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“It’s so important that our students today have more than the basic education,” HISD Interim Superintendent Ken Huewitt told attendees at the fourth annual Houston East End Chamber of Commerce Education Symposium: Building an Effective Workforce. “They are entering a global market, and that means they must be bilingual and bi-literate.”

As breakfast keynote speaker, Huewitt began by highlighting industry partnerships between HISD schools and East End businesses, including the Energy Institute and BP; Chavez High School and NASA; Austin High School and maritime businesses; and the Rusk School and Baylor College of Medicine.

“These industry partnerships allow HISD students to get exposure to real-world careers through their day-to-day education,” Huewitt said.

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Held on Wednesday, April 27, at the Federal Reserve Bank, the symposium’s goal was to build a bridge between industry and education in order to ensure that tomorrow’s workforce will be able to meet the demands of businesses in Houston’s East End.

“The symposium is a way for industry, educators, and community leaders to come together to help create pipelines that will get our kids from high school to college to jobs,” East End Chamber Of Commerce President Frances C. Dyess said.

Huewitt also addressed how HISD’s looming $107 million budget shortfall will affect the East End, saying, “It is important that innovative programs that directly impact our students continue to flourish. I am working with our Board of Education to ensure that HISD schools with the highest concentration of students living in poverty get an equitable share of the district’s funds.”

The interim superintendent also addressed the need for full-day Pre-K; the importance of literacy; the expansion of HISD dual-language campuses; and the great strides HISD has made in getting students accepted to colleges with the scholarships to pay for it.

“We are proud of Teach Forward Houston, our ground-breaking partnership with the University of Houston to help recruit and train the next generation of teachers right here in our own community,” Huewitt said. “We are promising our seniors that HISD will pay for their undergraduate tuition in exchange for four years of service in an underserved HISD school.”

Huewitt cited the fact that more than half of the first cohort of Teach Forward Houston fellows are Hispanic, as well as the growing number of Hispanic teachers and administrators in HISD.

Huewitt also mentioned that the HISD bond program is providing funds to rebuild or remodel schools in the East End, including Milby High School, Eastwood Academy, and Austin High School.

Other HISD leaders at the symposium included Assistant Superintendent of Career Readiness Mike Love, Milby High School Principal Roy de la Garza, Austin High School Principal Steve Guerrero, and Assistant Superintendent of Linked Learning Kregg Cuellar. Texas State Senator Sylvia Garcia and City of Houston Director of Education Juliet Stipeche were also in attendance.