Houston Astros catcher Jason Castro and his wife, Maris, are holding a book drive at Minute Maid Park this weekend to benefit HISD students. The couple runs Castro’s Kids, which encourages children to embrace literacy.
Category Archives: Summer programs
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.
Students stock up on reading materials to combat the ‘summer slide’
School’s out for the summer, and that means no more pencils and no more books. But wait—there are books. For the second year in a row, Half Price Books has donated 5,000 books to students at the Wharton K–8 Academy so they can take part in the district’s Millionaire Club.
The Millionaire Club is a coordinated effort between HISD’s Library Services and Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment departments to keep kids reading over the summer break in order to combat the “summer slide,” or the loss of academic skills many students experience after three months of inactivity. If a student reads and records five books on a log, then they become a member of the club and are eligible for recognition and prizes when they return to school in the fall.