September 30, 2015 – Bellaire High School senior Antony Yun has officially earned bragging rights after receiving a perfect score on both the SAT and the ACT college entrance exams.
Antony Yun
Yun was among four Houston Independent School District students from two schools to earn perfect scores on the SAT during the 2014-2015 school year. Three seniors from DeBakey High School for Health Professions —Anushka Madhuvarshi, Sasha Raman, and Gary Zhang — also earned the highest possible score on the SAT. Continue reading →
North Houston Early College High School on Tuesday received its first-ever 2015 National Blue Ribbon Schools Award from U.S Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The school was among just 335 schools nationwide and 25 public schools in Texas to receive the honor.
The National Blue Ribbon Schools Award honors public and private elementary, middle, and high schools where students either achieve very high learning standards or are making notable improvements in closing the achievement gap, especially among disadvantaged and minority students. Continue reading →
A big part of getting secondary students excited about the idea of reading for pleasure is finding the right incentives.
That’s why East Early College High School’s (EECHS) librarian and principal invited popular young adult author Rosemary Clement-Moore to be the keynote speaker at the campus’ second annual Literacy Day celebration on Sept. 25. It’s also why they awarded a free autographed copy of the author’s latest novel to senior Alejandra Guerra, the student who read the most books over the summer.
“A lot of our students come from neighborhood schools that don’t have budgets to invite authors to come speak, so this is a new experience for many of them, particularly the freshmen,” said EECHS librarian Cynthia Ramos. “Events like this build enthusiasm among students for wanting to read, as opposed to being required to read. Hopefully, that will lead them to texts they wouldn’t normally have chosen. This is only our second author visit, but last year, students told me they really enjoyed the talk.”
Personalizing instruction will be a key aspect of the support provided to secondary students this fall through HISD’s Literacy By 3 movement.
“We want to meet students where they are,” said Mechiel Rozas, the district’s director of secondary literacy, “so a big part of the proposal we’ll be making to the superintendent and Board of Education will deal with continuing the personalized aspect of the curriculum as students move into middle school, because that’s what they have come to expect. We want there to be multiple ways to engage with the content, so we can meet the needs of all students.”
It’s almost that time of year – the time when you have to decide which school you’d like your child to attend next year. There are several steps involved in choosing an appropriate school for your child.
The first thing you should do is identify a handful of schools that meet your child’s interests. If your child has a love for fine arts, we have several schools at all levels. If science, technology, engineering, and math spark your child’s interests, a STEM school might be a great fit.
Next, map out a plan to tour all the schools on your list. Be sure to swing by your neighborhood school to see what it offers, too. All of our schools are offering toursevery Thursday between Oct. 8 and Dec. 3 (except on Thanksgiving). Click here for details about tours. Continue reading →
The Houston Independent School District joined Mi Familia Vota and Univision 45 this week at Wheatley High School to kick off district wide student voter registration efforts.
Wheatley is just one of several locations hosting student voter registration drives in conjunction with National Voter Registration Day, which was Tuesday. Seven additional HISD high schools will host similar drives over the next two weeks as they work to register eligible students. Continue reading →
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.
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 →
Two days this week will be different from a normal school day.
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015, is an early dismissal day for most schools. Campuses may choose to opt-out and hold classes all day, so please check with your school directly to see if it is participating. View the full 2015–2016 academic calendar here.
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, is the district’s fall holiday for students and most employees. Check your duty schedule available here to see if you must report to work. Those employees who must report to work will work their normal hours, unless a supervisor has approved their request to use personal time.
HISD’s ground-breaking EMERGE program is expanding to all high school campuses this year, and motivated members of the Class of 2018 (currently sophomores) are encouraged to apply.
EMERGE connects high-performing students from underserved backgrounds with the resources needed to apply, attend, and graduate from the nation’s top-tier colleges and universities, which provide high levels of support as well as competitive financial aid and scholarships. Students who are selected to be in EMERGE receive after-school advising at their schools on the college preparation and financial aid application processes, a full-length SAT preparation course, and an out-of-state summer experience at a top-tier university. Continue reading →
High school is one of only four to be highlighted nationwide
HISD’s Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center was honored this week with a visit from Univision and a rally to encourage Latino students to strive for greatness in education. Two students were also recognized during the event, which was made possible by a partnership among Univision, getschooled.com, and #QuieroAprender (#IWantToLearn).
“Those organizations have been focusing on four schools across the nation,” said Sam Houston Principal Rupak Gandhi about #QuieroAprender, “… and how they have turned their campuses around in the past couple of years in terms of improving academic performance and really changing the lives of their students. Sam Houston was chosen as one of the schools, based on our growth in those areas.”
In 2015, Sam Houston met state accountability standards for the first time in two years, and was removed from the “Improvement Required” list. It was also recognized for academic distinction in social studies. The school offers its students eight different certification or licensure programs. Last year’s valedictorian is currently attending Columbia, while the salutatorian is attending Rice University.
The education rally included a student discussion about the importance of education, interviews, and a spoken-word poetry contest entitled “What is the value of education to you?” Two students hand-picked by the principal for their achievements led the onstage discussion along with Satcha Pretto, co-anchor of the morning show Despierta America. One of those students – senior José Piñeda – was chosen by #QuieroAprender for an in-depth interview that will be featured in an upcoming documentary.
“It was a great opportunity to highlight the good of the school.” said Piñeda, who is on the student council and part of a mariachi band. “There are many Hispanic students here who want to make progress and move forward.” Piñeda is in the top five percent of his graduating class and plans to study mechanical engineering at the University of Texas.
“To me, #QuieroAprender is a phenomenal organization, because it really puts the power of education in the student’s hands,” said Gandhi, “and that’s what matters most.”
The victory was particularly gratifying to Scarborough Coach Keith Alex, who is only in his first year as coach of the Spartans. “We are just delighted to get that monkey off our back,” he said. “It’s giving the kids such a huge momentum boost. We’re really excited.” Continue reading →
