A simple lesson on heart-healthy eating recently has inspired one HISD educator to take students’ instruction a step further.
More than 1,300 HISD students at four elementary schools learned how to keep their hearts healthy during American Heart Month, thanks to a series of interactive nutrition activities offered by the district’s Nutrition Services department.
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HISD’s completely revamped career bus is hitting the road.
The district’s Career Readiness Department unveiled the newly remodeled vehicle—known as the Career Ready Wagon—on March 26, when it made its inaugural visit to Atherton Elementary School.
The bus is designed to allow elementary school students in third, fourth, and fifth grades the chance to explore possible career interests before advancing to middle school. It features a robotics station, a flight simulator, and a welding simulator, as well as an electric station that allows students to build their own electrical circuits. Also inside are four touchscreen monitors where students can test their career knowledge with a short quiz and watch a career-related video.
The bus will visit another 10 elementary schools — Anderson, Dávila, Emerson, Field, Garcia, Helms, Jefferson, Mading, Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School, and T.H. Rogers — throughout April and May.
The bus is sponsored by HISD and CenterPoint Energy.
Also see this related story on HISD’s one and only Career Cowboy, Jake Breier, who was the subject of an “I Am HISD” profile last October.
More than a dozen careers were represented by attendees at the second annual Career Day at Foster Elementary recently. Attending the event were engineers, police officers, a sheriff, an attorney, a counselor, insurance agents, dental representatives, and even a snake-handler from Texas Snakes.
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Sometimes a little friendly competition can turn a task one has to do into an activity one wants to do. Such has certainly been the case with HISD’s annual Name That Book competition. It began almost 30 years ago at River Oaks Elementary School, and it became so popular that it eventually expanded districtwide and now serves students in grades K-12.
The basic structure of the contest has remained the same over the years: students are challenged to read 30 or more age-appropriate books from an approved list over a period of several months, then compete on teams to see who can correctly identify the largest number of titles, based on particular quotes read aloud. Teams with the highest number of correct titles are deemed the winners—but the truth is that every child benefits by participating.
“The great thing about Name That Book competitions is that they encourage students to do something we want them to do anyway: read for pleasure,” said HISD Director of Literacy Cindy Puryear. “Not only are they cultivating a life-long love of reading, they’re also building their comprehension and memory skills. After all, just scanning the words to get the gist of a book’s subject will not be enough. They have to understand and remember what they’ve read and figure out which book a line was pulled from based on context. Those are higher-level thinking skills, and they are exactly what we’re aiming to develop with Literacy By 3.”
Name That Book competitions are coordinated by HISD’s Department of Library Services. The 2015 finals have been underway since early March and will conclude on April 10 with the high-school-age contest. Be sure to check out the April 17 edition of eNews for a complete list of winners.
In this week’s edition of I am HISD, which features district students, graduates, employees, and other team members, Harvard Elementary School third-grade teacher (and former District I Board of Education member) Karla Cisneros talks about how she went from the classroom to the boardroom and back again, the greatest gifts of her experience as a trustee, and if she’d ever consider running for that office again.
You represented District I on HISD’s Board of Education for five years in the early aughts, even serving as its president one year. Now you’re teaching third-graders at one of our elementary schools. How did that transition come about?
Karla Cisneros with her students at Harvard ES
Well, I was not a certified teacher before. I was just sort of a mom who got pulled in. They hired me at Travis Elementary to be a part-time science teacher, and one thing just led to another. After I left the board, I was going to work with my husband, but I realized I wanted to be back in education at kind of a grass-roots level, so I went back to school and got certified.
And I really, really, really like being a teacher. The best part of all is the kids, but then, that’s always the best part. I knew when my own children grew up and moved on that I was going to hate being an empty nester, but so much of teaching is not just about teaching. It’s about helping usher children through their lives, not just the curriculum.
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It’s never too early to get students excited about college. Shadowbriar and Mading elementary schools took fourth-grade students on college visits recently. Close to 150 Shadowbriar students, teachers, and staff, as well as some alumni parents, traveled to Texas A&M University (TAMU), and 55 Mading students went to University of Texas at Austin (UT).
Sanchez Elementary has moved to the next level of competition in the 2015 National Center for Urban School Transformation’s (NCUST) National Excellence in Education Award. The school has now been named a Silver level winner for 2015, and is in contention to receive the Gold award later this year.
Among the thousands of urban schools in the nation, Sanchez won the honor by demonstrating exceptional academic results through achievement test scores and other indicators of academic accomplishment for every demographic group. After naming the finalists, NCUST sent executive coaches all over the country to visit schools, meet with principals, and observe lessons before determining the silver and bronze award winners.
Gold Level prize winners will be announced at the 2015 National Excellence in Urban Education Symposium in Dallas on May 21.
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The rescued dogs visiting Condit Elementary School recently were part of an anti-bullying, empathy-based program aimed at teaching students important life lessons. Sponsored by Dogs of Character, these working dogs serve as living examples of courage, perseverance, and loyalty.
More than 150 parents and students attended Grissom Elementary’s STEM night on March 5. Students created a “robo hand” using data and robotic technology, as well as a Styrofoam plate, straws, tape, and string. Students also designed a freestanding structure with building constraints of height and angles.
Dr. John E. Codwell III was in attendance and showed students a foot model and explained how math and science connect in medicine. There was also a floor robot, which students programmed to travel through an obstacle course. Students were able to use iPads and the STEM lab to learn programming using Scratch and Hour of Code software, and parents enjoyed watching a Mad Science demonstration.
Almost two dozen seventh- and eighth-graders from Garden Oaks Montessori are in the process of making history for HISD.
The students are participating in the Midwest Regional Middle School Conference of the Montessori Model United Nations (MMUN) on March 13 and 14 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and according to Principal Lindsey Pollock, this is the very first time a public school has done so.
“This is only our first year to have a Model UN, but the experience is life-changing for students,” said Dr. Pollock. “Our kids will meet people from across the country and they have researched topics that are impacting lives all over the world. It broadens their horizons and helps them recognize our inter-connectedness and our responsibility in making the world a better place.”