Do you know a high-school junior or teacher who demonstrates outstanding performance in the area of science or math?
If so, consider nominating him or her for one of the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Excellence in Science awards. Winners will receive a $2,000 cash prize.
The deadline to submit nominations is Friday, April 26. For complete details, please visit the HMNS website.
Last spring drug-free workplace training session April 30
HISD will be conducting three “drug-free workplace” training sessions this spring for central office administrators, principals, principal designees, and managers. This training teaches personnel how to recognize impaired employees in the work place and how to call for a reasonable suspicion drug/alcohol test.
For dates and details, please see this related article.
Mobile mammograms available through July 29
The Rose, a non-profit organization dedicated to the reduction of breast-cancer-related deaths, is offering on-site screening mammograms at three different locations to women who meet certain criteria.
For complete details, please see this related article.
HISD is already known for “growing its own leaders” in terms of campus management. But the district is also cultivating the next crop of leaders in its Food Services department, through its Team Lead Academy.
Ten Food Services attendants recently completed this three-week career-development course, and now they stand ready to step into leadership roles as cafeteria managers or team leaders.
Senior Administrator of HISD Food Services Brian Giles commended the ten graduates for their hard work and desire to learn over the last three weeks. “You all are here because of your persistence in accomplishing your goal of going to the next level,” he said.
Candidates for the Team Lead Academy are selected by their operations managers and directors. Topics covered during the course include: compliance awareness; leadership and supervisory skills; production records, inventory and grocery ordering procedures; and marketing, presentation, and culinary skills.
The Open Transfer Period for teachers concludes this year on Friday, April 19, 2013, so if you are a teacher with plans to make a move to another campus this fall, be sure to get your paperwork in order before the deadline.
Remember: your current principal must sign off on the transfer as an acknowledgement that you are leaving your current campus.
For complete details, please see this related memo.
HISD will be hosting it third annual School Choice Fair on Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m. until noon at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (4400 W. 18th St., 77092), and all parents who still haven’t decided where to send their children this fall are encouraged to attend. Representatives from dozens of schools will be on hand to provide details about their programs, including a number of magnet campuses that still have space available.
Here are some other dates you may want to mark on your calendar:
- April 1–30: Distracted Driving Awareness Month
- April 19: Open Transfer Period ends
- April 25: Dining Out for Life
- April 27 (.pdf): School Choice Fair
- April 28: March of Dimes March for Babies
- April 30: Reasonable suspicion training
- May 1–31: Asthma Awareness Month
- May 5: Lemonade Day
- May 6–12: School Nurse Appreciation Week
- May 6–10: Teacher Appreciation Week
- May 9:Board meeting
- May 15: Recipe for Success Garden Haiku contest deadline
- May 18: Young Inventors’ Showcase entry deadline
- May 27: Memorial Day
- June 1: Hurricane season begins
- June 6: Last day of school (students)
- June 7–11 (.pdf): Graduation ceremonies
UPDATE 04/24/13: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that all HISD work locations are eligible to obtain the free recycling bins.
Just over a year ago, HISD’s Sustainability and Energy team launched the Green School Challenge. This program is a friendly school competition designed to promote long-term behavioral changes, create awareness, reduce energy consumption and water usage, and increase single-stream recycling.
The Green School Challenge encourages every school to build its own “Green Team” comprised of students, staff, and administrators and to develop a program that is specific to the characteristics of each school. Since the program began, HISD has recycled more than 2,200 tons of waste.
HISD’s Sustainability and Energy team wants your school (or facility) to get involved. Through a grant provided by the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, your campus or work location can order recycling bins at no cost to your school or department. To learn more about how this works, please email Kim Urban at KURBAN@houstonisd.org.
Why recycle?
Recycling conserves natural resources, saves energy in the manufacturing of new products and reduces or eliminates pollution associated with the extraction and processing of raw materials. Recycling reduces the need for landfills. Recycling decreases greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global climate change. Further, recyclables have value as raw material.
