Monthly Archives: July 2014

Baylor Summer Science Institute giving educators new ways to teach old lessons

All are designed to get elementary and middle school students excited about science and STEM careers

The classroom at Herod Elementary School didn’t have any ring stands available, but that didn’t stop the seventh-grade science teachers in it from completing their experiment on heat and energy at the Baylor Summer Science Institute.

The two-week event, which concludes on July 25, focuses on giving elementary and middle school teachers creative ways to deliver lessons on familiar subjects. And participants displayed that same spirit of ingenuity this year in assembling an acceptable substitute for that basic piece of lab equipment—made from a wet cork, some tin foil, and a coat hanger.

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New Chief High School Officer

This fall Harrison A. Peters will rely on his more than 15 years of experience as a teacher, principal, and administrator as he leads HISD’s High School Office. As chief high schools officer, Peters will oversee 51 campuses with a combined enrollment of nearly 50,000 students. He and a team of school support officers and principals will focus on increasing student outcomes, expanding academic rigor and connecting students to experiences that support their career and college goals. Continue reading →

Camp helps boost high school students’ literacy skills

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About 160 rising freshman and sophomores are spending two weeks of their summer participating in a Houston ISD camp at Challenge Early College High School designed to boost their reading and writing abilities.

“The purpose of the camp is to provide the students with literacy strategies that they can take back with them to their schools and to get them excited and engaged with the acts of reading and writing,” said Erica Harris of Carnegie Vanguard High School, the program’s curriculum writer and lead teacher.

The students take four classes a day at the camp, each themed around the young adult book Divergent by Veronica Roth. Each class focuses on a different area of literary development.
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Mark White ES community hears about green design plans for new school

The new Mark White Elementary School, formally referred to as Relief Elementary, held its second community meeting on Tuesday to discuss project details of the upcoming campus.

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‘Green-minded’ students earn money while giving back to nature

Performing manual labor outdoors in July is probably not the way most Houstonians would choose to spend their time, but for some HISD students, there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

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Meet HISD’s new Literacy Director, Cindy Puryear

On June 9, Cindy Puryear became HISD’s new director of literacy. We sat down with her recently to talk about how she overcame her own reading difficulties as a young person, when she first knew she would be a teacher, and what her goals are for the first year of Literacy By 3. Following is a condensed transcript of that conversation.

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