Category Archives: District III – Daniela Hernandez

Academic Parent Teacher Teams (APTT) set the stage for student success

This year, in nearly 200 classrooms at nine HISD elementary schools, parents are experiencing a new kind of parent-teacher conference that gives them the tools both to expand their children’s learning and to monitor their progress.

Schools in their second or third years of implementing the Academy Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) program are continuing to perfect and expand the new model of meetings to empower parents to help their children learn outside of school.

Eliot, Gallegos, Kennedy, Mitchell, Piney Point, Shadowbriar, and Tijerina elementary schools, as well as Fonwood Early Childhood Center and the Wharton Dual Language Academy, all recently completed their first round of fall APTT meetings.

The model replaces traditional parent-teacher conferences with three 75-minute group meetings involving all parents in the class, and one 30-minute individual session with the student, teacher, and parents. During group meetings, teachers share student performance data and expectations for the class, review skills, and model hands-on activities parents can do at home to help their children master skills. Parents practice the activities at home with their kids over a 60-day period until their next meeting, when they can again review the data and see how their child has progressed. Continue reading →

Deady MS receives $5K grant from House of Blues to strengthen music programs

More students at HISD’s Deady Middle School will soon be able to benefit from music instruction, thanks to a $5,000 grant from the House of Blues’ Music Forward Foundation.

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The grant was delivered to the school on Oct. 14 in the form of instruments and other music resources as a part of the organization’s 2015–2016 Action for the Arts program.

“Participation in music programs helps youth develop transferable life skills such as diligence, focus, and critical thinking,” said Music Forward Executive Director Marjorie Gilberg. “Action for the Arts ensures thousands more young people will benefit from learning and playing music.” Continue reading →

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.

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Sixty Edison MS students receive laptops from Comp-U-Dopt

Sixty Edison Middle School students are proud owners of computers, thanks to a generous donation by Comp-U-Dopt.

Ninety-six percent of the school’s students are considered economically disadvantaged, so a computer isn’t something their families could easily afford to buy. Comp-U-Dopt, a nonprofit that provides laptops to underserved children in grades 3–8, gave refurbished laptops to students who completed an essay application to show a need for a working computer. 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.

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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 →

Students at four schools create upbeat school murals

Thanks to the Moran Norris Foundation and artist Fernando Romero, dozens of HISD elementary students had a chance to create new murals at their schools in early September.

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Wearing face masks, the students learned how to apply spray paint under the direction of Romero, a former graffiti artist from New York City, and Moran Norris, a retired NFL player who enjoys giving back to his community. Moran and his wife Tamara established their foundation to help students succeed.

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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 →

Reliant gets HISD students off to a great start

Students at the Bellfort Early Childhood Center not only met their teachers this week, they also received school supply packs from Reliant, an NRG company. Reliant employees distributed 400 back-to-school supply packs during the school’s Pre-K Open House on Aug. 18.

“It’s really great that Reliant is making this donation to our Bellfort family, because it helps to ease the financial burden of our parents a little,” said Bellfort Early Childhood Center Principal Cheryl Lewis. “It shows our parents that the community members care about their child’s education.”

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Reliant is helping students from 39 HISD schools get off to a great start for the 2015–2016 school year, with a $16,780 donation that will provide 4,000 K–12 students with the supplies they need for the first day of classes. In addition to early childhood centers and K–8 schools, some high schools will also receive supplies. The kits are grade-specific and include items such as notebooks, pencils, pens, folders, crayons, and erasers. Continue reading →

Nirmol Lin selected as principal of Park Place Elementary

Nirmol Lim has been appointed as principal of Park Place Elementary. Most recently, Ms. Lim was serving as dean of instruction at Hartman Middle School, and has been a part of the Hartman team for the last three years. Prior to this, she served as a math teacher development specialist, collaborating with K-5 teachers throughout the district to strengthen their math practices. Ms. Lim began her teaching career in 2003 at Seguin Elementary as a fifth-grade teacher and was identified as an ASPIRE Highly Effective Teacher for two consecutive years.

Ms. Lim earned her bachelor of science in Psychology from University of Houston and her master’s in Educational Administration from Sam Houston State University.  She is currently completing her doctorate of education in Public School Administration from Texas A & M University.

STEM fields come to life for ELL, migrant students at Rice

Twenty-eight students in HISD’s English Language Learner and migrant programs spent two weeks of their summer participating in hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities at the STEM Leadership and Design Fabrication Academy at Rice University.

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The students, who attend Austin, Chávez, Davis, Furr, Kashmere, Liberty, Lee, Sam Houston, Sharpstown, and Waltrip high schools, got a taste of what careers in a STEM-related field could be like. Continue reading →