Yearly Archives: 2015

Reliant gets HISD students off to a great start

Students at the Bellfort Early Childhood Center not only met their teachers this week, they also received school supply packs from Reliant, an NRG company. Reliant employees distributed 400 back-to-school supply packs during the school’s Pre-K Open House on Aug. 18.

“It’s really great that Reliant is making this donation to our Bellfort family, because it helps to ease the financial burden of our parents a little,” said Bellfort Early Childhood Center Principal Cheryl Lewis. “It shows our parents that the community members care about their child’s education.”

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Reliant is helping students from 39 HISD schools get off to a great start for the 2015–2016 school year, with a $16,780 donation that will provide 4,000 K–12 students with the supplies they need for the first day of classes. In addition to early childhood centers and K–8 schools, some high schools will also receive supplies. The kits are grade-specific and include items such as notebooks, pencils, pens, folders, crayons, and erasers. Continue reading →

HISD kicks off 2015-2016 school year with emphasis on producing global graduates

The Houston Independent School District will begin the 2015-2016 academic year on Monday with the opening of the nation’s first public Arabic language immersion school, significantly expanded dual language opportunities and a continued shift to digital learning.

The Arabic Immersion Magnet School (AIMS) is among 283 HISD campuses that will throw open their doors on Monday and welcome back nearly 215,000 students from across the district. Bus drivers will begin transporting nearly 34,000 students to and from school, and cafeteria workers will begin cooking the 288,000 meals that they serve each day. Continue reading →

Getting athletics facilities ready for fall is a team effort

Crews are hard at work on the new Delmar Fieldhouse.

Crews are hard at work on the new Delmar Fieldhouse.

With the fall sports season fast approaching, here’s what you need to know about how HISD athletics facilities are being prepared:

The team at Delmar Stadium has been hard at work in the pre-season to get the facility in shape for fall football. Over the summer, the synthetic turf on the football field was replaced, much of the facility received new paint, and restrooms were renovated – including the installation of air conditioning and new stalls – making the stadium ready to host plenty of Friday night lights action this fall. Continue reading →

Reading program kept elementary teacher in former students’ hearts

Dr. Lorraine Killion had the same group of students from the third through fifth grades at Wesley Elementary School some 35 years ago. They were a pilot group for what was known then as DISTAR, a system for teaching reading and math (DISTAR reading has since been expanded and rebranded by SRA/McGraw-Hill as Reading Master). Dr. Killion and her students became so close during those three years that the students never forgot her.

When one of the alumnus’s sons discovered that Dr. Killion was still teaching, the former students used Facebook to get in touch and organize a reunion. Nearly the entire class gathered at a Houston restaurant recently to honor Dr. Killion, whom they hadn’t seen since the fifth grade.

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“They surprised me, and I cried like a baby,” Dr. Killion said. “I hadn’t heard from them for 30 years! I thought I was having lunch with a couple of students, and nearly all of them were there.” Continue reading →

Students headed back to school will see some big changes at bond campuses

Summer break was no vacation for HISD’s bond project team, as schools in the district’s $1.89 billion program made significant headway, with more construction activity in progress than at any other time in the district’s history.

Construction crews work on the new Condit Elementary School, August 19, 2015.

Construction crews work at the site of the new Condit Elementary School.

Continue reading →

Think you might need to visit HISD’s headquarters? Check this list first!

Hundreds of parents come to the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (HMWESC; 4400 W. 18th St., 77092) each fall in the weeks leading up to the start of school, but many discover they didn’t really need to.

While some tasks must be performed in person at HISD’s headquarters, others can be accomplished at the campus level or even from home via the Internet.

If you are a parent trying to complete a form, request a copy of records, or accomplish any number of other start-of-year tasks, check out our list below first, and you could save yourself a trip or hours wasted in line. Continue reading →

New principal takes faculty on the road to learn more about community

Sometimes, the best way to understand someone is to learn more about their origins.

That’s why new principal Susan Monaghan took her faculty members on a one-hour tour of the neighborhood surrounding Westbury High School on Aug. 10 to give them a glimpse of the community in which many of their students grew up. Continue reading →

Customer survey: 85% of HISD parents, students, staff satisfied with their school

More than 131,000 participants provide feedback on schools, district

Eighty-five percent of Houston Independent School District students, parents, teachers and administrators continue to be satisfied with their school, according to the district’s annual customer satisfactory survey.

The overall satisfaction rating — which equates to a B- for the district, as a whole — is up two percentage points from 2013, which is when the HISD Your Voice survey was first launched. Results have been consistent or increasing across all measures since then.

Continue reading →