October 30, 2026

Principal Newsletter

Hello Spicewood Community!

What a fun week at Spicewood! Thank you for helping make Red Ribbon Week such a success. It was wonderful to see our students and staff joining in on the dress-up days and showing off their creativity and school spirit. We loved seeing everyone participate and bring so much fun to our week! The storybook characters were so fun and I saw some new books I need to read!

Mrs. Schroeder will begin her maternity leave next week, and we are excited to welcome back Kelley Hirt as our substitute administrator during her absence! Mrs. Hirt is already familiar with our Spicewood community, having spent six weeks with us last year while I was on medical leave. As a retired Round Rock ISD principal, she brings a wealth of experience and is ready to support our campus wherever needed. We will certainly miss Mrs. Schroeder while she is away, and we look forward to welcoming her back in February!

Wishing all of our Panther families a wonderful and safe weekend! If your family ends up with a little more Halloween candy than you know what to do with, we would be happy to accept donations in the front office to help refill our candy bowls. Thank you for always supporting our school and helping us keep a little sweetness on hand for the adults in the building!

Remember to turn your clocks back Saturday night!

Sincerely,

Melanie Solis

Principal

Spicewood Elementary

Upcoming Important Dates:

11/5- Panther Power Run 

11/6- Staff Holiday Potluck

11/7- Community Garden Day

11/10- 4th Grade Veteran's Day Performance 8:00am and 2:00pm

11/11- Spirit Night at Honest Mary's

11/18-11/20- 5th Grade Outdoor School Trip

11/23-11/27 No School Staff/Students for Fall Break

12/1- Fall Picture Retakes

12/9- Spicewood Choir Showcase

12/17- Winter Class Parties/Last Day of Fall Semester for Students

12/18- 1/4- Winter Break/Student and Staff Holiday

Please visit our weekly IB Newsletter and learn more about our IB character trait of the month! There are wonderful resources for the family to enjoy so please take a look!

Click here to view the newsletter!

Panther Community Garden Day: Let's Grow Something Beautiful Together!

Join us Saturday, November 7th, from 8 AM–12 PM at Spicewood Garden! 

Families can help tend to our garden and participate in a special community project by painting a brick that will become part of our garden walkway. Let's work together to make our garden a beautiful space for everyone to enjoy! See flyer for more details.

Can't make it? No problem! You can still support our garden by checking out our Amazon Wishlist and donating supplies to help our garden grow. 

Be sure to RSVP to help us prepare for your family. We can't wait to grow together!

Here is the link to RSVP by November 2nd.

Last week Bookspring visited First Grade to share about their organization. We are taking action by hosting a book drive to support their mission of getting books into the hands of every child in Texas. Next week, there will be boxes in the front of school for you to place your donations.

We are taking donations through November 6th.

Thank you for helping our students take action for a great cause!

We are looking for interested students to represent Spicewood at the UIL Academic Meet on January 30th, 2027. There are available events for students in grades 2nd-5th. If your child is interested in participating, they must commit to 6 practices and be available if chosen to compete at the meet on January 30th. Practice days are as follows: 

Mondays- Creative Writing and Number Sense

Tuesdays- Chess Puzzles

Wednesdays- Spelling

Thursdays- Ready Writing, Oral Reading, Music Memory, and Storytelling

Students must be picked up promptly at 4:00pm.

Students may join up to 2 events as long as they are not in conflicting practice days or time slots at the meet. The google form has the event schedule so please make sure you do not sign up for 2 overlapping events.

If your child would like to participate, please fill out this google form by our deadline of November 4, 2026. The form will close at 3:00pm on this date. This is a hard deadline so our coaches can prepare information for teams to begin practice.

Before signing up, it is important that your child is interested in the selected event and will be a willing participant!

We would like to recognize and honor Veteran's in the Spicewood Community.  If you or a family member served in the military, naval, air, or space service and would like to participate, we would love to showcase you!

Our plan is to collect some basic information and a picture to prepare a slideshow to be shown throughout the campus in November.

Please fill out this Google Form to have your information as part of our presentation. Please fill out the form by November 6th to participate.

Thank you for celebrating Dyslexia Awareness Month with us! We hope you’ve learned something new and gained a deeper understanding of dyslexia. 

We look forward to seeing you at our Panther Power Run on November 5th as we continue to celebrate, support, and empower our dyslexic learners! 

The Westwood High School Finance Club invites students to a fun and engaging workshop on the fundamentals of financial literacy. The session will cover practical, everyday concepts like saving, budgeting, and making thoughtful financial decisions.

Date: November 8th

Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Location: Spicewood Springs Public Library

Let’s show our amazing teachers and staff some love! We’re hosting our annual Holiday Potluck on Friday, November 6th and need our wonderful families’ help with food donations. 

Please drop off donations by 10:00 AM. Disposable containers and food that’s already heated and ready to serve are appreciated. Please clearly label any items that need to be returned. 

Please use our SignUp Genius to track contributions of needed items. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4FADAF2FABFEC61-66818001-holiday

Here is a great reason to not cook dinner!  

Join us for our upcoming Spirit Night and support our school while enjoying a delicious meal!

Date: Wednesday, November 11th

Time: 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Location: Honest Mary’s

Be sure to mention Spicewood at checkout, and Honest Mary’s will donate 25% of all sales directly back to our school. Thank you for your support!

2026-2027 THEME: WHAT MY CULTURE MEANS TO ME

The Spicewood PTA creative contest, REFLECTIONS is a program in which your child comes up with an original creation to express this year’s theme: WHAT MY CULTURE MEANS TO ME Your child can choose among several categories (and he or she can enter more than one):

Literature (story, poem, screenplay, essay, etc.)

Visual arts (drawing, painting, making a collage, etc.)

Photography (a single photo, panoramic, photomontage, etc.)

Film production (animation, documentary, narrative, etc.)

Dance choreography (ballet, hip hop, tap, etc.)

Musical composition (country, jazz, pop, rock, etc.)

The RRISD PTA has made this year a LOT simpler.  We are now doing a VIRTUAL School level entry form.  Here is the link:

Spicewood Virtual Entry Form

This virtual form can collect LINKS to student artwork files (e.g., a link for a file stored on a Google Drive), but students CANNOT directly upload the files.

Also - make sure the files in Google drive must be set to "Allow anyone with link to view." 

We cannot access RRISD Student Google Drives. *  [This is stated on the form, just wanted you to be very aware as well.]

Please keep all your original artwork. Original works of art may be requested for judging.

Submit virtual entries from Oct. 5 – Oct. 30. The deadline is Friday, October 30, 2026. Forms and Rules may be found at http://www.txpta.org/reflections-participation.