Category Archives: District II – Kathy Blueford-Daniels

HISD Board president discusses district’s M/WBE program at Workshop Wednesday

This month’s Workshop Wednesday featured HISD Board of Education President Rhonda Skillern-Jones speaking on the importance of the district’s minority- and women- owned business enterprises (M/WBE) program.

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000znTOVa6Ch2I” g_name=”20151007-MWBE” width=”600″ f_fullscreen=”t” bgtrans=”t” pho_credit=”iptc” twoup=”f” f_bbar=”t” f_bbarbig=”f” fsvis=”f” f_show_caption=”t” crop=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”t” f_htmllinks=”t” f_l=”t” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_show_slidenum=”t” f_topbar=”f” f_show_watermark=”t” img_title=”casc” linkdest=”c” trans=”xfade” target=”_self” tbs=”5000″ f_link=”t” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”t” f_ap=”t” f_up=”f” height=”400″ btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” ]

Continue reading →

Atherton ES wins music scholarship from gospel association

Students at HISD’s Atherton Elementary School students will soon have more reasons to toot their own horns, after the Gospel Music Heritage Month Foundation (GMHMF) awarded that campus a $750 scholarship to support its fine arts programs.

Dr. Albert Lemons, who serves as Atherton’s principal, accepted the award on behalf of his school on Sept. 14, during the GMHMF’s annual show at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

“I’m very seldom speechless,” said Dr. Lemons. “But this came as a complete surprise. Every year, I work backstage at this event, helping the artists, making sure they have refreshments, and getting other people who don’t belong back there out. This year, nobody was saying anything, but they treated me like a guest and seated me in the front row. I thought, ‘Well, I guess they just want me to rest. And for the first time, I’ll get to see the show.’ But near the end of the last number, they sent someone out to say they needed me, and that’s when Sheila Jackson Lee told me my school was being honored.” Continue reading →

HISD partners with ‘Mi Familia Vota’ to host student voter registration drives

The Houston Independent School District joined Mi Familia Vota and Univision 45 this week at Wheatley High School to kick off district wide student voter registration efforts.

Wheatley is just one of several locations hosting student voter registration drives in conjunction with National Voter Registration Day, which was Tuesday. Seven additional HISD high schools will host similar drives over the next two weeks as they work to register eligible students. Continue reading →

Chess students take on blindfolded grandmaster in group competition

Grandmaster Timur Gareev will be trying to break a world record soon by playing the largest number of simultaneous chess games ever while blindfolded — and 10 students from HISD schools recently helped him prepare for that challenge.

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000qVtbXB5FNZI” g_name=”Timur-Gareev” width=”600″ f_fullscreen=”t” bgtrans=”t” pho_credit=”iptc” twoup=”f” f_bbar=”t” f_bbarbig=”f” fsvis=”f” f_show_caption=”t” crop=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”t” f_htmllinks=”t” f_l=”t” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_show_slidenum=”t” f_topbar=”f” f_show_watermark=”t” img_title=”casc” linkdest=”c” trans=”xfade” target=”_self” tbs=”5000″ f_link=”t” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”t” f_ap=”t” f_up=”f” height=”400″ btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” ]

The Uzbekistan native, who became the youngest grandmaster ever from Asia in 2004 at the age of 16, played 10 of HISD’s top chess players on Sept. 19, and defeated them all (along with three students from a local private school) within the span of a few hours, despite not being able to see any of the chessboards. Continue reading →

Kashmere HS community learns about proposed campus improvements under bond program

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000GOwG_uh4.Hk” g_name=”20150915-Kashmere” width=”600″ f_fullscreen=”t” bgtrans=”t” pho_credit=”iptc” twoup=”f” f_bbar=”t” f_bbarbig=”f” fsvis=”f” f_show_caption=”t” crop=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”t” f_htmllinks=”t” f_l=”t” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_show_slidenum=”t” f_topbar=”f” f_show_watermark=”t” img_title=”casc” linkdest=”c” trans=”xfade” target=”_self” tbs=”5000″ f_link=”t” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”t” f_ap=”t” f_up=”f” height=”400″ btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” ]

More than 125 students, parents and alumni of Kashmere High School turned out Tuesday evening for the first of three bond community meetings that will be held to update stakeholders on plans to renovate the campus. The meeting was held in conjunction with the school’s open house.

Continue reading →

Community meetings scheduled to share design concepts and site plans for 2012 bond schools

The Houston Independent School District has scheduled six community meetings for the month of September to discuss the progress being made within the 2012 bond program, which will renovate or rebuild 40 schools to create 21st century facilities.

Continue reading →

HISD announces partnership with Kennedy Center to expand student access to the arts

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Thursday that the Houston Independent School District together with the City of Houston would serve as the 19th site for their national arts education program.

The Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child program will take existing resources from HISD, local arts organizations, the City of Houston, and the Kennedy Center and combine them to increase arts opportunities and provide high-quality arts education for 7,000 students at 11 schools.

The schools include Atherton, Benbrook, Eliot, Hartsfield, Hines-Caldwell, Kashmere Gardens, Memorial, Mitchell, Scarborough, and Whittier elementary schools, and Hamilton Middle School. Additional schools are expected to be added in the coming years. Continue reading →

Principals thank HISD bus drivers, attendants for their hard work

Before bus drivers and bus attendants set off to transport HISD students to and from school for the first week of classes, HISD Transportation managers and a group of principals showed their gratitude and appreciation for employees during a welcome back program at Key Middle School on Friday.

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000VN3M.wFWt5c” g_name=”20150821-TransportationWelcomeBack” width=”600″ f_fullscreen=”t” bgtrans=”t” pho_credit=”iptc” twoup=”f” f_bbar=”t” f_bbarbig=”f” fsvis=”f” f_show_caption=”t” crop=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”t” f_htmllinks=”t” f_l=”t” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_show_slidenum=”t” f_topbar=”f” f_show_watermark=”t” img_title=”casc” linkdest=”c” trans=”xfade” target=”_self” tbs=”5000″ f_link=”t” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”t” f_ap=”t” f_up=”f” height=”400″ btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” ]

Continue reading →

Leland College Prep caps another banner year in robotics

Leland_YWCPA_robotics400For the fourth year in a row, the robotics club at Mickey Leland College Preparatory Academy for Young Men has turned out dominant teams at district, state, and national competitions. Coming off of last year’s third-place finish in the SECME VEX Robotics nationals, this year, the Knights of Engineering’s high school team won the first annual NSBE VEX National Championship in Anaheim, Calif.

On a joint team with impressive young ladies from the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy, the ninth-graders not only won the tournament championship, but also the Excellence Award. Doing so qualified the joint team to participate in the VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Ky., where they competed against the best robotics teams in the world. This was the second year in a row that the boys have been invited to the World Championship. 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.

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000XKlL4v_37do” g_name=”20150818-Killion-s-Kids” width=”600″ f_fullscreen=”t” bgtrans=”t” pho_credit=”iptc” twoup=”f” f_bbar=”t” f_bbarbig=”f” fsvis=”f” f_show_caption=”t” crop=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”t” f_htmllinks=”t” f_l=”t” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_show_slidenum=”t” f_topbar=”f” f_show_watermark=”t” img_title=”casc” linkdest=”c” trans=”xfade” target=”_self” tbs=”5000″ f_link=”t” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”t” f_ap=”t” f_up=”f” height=”400″ btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” ]

“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 →