Category Archives: Parents

‘Week of the Young Child’ addresses the needs of our littlest learners

 

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The week of April 10-16 is the Week of the Young Child, an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to put a public spotlight on the needs of young children and address those needs through early childhood programs and services.

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Construction on Davis HS campus to begin this summer

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Work on the bond project to rebuild Davis High School is slated to begin this summer when construction gets underway on a parking lot off Tackaberry Street.

That new lot is part of an expansion plan for the Near Northside campus, and the first step in a three-phase project that will bring two additions and renovations to create a newly modernized school for 1,500 to 1,700 students.

“We’re basically working from the left of the campus to the right,” Architect Mark French of the IBI Group, told more than 40 people who turned out Thursday for a meeting to get the latest updates on the historic school.

Davis Principal Julissa Alcantar-Martinez opened the meeting by thanking the school community, especially the Project Advisory Team, for working together to move the project forward and to advocate for the best facility possible for students.

“They have stuck with this for three years even when it hasn’t been easy,” she said, noting that the school received $19 million in additional funding in December because of that support.

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Status of all students’ magnet applications to become available March 24

If you’re one of the parents who submitted one of the more than 60,000 magnet applications HISD received for the 2016–2017 school year, your wait is almost over.

Thursday, March 24, 2016, is the date on which parents who participated in Phase 1 of the application process (Oct. 1–Dec. 18, 2015) will be notified of the status of their submissions. Parents who created online accounts will be able to find the results posted on their dashboards, but application-status letters will also be sent out by U.S. mail to all parents who submitted an application.

Magnet notifications are going out via our online system, so you can start checking now. FYI, they can take up to 8 hours to send.
Don’t see any notifications for your magnet application yet? Don’t panic! Your notifications will be posted to the parent dashboard.

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Four more campuses recognized as ‘model’ Family Friendly Schools

DeAnda ES parents (pictured) were able to purchase books at discounted prices from local retailers after obtaining library cards from the Houston Public Library, thanks to a special arrangement made by Principal Erwin Garcia Velazquez.

DeAnda ES parents (pictured) were able to purchase books at discounted prices from local retailers after obtaining library cards from the Houston Public Library, thanks to a special arrangement made by Principal Erwin Garcia Velazquez.

Last month, HISD began honoring district campuses for their successful implementation of the Family Friendly Schools program.

Now, four more campuses have been recognized by the Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Department for their efforts to make parents feel welcome and valued at their children’s schools.

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HISD seeking families and home instructors for HIPPY program

HISD’s Family and Community Engagement department is still recruiting families and part-time home instructors to work with the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program for the 2015–2016 school year.

HIPPY is a school readiness program for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children that helps parents prepare their preschoolers for academic success. Instructors visit parents in their homes for an hour a week over a 30-week period during the school year, and model research-based learning activities designed to help Pre-K children develop skills in reading, math, and science. Parents then practice the activities with their children over the week until they learn a new activity during the next lesson. Children whose parents participate in the program consistently outperform their peers in reading and math in kindergarten and first grade.

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What you need to know about the new Open Carry law

Recent legislative changes that went into effect Jan. 1, 2016, made it lawful to openly carry firearms in Texas under certain circumstances, but HISD does not and has never allowed handguns or other prohibited weapons to be carried into any district schools or educational facilities.

School grounds have been considered “gun-free” zones under the federal Gun-Free Schools Act that was enacted more than 20 years ago. Texas law also does not permit handguns or certain other weapons to be taken into any school buildings or carried anywhere that school-sponsored activities are taking place.

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Houston Educational Support Professionals union, HISD to hold town hall meeting about importance of three-point bus seatbelts

The Houston Educational Support Professionals union, in conjunction with the Houston Independent School District, will host a town hall meeting on Thursday to discuss the importance of wearing three-point seatbelts when they are available on HISD school buses.

Union and district officials hope to encourage parents and community members to talk to students and remind them about the importance of always buckling up.

HISD administrators announced in November that all new school buses purchased by the district would include three-point seatbelts. The recommendation by the HISD Transportation Department was made just days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provided new guidance on the issue, updating their position to suggest that students should have access to three-point seatbelts.

About 40 buses purchased following that announcement and equipped with three-point seatbelts are expected to arrive this summer. Transportation Department officials have said the new buses will be assigned to the district’s highest-mileage routes.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, at Peck Elementary School, 5001 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Register now for Nov. 7 ‘Parents as Advocates’ Family Conference

All HISD families are invited to attend the “Parents as Advocates” Family Conference and Resource Fair on Saturday, Nov. 7, at Burbank Middle School (315 Berry Rd., 77022) from 8 a.m. to noon.

The event will feature a panel discussion and short workshops on school choice, selecting the right courses, graduating from high school, applying to college, and advocating for children with special needs.

Board of Education member Anna Eastman has partnered with the Family Learning Academy to host the event, which will have a special focus on how parents can best ensure that their children receive the highest quality education in HISD, personalized to their children’s unique needs. Continue reading →

Academic Parent Teacher Teams (APTT) set the stage for student success

This year, in nearly 200 classrooms at nine HISD elementary schools, parents are experiencing a new kind of parent-teacher conference that gives them the tools both to expand their children’s learning and to monitor their progress.

Schools in their second or third years of implementing the Academy Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) program are continuing to perfect and expand the new model of meetings to empower parents to help their children learn outside of school.

Eliot, Gallegos, Kennedy, Mitchell, Piney Point, Shadowbriar, and Tijerina elementary schools, as well as Fonwood Early Childhood Center and the Wharton Dual Language Academy, all recently completed their first round of fall APTT meetings.

The model replaces traditional parent-teacher conferences with three 75-minute group meetings involving all parents in the class, and one 30-minute individual session with the student, teacher, and parents. During group meetings, teachers share student performance data and expectations for the class, review skills, and model hands-on activities parents can do at home to help their children master skills. Parents practice the activities at home with their kids over a 60-day period until their next meeting, when they can again review the data and see how their child has progressed. Continue reading →

HISD home visiting program to help hundreds of families prepare children for preschool

The Houston Independent School District this week will begin offering in-home lessons to hundreds of new families from across the district in an effort to help parents better prepare their children for preschool.

The lessons are part of the district’s Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters — or HIPPY program. As part of the program, HIPPY home instructors models simple educational activities for parents to practice with their 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds.

The one-hour, weekly lessons span 30 weeks and cover early literacy skills, mathematics, science, fine and gross motor skills, and language development. Research shows that HISD kindergarten students whose parents have participated in the HIPPY program significantly outperform their peers in reading and math. Continue reading →