Veterans' Hill Elementary School

PLAN AHEAD, HIPPO FAMILIES - EVERY DAY MATTERS!

At Veterans’ Hill Elementary, every school day is another opportunity for our Explorers to LEARN, GROW, LEAD, and REACH NEW HEIGHTS

As we begin the school year, we want to help families stay informed about attendance expectations and plan ahead whenever possible.

📅 Save our school break dates when planning family trips and vacations.
📝 Know which absences may be excused and remember to submit parent or doctor notes within the required timeframe.
🎯 Make attendance a priority - being present helps students stay connected to their learning, their teachers, and their classmates.

We know illnesses and unexpected circumstances happen. Our goal is to partner with our families so that when students are healthy and able to be at school,

Be present. Be prepared. Be powerful.
Together, we’re Exploring New Heights!

Our Hippos Are Feeling The Love!

A huge THANK YOU to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for donating backpacks filled with school supplies to our Veterans’ Hill Elementary students! ✏️📚

Acts of kindness like this make a meaningful difference for our students and remind us how fortunate we are to be surrounded by such a caring community. We are so grateful for your support of our little Hippos! 🦛🧡

🦛🌿 Welcome to VHE! 🌿🦛

We’re excited to welcome some of our newest staff members to Veterans’ Hill Elementary! Our Safari Explorers are ready for an amazing year of learning, growing, and making a difference together. 🐾💙

Welcome to the Hippo family!

🧡 Leadership Is About Growing Leaders 🧡

Today, my heart is full.

Leadership isn’t about being the person who leads everyone. It’s about growing leaders around you. It’s about trusting people, empowering them, and watching them step into moments with confidence, heart, and purpose.

And yesterday, I got to watch my admin team do exactly that.

They led with heart. They led with passion. They anticipated needs, solved problems, supported our teachers, welcomed our families, loved on our kids, and stepped in wherever they were needed. There were so many moments today when I could simply look around and think, They’ve got it.

That feeling as a principal is hard to put into words.

I am incredibly grateful for each member of this team and for the unique gifts they bring to Veterans’ Hill. Leadership can be heavy, but there is something special about knowing you don’t carry it alone. We challenge one another, grow alongside one another, laugh together, work hard together, and most importantly, we share the same heart for this campus.

Yesterday was another reminder that the strength of VHE isn’t found in one person. It’s found in people who are willing to lead from wherever they are. 🧡

A huge shoutout to our Director of Safety, Chris Contreras, for spending time with us yesterday and conducting our annual safety training. Keeping our Hippos safe will always be one of our greatest responsibilities, and we are grateful for the partnership and preparation.

A very special thank you to Hutto ISD Board President Felix Chavez for spending part of his afternoon with us. Your presence, encouragement, and continued support of our students, staff, families, and VHE community mean so much to us. There is something powerful about leaders who don’t just support schools from afar, but show up, connect with families, and celebrate alongside us. We are grateful for you! 🧡

Thank you to Ally for providing lunch and making sure our teachers were fed and taken care of before a busy evening of Meet the Teacher. That act of kindness meant more than you know!

And, of course, thank you to our incredible VHE PTA for ALWAYS showing up, supporting our staff, loving our school, and helping make days like today possible. We are so fortunate to have you in our corner.

Tonight, I’m just grateful.

Grateful for a team that leads with heart.
Grateful for leaders who show up.
Grateful for a community that takes care of its people.
Grateful for a campus full of leaders.
And grateful that I get to do this work alongside them.

The best leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.

And I was incredibly proud to watch ours lead. 🧡🦛

Signed your Proud Principal, Vanessa Urrutia

There is something special about a teacher showing up at a child’s front door.

After spending the entire day learning, planning, and preparing for an incredible school year, our Veterans’ Hill Elementary teachers didn’t head home. Instead, they hit the road with smiles, excitement, and a special treat in hand to personally welcome the students who will soon fill our classrooms.

These Welcome Walks are about so much more than delivering a gift. They are about building trust, creating connections, and letting every child know, before the first day of school, “You belong here. We are excited for you. We can’t wait to learn with you.”

Strong schools are built on strong relationships, and today our staff showed exactly what that means. They chose to invest their time, energy, and hearts into our families because we know meaningful learning begins with meaningful connections.

As we continue Growing Leaders and Exploring New Heights, we are reminded that every great journey starts with taking the first step together.

To our incredible teachers and staff, thank you for being All In for the Win and for making every family feel seen, valued, and welcomed. The best year yet starts with moments just like these.

