Category Archives: High Schools

Scholars Banquet recognizes 90-plus high school seniors at top of their class

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The Houston Independent School District paid tribute to the top students from each high school’s graduating class during the annual Scholars Banquet on April 7.

In addition to their outstanding academic achievements, these 96 valedictorians and salutatorians have garnered more than $2 million year-to-date in scholarship and financial aid offers.

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Chávez HS proves afterschool programming still attractive to older kids

Chávez freshman Edwin Alas lifts weight after school.

Chávez freshman Edwin Alas lifts weight after school.

At 4 p.m. in the hallways of Chávez High School, chatter and laughter exceeds the typical end-of-school day buzz as a new community comes alive. Afterschool is on.

Youth who would normally hit the streets are weightlifting in the field house. A business venture takes shape as the afterschool smoothie shop showcases new recipes. Savvy girls with profit margins in mind construct homemade, designer valentine cards to satisfy schoolyard crushes. A running club is canvassing the community to organize a neighborhood fun run.

At a time when out-of-school time funding is being cut throughout the state and nation, this southeast Houston high school is finding funding for its afterschool ventures. The latest comes from a $550,000, homegrown initiative from the City of Houston City Council called City Connections. Chávez received $15,000 from the initiative organized and promoted by the Center for Afterschool and Expanded Learning for Kids (CASE for Kids), a division of the Harris County Department of Education.

“It’s a misnomer to think that high school students won’t become involved in afterschool,” said Lisa Thompson-Caruthers, director of CASE for Kids. “If afterschool activities are meaningful, teens will readily participate.”

“It keeps me out of a lot of trouble,” said Chávez HS senior Jair Woods, between barbell crunches. “Plus, I’m not sitting home being lazy like a normal teenager. I’m doing something productive with my life.”

CASE for Kids, formerly the Cooperative for After-School Enrichment, was launched by Harris County Department of Education in 1999.

Westside HS students win Cooking Up Change competition for second time

CookingUpChangeThree students representing Westside High School’s Culinary Arts Program won grand champion for the second year in a row at the Cooking Up Change Culinary Competition held on March 28.

Jalien Noel, Jose Acosta, and Briseida Salas wowed judges with a Cajun chicken with black bean hoppin’ John, Texas cabbage and greens, and pineapple turnover. Their winning meal will be featured on next school year’s high school lunch menu. The team will also travel to Washington, D.C. in June to represent Texas in the national Cooking Up Change competition against more than ten teams from across the nation.

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HISD Board of Education to accept $8.5 million in grants for college readiness programs

The Houston Independent School District Board of Education will vote Thursday to formally accept $8.5 million in grants for programs designed to help high school students get into and graduate from college.

The Houston Endowment awarded the district with two separate grants — $5.5 million and $3 million — in February. The $5.5 million grant will be used to expand the district’s successful EMERGE program to all high schools, while the $3 million matching grant will be used to deploy 28 new college success advisors to campuses across the district. Continue reading →

Students produce April Fools’ Day issue of school newspaper

Traveler 1

Click on the image to enlarge.

“President Obama visits Lee High School and awards teacher ‘Hipster of the Year’” reads the headline on the first page of “The Traveler,” Lee High School’s student newspaper.

Also on page one is a story about Principal Jonathon Trinh paying cash to students for good grades. In fact, the first six pages of the monthly publication are filled with hilarious stories that reflect the cleverness of the staff reporters in producing an April Fools’ Day issue. Continue reading →

Name That Book contests make developing literacy skills fun

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.

HISD juniors awarded grant to visit Great Britain this summer

Four HISD students will travel free to Great Britain this summer, thanks to the British Foundation of Texas’s (BAFTX) Junior Achievers award. The students will travel for nearly two weeks learning about British culture.

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Student Congress elects new leaders for coming school year

StudCong_Cabinet2015_440x230Carnegie Vanguard High School student Zaakir Tameez will soon be handing over his gavel to a new leader. The graduating senior, who cofounded HISD’s new Student Congress last year, will be yielding his position as speaker of the congress to Amy Fan, a junior at Bellaire High School, after graduation this spring.

An election for new Student Congress cabinet members took place on March 28 at the Gregory Lincoln Education Center, and the new officers will assume their duties as of May 28.

“It’s been my effort from day one to create something that would last well beyond me,” said Tameez. “Today was a giant step in that direction.”

Below is a list of the new leaders-elect (pictured, L-R, above):

  • Demetron Dotson, advocacy chair, Austin HS, Class of 2017
  • Jacob Castillo, finance chair, Austin HS, Class of 2016
  • Kate Ham, chief of staff, HSPVA, Class of 2016
  • Amy Fan, speaker of the congress, Bellaire HS, Class of 2016
  • Anusha De, initiative chair, Bellaire HS, Class of 2017
  • Jessica DeBoe, outreach chair, HSPVA, Class of 2017
  • Michael Talanker, governance chair, Carnegie Vanguard HS, Class of 2016

“Our election is a testament to our motto: student-run, student-led,” said new Speaker of the Congress Amy Fan. “Now that we have a strong base of members and the foundation is set, we’re ready to accomplish even more. I’m really looking forward to next year.”

 

Four students win national recognition for their writing talent

Four students from HISD schools have been recognized at the national level this spring through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Bellaire High School’s Liana Wang and Carnegie Vanguard High School’s Victoria Songyang won Gold Key Awards, while Bellaire High’s Christina Tan and Gabriel CyPacht from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts won Silver Key Awards.

Only 39 students in Harris County earned awards at the national level of this competition, which is sponsored regionally by the Harris County Department of Education. To see a full list of winners, please click here.

The Gold Key winners will be honored at a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City in June.

Yates HS communications students begin massive video archiving project

Students in the magnet communications program at Yates High School recently launched a massive archiving project that will one day result in the digitization of more than 30 years of video footage.

Phase one entails the ingestion of hundreds of video tapes from the Yates magnet program dating back to 1980, containing footage of the school and its history, events, faculty, and students.

The ultimate goal of the project is to produce a digital archive on Blu-Ray discs that can be displayed at the school’s new facility and will be ready in time for the 40th anniversary of the School of Communications in 2018.

Yates’ new chapter of the Student Television Network is using the latest in digital content acquisition technology to ingest the legacy analog video into an updated iMac system. Students involved are acquiring skills that can be used in the media archiving industry, film and television non-linear video editing, and metadata management, which is an introduction to meta-tagging and understanding aggregate data for social media careers.