February is full of free events to help HISD families
Navigating the college application process and finding financial aid to pay for higher education can be somewhat daunting for both students and parents, but HISD and various community partners are here to help throughout the entire month of February.
Mark your calendars, and check below for a list of FREE fairs, expos, and events that are open to middle- and high-school parents.
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Rhonda Skillern-Jones was elected the HISD Board of Education’s new president for 2015, and outgoing president Juliet Stipeche used her farewell episode of HISD’s Up Close program to give viewers an introduction to the board’s new leader. Continue reading
HISD representatives accept good sportsmanship awards on behalf of Austin, Davis, North Forest, Sterling, and Yates high schools at the Touchdown Club’s annual luncheon Jan. 28.
Austin, Davis, North Forest, Sterling, and Yates high schools were all named finalists for the Touchdown Club Houston’s annual Sportsmanship Awards.
Nominees are determined based on referees’ scores after every game in the areas of:
Now, EMERGE scholar can just wait and let the acceptance letters roll in
Some people thought Olaide Sode was crazy when they found out she was planning to apply to almost two dozen different colleges and universities this year.
But the Carnegie Vanguard High School senior persevered, and she wrapped up the last of the 23 batches of paperwork this week. Now, she is basking in the glow of her accomplishment—and waiting for the acceptance letters to start rolling in.
Bellaire HS grads Yuqing “Mike” Xiong, left, and Jinchen Zou
Two Bellaire HS graduates just learned that they made perfect scores on last May’s Advanced Placement (AP) macroeconomics exam. Yuqing “Mike” Xiong and Jinchen Zou graduated from Bellaire last spring and took the exam to earn college credit and be eligible for higher-level courses as university freshmen after completing Michael Clark’s economics course.
Jinchen and Yuqing’s are two of only 51 students worldwide to have made a perfect score on the exam in 2014, which was taken by 117,209 students last year. Jinchen now attends Yale University and Yuqing is going to the University of Texas.
It’s been more than 40 years since Annie McReynolds first taught kindergarten in HISD’s Durham Elementary School, but the retired educator has been back in the classroom since 2014—and this time, it’s as a volunteer.
McReynolds, who celebrated her 80th birthday on Jan. 22, now serves as a reading mentor at the school she helped launch. She was one of the original faculty members when the campus opened back in 1968, and a photo of her registering a student on the first day of class that year (pictured) still hangs in the front office.
“I was only there about four years, because I had two more babies,” explained McReynolds, who later taught at private schools. “But my heart is in school teaching, and I’m still very healthy and active. If I don’t go to the mirror, I don’t know I’m 80.”
McReynolds said she offered to help out at Durham because “I could see what individual attention did for children.”
Volunteers are still needed, so if you’d like to be a mentor, please visit the Read Houston Read website.
Renovations at Waltrip High School are changing the look of the campus as glass installation recently got underway, which will replace aging windows and orange metal panels which date back to 1959 when the school was first built.
A worker installs windows at Waltrip High School.
The change will give the campus a modern feel and be a welcomed by many stakeholders who have expressed a strong desire to see the orange panels go.
Houston Attorney Michael Harris paid for more than 700 students from Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy and Mickey Leland College Preparatory Academy for Young Men to see the movie “Selma” on Jan. 28, so that they could learn more about the civil rights movement.
“Lots of people have invested in me over the years,” said Harris, “and I hope this movie encouraged these young people to be productive, proactive citizens in society, much like the men and women they saw portrayed on screen. These students come from the same type of circumstance that I do, and I would like them to understand that their environment does not have to determine the outcome of their lives.”
Event to serve dual-purpose: performance experience for students and constructive criticism for all
HISD’s Dance Educators Organization (DEO) will be hosting its very first dance montage festival on Saturday, Jan. 31, and the public is invited to watch.
The event will take place at 5 p.m. in the Holmes Performance Hall at Lamar High School (3325 Westheimer, 77098), and students from more than 25 different dance programs will be performing.
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CITGO Petroleum Corp. and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) gave away 30 Kindle Fire tablets to students at six Houston-area schools in the second year of “Kindling Young Minds,” a project designed to boost attendance. Two HISD schools – Inspired for Excellence Academy and Harper Alternative School – are part of the program. The HISD schools were selected to participate in the project because of their at-risk population and low attendance rate. Continue reading