be sure your child brings his/her 100% charged iPad AND charger to school every day.  

You can order a yearbook and create an ad/dedication page online at yearbookordercenter.com. 

Our order number for O.C. Taylor is 

17833.

We are offering both softcover and hardcover yearbooks this year!

Last day to order an ad/ dedication page is 

March 15th.

Last day to pre-order a yearbook is 

April 12th.

This year, Literati is extending their online fair until the end of the school year. All purchases made through our school link starting Oct 28-May 22 will credit our school 10% of all sales.

Last week, PTA delivered Thanksgiving pies and gift cards to teachers. We would like to thank you for your on-going generosity and support of all of our first grade classrooms. We are so thankful to have such supportive and actively involved families.