Throughout the last two school years, the district rolled out a variety of energy saving initiatives. Since the start of 2011, HISD has saved over $2 million in energy costs by installing more energy efficient equipment, switching to four-day work weeks during the summer and implementing holiday energy saving initiatives.
In addition, HISD is committed to saving energy and resources through curriculum links, building new facilities to LEED Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards and by investing in energy efficient retrofit products that save both money and energy. To date, more than a dozen of HISD’s new schools have achieved LEED certification with more to come as there are several additional applications being reviewed for certification at this time.
Sgt. Aloysius Cook
Sergeant Aloysius Cook has been keeping the halls of HISD schools safe for the past two decades. The Wheatley High School graduate (Class of 1975) started out as a campus officer at Sam Houston High School (now the Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center) and officially marked his 20th anniversary with the district on April 19.
“It’s a rewarding job,” said Sgt. Cook, who was named the HISD Police Department’s Supervisor of the Year in 2012. “(As a field training officer), you get to see the end results of your interactions with fellow officers, and how they use what you’ve taught them.”
Still, says Sgt. Cook, “I enjoyed my interactions with kids the most. The kids we’ve given breaks to sometimes come back and thank you, saying, ‘You changed my life that day,’ or ‘You helped me turn my life around.’ It’s almost enough to make you cry.”
Many other HISD employees are also marking milestones this week (April 14–20)—see if you know anyone on this list:
25 years
- Jackie Anderson, teacher, Ortiz MS
- Tina Nguyen, teacher, Edison MS
- Herbert Reese, plant operator, Elrod ES
20 years
- Johnny Fisher, officer, Police Department
- Barbara Jones, teacher, Hines-Caldwell ES
- Dianna Littlejohn, teacher, Furr High School
- Carol Randolph, teacher, King ECC
- Josephine Turner, teaching assistant, Valley West ES
- Carolyn Williams, teacher, Garden Villas ES
- Vicki Wilson, teacher, Herrera ES
- Gloria Yepez, student information representative, Benavidez ES
15 years
- Timothy Allen, mailroom attendant, Administrative Services
- Emma Arredondo, custodian, Henry MS
- Alison Heath, manager, Elementary Curriculum
- Kathy Murphy, attendant, Transportation Services
- Nicshelle Sims, bus driver, Transportation Services
- Pamela Williams, attendant, Food Services
10 years
- Susan Morris, teacher, Garden Oaks ES
- Maria Noriega, plant operator, Lewis ES
5 years
- Fatmeh Abu Saif, associate teacher
- Percy Brooks, crossing guard
- Thomas Burke, associate teacher
- Horacio Cantu Jr, teacher, De Zavala ES
- Thomasenia Chagois, associate teacher
- Suzanne Chamberlain, evaluation specialist, Child Study
- Jeffery Drummer, teacher, Reynolds ES
- Eugene Edwards, associate teacher
- Shecelle Ellisor, teacher, Lyons ES
- Marta Galdamez De Leon, custodian, Bellaire HS
- Shahnah Holt, teacher, Sugar Grove Academy
- Brian Ingram, associate teacher
- Pablo Jaramillo, bus driver, Transportation Services
- Nancy Longman, associate teachers
- Richard Marin, plant operator, Mistral ECC
- Roderick Newman Jr, associate teacher
- Teresa Parvin Azar, teaching assistant, Daily ES
- Bob Ramirez, officer, Police Department
- Sheung Wong, teacher, Emerson ES
| Check back next Friday for more April Milestones. Leave a comment below if you’d like to congratulate any of the above employees. |
Rachel Larson and her fifth-grade class
This week’s Shout-Out goes to Bush Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Rachel Larson from Think Through Math Instructional Coach Karen Tillett.
Larson’s “Butera” class was one of the state’s “Evening Weekend Classroom Winners” in Think Through Math’s Red River Rumble (.pdf), an online math competition between students in Oklahoma and the Lone Star State, which Texas eventually won.
