Category Archives: District VII – Bridget Wade

63 HISD students named National Merit semifinalists

Sixty-three seniors from six Houston Independent School District high schools qualified as semifinalists this week in the 61st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. HISD had 56 semifinalists last year.

The HISD students are among 16,000 from across the country to earn the semifinalist designation, allowing them the opportunity to continue in the academic competition and vie for more than $32 million in scholarships that will be awarded in the spring.

They attend Bellaire, Carnegie Vanguard, and Lamar high schools, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Eastwood Academy, and the High School for the Performing & Visual Arts. Continue reading →

Students use artistic talents to raise money for blind Chinese orphans

When asked how they spent their summer months, many students answer that they went to the beach or a swimming pool, visited with relatives, or took a vacation.

But one student from Carnegie Vanguard High School was able to write a most unusual “what I did over my summer vacation” essay this fall after she spent a week and a half in June playing the piano to benefit needy Asian children.

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Senior Kerrigan Quenemoen, along with her partner, Kenneth Yu (who graduated this spring from Bellaire High School), were invited to do a series of charity concerts in China to raise money for blind Chinese orphans. 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.

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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 →

Drones taking students on flights of STEM fancy

Rice camp introduces students to careers related to these devices

Drones are making headlines more and more often in the news these days, and about a dozen HISD students have been learning about these high-tech devices — and the careers they’re used in — during a camp held at Rice University.

The sixth- to ninth-grade students, who attend DeBakey High School, HSPVA, Lanier Middle School, Revere Middle School, the T.H. Rogers School, and Valley West Elementary School, spent three days learning how to design, engineer, and pilot drones in mid-August.

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Students headed back to school will see some big changes at bond campuses

Summer break was no vacation for HISD’s bond project team, as schools in the district’s $1.89 billion program made significant headway, with more construction activity in progress than at any other time in the district’s history.

Construction crews work on the new Condit Elementary School, August 19, 2015.

Construction crews work at the site of the new Condit Elementary School.

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South Early College HS, Mandarin Chinese building projects go vertical

The new campuses for South Early College High School and Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School have reached a major milestone in the construction of both buildings as work crews have begun erecting steel columns and beams, taking the projects into the vertical phase of construction.

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Pilgrim Academy K-8 has strong showing at first bond community meeting

A standing-room-only crowd filled the library at Pilgrim Academy for a bond community meeting this week to hear about plans for a new addition to the popular K-8 neighborhood school.

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Preparing today’s high school graduates for the future

HISD recognizes the need to instill in students the skills they will need to be successful after high school, in college, or the workplace, and to compete in today’s global economy. In this month’s edition of Up Close, HISD Board of Education President Rhonda Skillern-Jones discusses the skills and characteristics of the Global Graduate with HISD Secondary Curriculum and Development Officer Annie Wolfe, Davis High School Principal Julissa Alcantar-Martinez, Chief Elementary Curriculum and Development Officer Lance Menster, and Shadydale Elementary School Principal Tammie Daily.

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“HISD engaged industry leaders, educators, university professors, community leaders, parents, and students to determine what knowledge, skills, and dispositions are critically important to have in place when a child graduates from HISD,” explained Menster. “Interestingly, they all focused on the six characteristics that form HISD’s Global Graduate profile.” Continue reading →

Lamar HS named ‘National Debate School of Honor’

Lamar High School has been recognized as a National Debate School of Honor by the National Speech & Debate Association.

The National Speech & Debate Association is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization serving middle school, high school, and collegiate students in the United States, and it presented the award to Lamar during its annual tournament held in Dallas over the summer.

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