Category Archives: Middle Schools

Lanier MS wins big at national debate tournament

Lanier Middle School’s speech and debate team traveled to Kansas City with big dreams, and they came back to Houston with a big win.

Forty members of the 130-member team competed in the National Speech and Debate Association’s Middle School Tournament last week, debating everything from NATO’s relationship with the Ukraine to how the National Security Agency obtains information. The team earned the Overall School of Excellence Award. Out of about 100 schools that competed, only three earned this achievement. Continue reading →

Burbank MS student named national finalist in ‘Do the Write Thing Challenge’

Fatima Menendez

Burbank Middle School student Fatima Menendez has her own ideas about what violence means.

“It’s everything from being impatient in morning traffic, [to] talking back to your elders, and not knowing how to simply apologize,” she says in an essay she submitted to the Do the Write Thing Challenge essay contest.

But the eighth-grader understands the importance of resisting the urge to lash out physically. “Violence is…like poison, it dominates and destroys,” she writes. “We are the United States of America, [and] we need to live up to that name. Stereotypes keep us from flipping the page and seeing past the cover and into the content. We need to looking past stereotypes and really…understand each other.” Continue reading →

Ortíz MS campus leader named regional Principal of the Year by TASSP

(Houston Independent School District)

Noelia Longoria

Noelia Longoria, who is one of HISD’s Principals of the Year for 2014, is now one step closer to being recognized at the state level for her exemplary campus leadership, after recently being named the Region 4 Principal of the Year by the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals (TASSP).

Longoria, who has led Ortíz Middle School since 2009, is a veteran educator with more than 30 years’ of experience. She serves as the lead principal for two other campuses, and her school was one of those selected to showcase the district’s best practices during the Broad Prize selection committee’s site visit in 2012. Continue reading →

HISD librarians code for literacy at ‘hackathon’

HISD librarians are participating in a new twist on the usual computer codefest this Saturday, from 12-7 p.m. when they take part in a “literacy hackathon” at the Houston Public Library.

At least six librarians, representing Lovett ES, Colter ES, Bonner ES, Scroggins ES, Johnston Middle School and the Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion School, have signed up to participate in Literacy Hack – a free, collaborative event where designers, writers, educators, software developers and other citizens work together on projects to help the literacy community. The event is sponsored by the Houston Center for Literacy.
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12 schools compete in All-Earth EcoBot Challenge

A dozen Houston ISD schools took part on the All-Earth EcoBot Challenge at Reliant Center last weekend, which allowed students in grades 5-8 to show off their engineering skills.

Teams of four students designed, built, and programmed autonomous robots. The teams then used their robots to complete a series of missions that connect to the commercial and industrial future of energy exploration, transportation, technological innovation, medical research, and environmental sustainability.

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Madison HS Teacher Named KBR Science Teacher of the Year

Madison High School’s Vladimir Gonzalez Lopez (right) was named the 2014 KBR Science Teacher of the Year. With him is last year’s second place winner, Samuel Saenz.

Vladimir G. Lopez, a physics teacher at Madison High School, isn’t interested in spoon-feeding his students their lessons.

“Science is a process,” he said, “And you can’t expect anybody to give you the answers. Students have to do the experiments and try new things, because that’s what they’re going to need when they’re doing real science.”

It’s precisely that commitment to cultivating students’ own investigative skills that has made Lopez the first-place winner in KBR’s fifth annual science awards program. The contest was created in 2009 to recognize new and effective models of instruction that emphasize the scientific method and critical thinking skills.

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Ready, set, Name That Book!

From “Go, Dog, Go” for pre-K and kindergartners to “Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick” for 12th-graders, the reading lists for the 2014-2015 Name That Book competition are online — just in time for leisurely summer reading.

There’s an added incentive to tackle the lists now: Books read from the Name That Book selections will count toward HISD students’ summer reading program goals, and if they’re checked out from a local public library, toward the library’s summer reading program levels.

The Name That Book competition is sponsored each spring by HISD’s Department of Library Services. It’s a program designed to familiarize students with classic literature as well as contemporary, award-winning books across a variety of genres. Teams of students are asked questions about books in their reading level that will test their comprehension of characters and plotlines.

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Moving forward: Everything you should know about HISD promotion standards

It’s that time of year when parents and students may be concerned about whether they have met requirements to advance to the next grade, and HISD is making promotion standards – as well as a series of frequently asked questions – easily accessible to find answers.

In addition to appearing here, the standards can be located on each school website, in the Student Requirements section of this www.houstonisd.org website, and on the Plan Your Path web section that addresses overall education planning and requirements for graduation. The FAQs are available in the Student Requirements section and on the Plan Your Path area, by clicking the Questions bar.

Here are HISD promotion standards:

Grade Level Promotion Standards
1 and 2
  • Students must pass High Frequency Word Test – Recognizing and reading words that appear very often in written and spoken language.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and local requirement of an average of 70 or above in reading, other language arts, mathematics, and science or social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
3, 4 and 5
  • Students must pass STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) in reading and math.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and local requirement of an average of 70 or above in reading, other language arts, mathematics, and science or social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
6, 7 and 8
  • Students must pass STAAR in reading and math.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and a local requirement of an average of 70 or above in three of the four core courses: Language arts (average of reading and English), mathematics, science, and social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
9 – 12
  • Students are promoted based on their total accumulated course credits prior to the beginning of the next school year.
  • Individual course credit is earned through a passing grade of 70% or above and sufficient attendance*

*Sufficient attendance: A student’s total number of unexcused absences cannot exceed 10% of class meetings.

Wharton K-8 Dual Language Academy wins award for academic excellence in Spanish

Wharton K-8 Dual Language Academy has won the Embassy of Spain’s elementary award for Academic Excellence in Spanish.

“I am extraordinarily proud of the work that our faculty and staff have put into creating our outstanding dual language school,” Wharton Principal Jennifer Day said.

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Does your child need to go to summer school? Apply by May 19

If your child needs to attend a summer school program, be sure to apply soon – the deadline is May 19. You may download the application online, but it must be turned in to the main office at your child’s school.

Summer school programs are coordinated at the district level, planned at the campus level, and customized to meet the needs of students.  Because each participating campus plans the programs, schools have the flexibility to set the dates and times for classes. Please check with your campus directly for its schedule. No classes will be held on Friday, July 4.

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