🧡🦛

Sometimes the biggest wins happen behind the scenes, and this week was one of those moments.

On Friday, we received unexpected news that construction had cut the internet cables serving Veterans' Hill Elementary. With teachers returning on Monday, there was no time to waste.

What many people don't know is that an incredible team immediately sprang into action, working tirelessly to make sure our campus was ready to welcome our staff without missing a beat.

A very special thank you to Dr. Barton, Hutto ISD Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Keith Reynolds, Hutto ISD Director of Technology, and Christopher Contreras, Hutto ISD Director of Safety for your leadership, urgency, and unwavering commitment to our students and staff. Your dedication ensured that our teachers could walk into a campus that was ready for learning from day one.

We are also incredibly grateful to every member of our Hutto ISD Operations, Safety and Technology teams who worked behind the scenes to make this happen. Your long hours, problem-solving, and teamwork did not go unnoticed.

A heartfelt thank you as well to Gus Almquist Middle School for immediately offering to pivot and welcome our Veterans' Hill team if we had needed to relocate on August 3. Knowing we had a campus family ready to open their doors at a moment's notice speaks volumes about the culture of collaboration across Hutto ISD.

It truly takes a village to support a school, and this experience was a powerful reminder that we are stronger together. Thank you to everyone who stepped up, solved problems, offered support, and did whatever it took to ensure our teachers could begin the year focused on what matters most - our students.

From all of us at Veterans' Hill Elementary, thank you for showing what it means to be

We are incredibly grateful for each and every one of you! 🧡🦛

🎉 Meet the Teacher is Almost Here! 🎉

We can't wait to welcome our Hippo families back to Veterans' Hill Elementary this Friday, August 7, from 5:30–7:00 PM for one of our favorite events of the year!

This is a special opportunity to:
📚 Meet your child's teacher
🎒 Drop off school supplies
📸 Snap those first-day-of-school photos
💜 Reconnect with familiar faces and welcome new families to our VHE community
🌟 Begin building relationships that will make this an incredible school year

As we kick off our Growing Leaders, Exploring New Heights journey, we hope you'll take time to connect with one another and help us create a strong, welcoming community for every student.

Important First Day Reminder:
For the first day of school, only Pre-K and Kindergarten parents will be permitted to walk their child to their classroom.

To help us provide a smooth and secure arrival, Pre-K and Kindergarten families should pre-register for a visitor badge before arriving using this link:
https://command.verkada.com/checkin.html?org_id=f4cf0ae0-cf0c-4cf3-b3b3-7508266b3a99&token=92ca1de1-1b7f-443d-b5aa-03f8ba9969c5&shard=prod1

We are counting down the days until we fill our halls with smiling faces again. See you Friday, Hippo families! 🧡🦛

Today was made even more special because of the incredible support from our Veterans’ Hill Elementary PTA ! 🧡

A heartfelt THANK YOU to our amazing PTA for treating our staff to a wonderful first day back. From coordinating a delicious donated breakfast to providing lunch for our entire team, you made our staff feel welcomed, appreciated, and cared for.

Your generosity reminds us that Veterans’ Hill is more than a school - it’s a community that shows up for one another. We are so grateful for the time, effort, and heart you pour into supporting our staff and students.

Thank you for helping us kick off the school year in such a meaningful way. We can’t wait to partner with you to make this our best year yet!

✨ The adventure has officially begun at Veterans’ Hill Elementary! 🧡

Today, we welcomed our incredible staff back for the start of a brand-new school year, and what an amazing day it was!

Together, we reflected on our individual purpose—our “why”—and the impact we want to have on every child who walks through our doors. Our grade-level teams collaborated to create collective commitments that will guide how we support one another, and as an entire campus, we came together to envision where we want Veterans’ Hill to be by the end of this school year. Most importantly, we made commitments to each other and to our students about how we’ll get there.

There is something truly special about seeing familiar faces reunite, welcoming new team members into the Hippo family, and feeling the excitement that fills the building with possibility.

A huge thank you to B’s Baked Goods for creating the most adorable personalized cookies for our staff! 🍪 Your thoughtful gift made our first day back even sweeter and helped us celebrate the start of what we know will be an incredible year. We are so grateful for your support of our Veterans’ Hill family!

This isn’t just the start of another school year—it’s the beginning of a journey filled with growth, leadership, collaboration, and endless opportunities for our students to thrive.

We cannot wait to welcome our Hippos back next week. Here’s to the best year yet as we continue Growing Leaders and Exploring New Heights! 🦛⛰️🧡