HISD held its third annual Celebration of Excellence at the Hilton Americas Hotel on May 1, 2014, to honor the many dedicated professionals who contribute to the success of Houston’s students on a daily basis.
Among those recognized at the event were the district’s Elementary and Secondary Teachers of the Year, who were revealed for the first time that evening.
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A building concept with a courtroom and law library in the center of the new High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice set the premise for a site plan for the new school developed by students, staff and community members at a design charrette Wednesday and Thursday.
Shonda Huery Hardman
Shonda Huery Hardman is no stranger to HISD schools. The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts graduate will bring her more than 20 years of experience and knowledge of administration to the role of Chief High School Officer. Huery Hardman, who recently served as assistant superintendent of HISD’s Futures Academy, will oversee 47 campuses with a combined enrollment of about 51,000 students.
Family, friends and fellow law enforcement personnel gathered at HISD police headquarters on Monday to celebrate the promotion of two sergeants and the swearing-in of six new police officers.
The police department held the ceremony to mark the beginning of a law enforcement career with the district. For some of the new officers, this won’t be their first time serving as a police officer and have had prior careers with HPD, Cypress ISD and Spring ISD.
The Atherton Elementary School drumline and cheerleaders are taking their award-winning and upbeat percussion and dance routine on the road for the first time.
Thirty-two fourth- and fifth-grade students in the drumline and cheerleading program headed to Palm Springs, Calif., on Tuesday morning to perform at a national after-school conference called the Best of Out-of-School Time (BOOST) Conference. This is the group’s first time performing out of state, and the students are scheduled to perform Wednesday through Friday at the conference for about 2,000 attendees at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
They’ll be front and center stage at each of their graduation ceremonies in a few weeks, but on Wednesday at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the Galleria area, HISD honored high school valedictorians and salutatorians all together at the annual Scholars Banquet.
Neff Elementary students had a dream that Houston Texans star J.J. Watt would come to their school to read to them, and it came true this week.
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The school had posted photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram of students reading, along with a plea for Watt to come read to them. They created a hashtag, #Neffreads4JJ, and tagged Watt in the posts. “The purpose of the campaign was to show our students that literacy is important not just among what your teachers say or your principal says, but everyone thinks literacy is important,” Principal Manoj Gandhi said.
Berry Elementary School second-graders took out their green plastic knifes and chopped red peppers, cucumbers, cilantro and carrots before tossing the ingredients into a mixing bowl.
“This is fun,” said student Amairanny Macias as she smelled the ingredients for the herb quinoa and bean salad the students were making from ingredients from the school’s vegetable garden. “We’re going to mix the cheese in next.”
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The next eight months of the year will be marked by much progress in the 2012 bond program, including the start of construction on all of the schools in the first group.
“We’re moving very quickly through our design phase,” said Daniel Bankhead, HISD’s general manager of Facilities Design. “This is an exciting time. We’re defining the character of the buildings.”
Last year, a pair of juniors in the EMERGE program at Eastwood Academy had a thought: EMERGE prepares high-performing students from underserved communities to successfully attend and graduate from Ivy League and other top-tier colleges. Maybe EMERGE students could volunteer to help other students study? And with that spark of inspiration, Students With Academic Grit – or SWAG – was born.