Recent graduates from HISD’s Bellaire, Carnegie Vanguard, and DeBakey high schools, along with the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, were named National Merit Scholarship winners in the third and final round of announcements on July 15.
Category Archives: High Schools
District Getting Ready to PowerUp
Boxes and boxes of green wire line the halls of Sam Houston Math, Science & Technology Center, as workers perched on ladders string together cable and carefully tuck it inside the campus’ ceiling tiles. After several weeks of back-breaking work, Sam Houston is ready to power up, literally, as one of the pilot schools in phase 1 of HISD’s PowerUp program, a districtwide initiative that will eventually provide every high school student with a laptop.
Bellaire HS Students Take First Place With Anti-Texting-While-Driving Video
Aman Narayan and George Chuang with Mayor Annise Parker
A group of Bellaire High School students won first place in a video contest about the dangers of texting and driving run by Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s Youth Council.
Eleven videos were submitted to Parker’s “It Can Wait, Houston,” an anti-texting-while-driving campaign. The Houston Police and Fire Departments will use the winning videos, including Bellaire’s, in safety presentations at area schools.
HISD Schools Win First, Second Place in Robotics Competition
EECHS students Christopher Martinez (left), Alexandra Santos (right) and homeschooled-student Nicolas Xiong (center)
Students at two HISD schools brought home first- and second-place trophies in the SECME National Engineering Competition, a robotics event held in Daytona Beach, Fla. Even a security snafu at the airport couldn’t stop East Early College High School (EECHS) students from winning the grand prize.
Alexandra Santos and Christopher Martinez won first place in overall VEX robotics, along with homeschooled student, Nicolas Xiong, who has been on EECHS’s team since 2011. Young Men’s College Preparatory Academy’s seventh-grade students Marcellus Jordan, Steven Jackson, and Daveon Clemons won second place in overall VEX robotics.
North Forest Families Encouraged to Register for Summer School
Classes to be offered at four campuses in the North Forest community
The Houston Independent School District will offer summer school instruction for students in the North Forest community from July 8 through August 1 at the following schools: Shadydale and Hilliard elementary schools, Forest Brook Middle School, and North Forest High School.
HISD is sending notification letters this week to the households of students who should attend summer school. The summer school session is intended for students who need to retake portions of the STAAR exam, students who have not met grade-level promotion standards, high school students who need to retake STAAR end-of-course exams, high school students in need of course credit recovery, certain English language learners, and certain students receiving special education services.
Classes will be held Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Transportation will be provided at eight different locations within the North Forest community. For more information on bus pickup sites, call 713-613-3040.
Deadline to register for summer school is July 11. Parents can visit their neighborhood schools to register for summer school or register online at www.houstonisd.org/nfsummer.
Principals Using Dashboard to Drive Decision Making
Much like a winning race-car driver, a successful school principal needs access to data so that he or she can tune, tweak, and make improvements. In a well-designed car, drivers can find most of the data they need by looking at the dashboard. Now HISD principals have their own dashboard to drive decision making on their campus. It’s called Analytics for Education (A4E).
“Not only is A4E saving our principals time, but it is helping them to be more efficient,” said Betty Garcia from HISD’s Information Technology Department. “Principals can go to their dashboard, grab the information they need quickly, make informed decisions, and then communicate it with their staff as they take the next step.”
Energy Institute High School Still Accepting Applications
At least 80 people applied for entry into one of Houston ISD’s newest high schools, the Energy Institute High School, on Wednesday afternoon at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center.
The Energy Institute High School will capitalize on Houston’s renowned energy industry, representing the fields of geoscience, alternative energy, and offshore technology. Corporate partnerships at the full magnet school will help provide a strong foundation in chemistry, engineering, science and mathematics. Students will be encouraged to see how professionals operate and are provided with numerous real-world experiences which provide an edge for future college coursework.
Dozens of Class of 2013 Grads Also Earned Associate’s Degrees
North Early College High School graduates and Principal Angela Lundy-Jackson
Many members of the Class of 2013 earned more than their high school diplomas this year—nearly 200 of them also earned associate’s degrees from Houston Community College.
Challenge Early College, East Early College, Empowerment College Preparatory Academy, Houston Academy for International Studies, and North Houston Early College high schools all offer students the opportunity to take college courses along with high school courses. This year, a total of 179 students from all of those campuses combined left high school with a two-year college degree.
Lovett ES Teacher Traveling to Iceland to Study Volcanic Effects on People, Earth
Rhonda Goldmann of Lovett Elementary does the "Division Dance" with her students as part of her summer school math instruction.
Those traveling in Europe a little more than three years ago may have bad memories of an Icelandic volcano causing them to be stuck in airports waiting for volcanic ash to clear the skies, but Lovett Elementary School science teacher Rhonda Goldmann has some hope for a repeat performance later this summer.
Goldmann will travel to Iceland to observe active volcanoes in the hopes of learning more about their positive and negative effects to bring back new lessons for students.
EMERGE Students Return from Tour of Top Colleges
Eighty high schools students from six different HISD campuses have just returned from a jam-packed trip that included visits to seven Ivy League and Tier I colleges in only six days. The tour was coordinated through HISD’s EMERGE program, which helps low-income, first-generation minority students get into top-notch colleges.
As part of the trip, students toured the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Brown, Columbia, and Yale. During several of the visits, the high school students were able to take part in panel discussions with first-generation college students, getting insight on what it’s like to leave home and family to pursue a higher education.