Eighty high schools students from six different HISD campuses have just returned from a jam-packed trip that included visits to seven Ivy League and Tier I colleges in only six days. The tour was coordinated through HISD’s EMERGE program, which helps low-income, first-generation minority students get into top-notch colleges.
As part of the trip, students toured the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Brown, Columbia, and Yale. During several of the visits, the high school students were able to take part in panel discussions with first-generation college students, getting insight on what it’s like to leave home and family to pursue a higher education.
Whether it applied to building solid relationships between Team HISD members or making the most of tools from the Digital Age, “connection” was the common thread that tied many of the break-out sessions together on the final day of HISD’s 2013 
Two recent graduates are spending their summer living out their dream and a high school principal talks about how the unconventional hours at his campus leads recent immigrants to success. Those are just two stories featured in this week’s edition of Community eNews.
Students at HISD’s Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy didn’t want much—just an outdoor space on the grounds of their 88-year-old campus to take an occasional break from their studies.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a monthly series of profiles on minority or women-owned companies that do business with HISD. The district’s minimum M/WBE goal levels are 20 percent for all levels of purchasing and construction and 25 percent for professional services. In the 2007 bond program, that commitment reached nearly 34 percent. In the 2012 program, the contracts awarded to date reflect a nearly 51 percent M/WBE commitment.