Editor’s note: This is the first in a weekly series of articles designed to highlight the work of HISD students, particularly as it relates to developing global graduate skills, connecting learning to careers, or preparing for higher education. In this inaugural feature, we take a look at the communications program at Yates High School, whose students covered the district’s State of the Schools luncheon on March 3 as a part of their project-based assignments.

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More than 150 students currently participate in the communications program at Yates HS, and several of those young people got to attend HISD’s recent State of the Schools luncheon. While there, they applied what they are learning in the classroom to real life, honing their skills in photography, film-making, interviewing, and story-telling.

Junior Kenneth Lee served as a student reporter at the event, where he spoke with Forest Brook MS students directing drones with smart phones, Chávez HS students demonstrating the Heimlich maneuver and performing CPR on child-size dummies, and Washington HS engineering students showing off a 20-foot rocket they built and launched at White Sands Missile Range last year. He also interviewed Director of Elementary Literacy Cindy Puryear, who talked about the district’s Literacy By 3 movement.

“All in all, I had a great time learning about the great things that were happening around the district,” he said of the experience.

Watch a video the Yates HS students created here (also above) or listen to an audio segment they produced here (link below).

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