“I think you have a special group of kids that has worked so hard, ranking the top class in the state with the number of hours they worked in TTM on their own time,” wrote Tillett. “What an honor!”
Shout-Outs this week also go out to:
- Dale Thomas, a teacher at Barbara Jordan High School—“She has been the math department chair for a number of years and she is a valuable asset to the school. Ms. Thomas has always had her door open for coworkers if they needed any help. She has worked at Jordan for 28 years and is retiring this year.” —Manuel Batrez, math teacher
- Deloris Living, an equipment technician at Barnett Stadium—“Ms. Living is an outstanding employee. She is always working every event. I cannot do without her. She is always there to lend a helping hand.—Christine Villarreal, Athletics Department secretary
- The McReynolds Middle School Math Department—“(I appreciate) their commitment, perseverance, and patience throughout this school year. Through difficult situations and rocky times, they have worked collaboratively to do what is best for our students. I have no doubt that all of their hard work will pay off big for our students.” —Angela Sugarek, McReynolds MS assistant principal
| Know someone who deserves a shout-out? Send an email to info@houstonisd.org with the subject line “Shout Out for eNews!” and tell us why. |
“Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
Emily Makhlouf, left, and Runa Ghosh, both teachers at Walnut Bend Elementary School, use creative ways to teach TEKS.
Walnut Bend Elementary School teacher Emily Makhlouf read those familiar lines to her second-grade students recently, and couldn’t help but tear up at the point in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web when the beloved spider dies. One of her students asked: “Why are your eyes watering?”
Before Makhlouf could answer, another student said: “Because it is very sad – she was a really good spider.”
These are the types of conversations and heartfelt observations teachers across HISD are facilitating through the use of reader-response journals. The second-grade team at Walnut Bend decided to incorporate the journal as every student studied Charlotte’s Web. Responses are displayed in the hallways, showing a range of questions and responses.
Teachers across HISD are using the HISD Curriculum to creatively link classroom activites to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, which are the state standards for what students should know.
Makhlouf used a creative approach and authentic literature – rather than a practice sheet – to teach a TEKS-based lesson without once mentioning the STAAR test. Her lesson focused on developing her students’ inferencing ability (vital for STAAR) and tied the reading standard to a writing standard—allowing one standard to reinforce the other.
Do you have a Breakthrough? Please share it in the comments section below, or email info@houstonisd.org.
The years have been adding up since Seyed Razavi first joined Team HISD back in the 1980s, and as of April 11, the Austin High School math teacher could count 25 years of service to the district.
Razavi, who also taught in his native Iran for 13 years, came here to finish his education after fleeing the country during the revolution in the 1970s. He has served his entire tenure at Austin High School.
“I served as a substitute teacher at a number of campuses across the district before I got my certification,” he explained. “But when I came to Austin, I just liked it. Austin has very good kids.”
Now, Razavi provides instruction in algebra I, algebra II, and geometry and cites his promotion to chairman of the math department in the 1990s as one of the highlights of his career.
Many other HISD employees are also marking milestones this week (April 7–13)—see if you know anyone on this list:
20 years
- Debbie Mottu, Attendant, Food Services
15 years
- Edgar Pacheco, teacher, Grissom ES
- Roberto Velazquez, plant operator, Jefferson ES
10 years
- Sabiha Akbar, associate teacher
- Stephanie Goodwin, teacher, Pleasantville ES
- Evelyn Phillips, crossing guard, Lyons ES
5 years
- Alejandra Acevedo, graduation coach, Scarborough HS
- Rigo Kitmanyen, police officer, Madison HS
- Kathleen Moreland, teacher, Washington HS
- Imelda Romero, custodian, Young ES
- Michael Young, grounds worker, Construction & Facility Services
| Check back next Friday for more April Milestones. Leave a comment below if you’d like to congratulate any of the above employees. |
