Category Archives: High Schools

Westbury HS band surprises Michael Strahan at Hall of Fame parade

Westbury High School’s band and dance team traveled to Canton, Ohio, last weekend to celebrate former student and athlete Michael Strahan’s induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and they had a special surprise for him.

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Strahan played for Westbury for one year, and attended and played at Texas Southern University before his 15-year career with the New York Giants. The last game he played was Super Bowl XLII, which the Giants won.

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Washington HS students take lift-off dreams to New Mexico for seventh straight year

After eight months of construction, five Booker T. Washington High School engineering students finally had a chance to try to launch the high-powered hybrid rocket they nicknamed The Golden Eagle Four. The students traveled to the White Sands Missile Range last week in New Mexico to launch the rocket, hoping to see it reach a height of 100,000 feet.

“Seeing our rocket on the launch pad was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen,” said Washington senior Michael Ortiz. “We worked so hard to get to that point. We started with calculations on paper to drawing a rocket to actually seeing the rocket on the launch pad.”

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New Middle College High School trains corps of leaders

When the new Middle College High School-Gulfton campus starts classes Aug. 25, it will already have a trained group of student leaders.

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About 40 seniors from the school learned confidence- and team-building skills last week at a five-day summer leadership camp held at Talento Bilingue de Houston. Continue reading →

HISD schools claim spots on TEA Title I Reward Schools List

12 schools earn recognition for both high performance and progress

The Texas Education Agency has recognized several HISD schools for high performance and high progress for the 2013-2014 school year. Seventeen HISD schools were included on the agency’s list of Title I High Performing Schools and 17 schools were named as High Progress schools.

“The students and staff of the schools included on this list are focused on implementing innovative programs to affect student outcomes in a positive way,” said HISD Superintendent Terry Grier. “Their successes are models that can be used by all schools across the district to ensure that each of our students are not only receiving good grades and scoring well on tests, but are exposed to an academically rigorous education that creates learning leaders.”

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Camp helps boost high school students’ literacy skills

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About 160 rising freshman and sophomores are spending two weeks of their summer participating in a Houston ISD camp at Challenge Early College High School designed to boost their reading and writing abilities.

“The purpose of the camp is to provide the students with literacy strategies that they can take back with them to their schools and to get them excited and engaged with the acts of reading and writing,” said Erica Harris of Carnegie Vanguard High School, the program’s curriculum writer and lead teacher.

The students take four classes a day at the camp, each themed around the young adult book Divergent by Veronica Roth. Each class focuses on a different area of literary development.
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‘Green-minded’ students earn money while giving back to nature

Performing manual labor outdoors in July is probably not the way most Houstonians would choose to spend their time, but for some HISD students, there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

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Sam Houston MSTC students win coveted slots at Latino Law Leaders Camp

SHMSTC seniors Giovanni Figueroa and Emily Duarte pose with counselor Ana Zamarippa and debate coach Ken Ogden. (Houston Independent School District)

SHMSTC seniors Giovanni Figueroa and Emily Duarte pose with counselor Ana Zamarippa and debate coach Ken Ogden.

Emily Duarte and Giovanni Figueroa, rising seniors and debate team members at the Sam Houston Math, Science & Technology Center, were two of just 40 students nationwide to be selected to participate in the National Hispanic Bar Foundation’s Future Latino Law Leaders Camp.

The students will work with Latino politicians, government officials, and lawyers during the eight-day workshop, which takes place at American University in Washington D.C., July 12–20.

Emily and Giovanni received full scholarships to attend the camp, and their airfare was generously underwritten by the Hispanic Bar Association of Houston, Sugar Hill Recording Studio, and Zenobia Harris, director of the Houston Urban Debate League.

25 HISD students get taste of hospitality industry

David Robinson with students from Davis, Jordan and Worthing high schools (Houston Independent School District)Twenty-five students from HISD three high schools spent their part of their summer getting a sneak peak into what their future may look like, and will continue with a one-year internship.

The students, who attend Davis, Jordan and Worthing high schools, were selected to participate in the Admiral Hospitality Scholars, an internship program which was founded by former San Antonio Spurs star David Robinson. Continue reading →

PowerUp teachers get tips for implementing laptop use in instruction

Teachers and administrators from 21 high schools that are joining the PowerUp laptop initiative in the 2014-2015 school year have spent a chunk of their summer getting ideas as to how to best implement the program in their classrooms.

Eleven schools were part of the pilot program last year. They received help from the Mooresville Graded School District, which experienced great success in a similar program, and officials from Mooresville returned to Houston to help the second batch of schools.

“The PowerUp initiative puts technology in the hands of the kids and allows students to be reached in ways that we’ve never been able to do before,” said Scott Smith of Mooresville GSD. Continue reading →