Second annual career day at Foster Elementary

More than a dozen careers were represented by attendees at the second annual Career Day at Foster Elementary recently. Attending the event were engineers, police officers, a sheriff, an attorney, a counselor, insurance agents, dental representatives, and even a snake-handler from Texas Snakes.

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Furr High School wins second place in state UIL film competition

Students from Furr High School placed second in the recent state UIL Young Filmmakers Festival competition held in Austin. Representing the only HISD school to make it to the finals, Furr students Esmeralda Valdovinos, Yamylex Gonzalez, Enrique Vasaldoua, and Victoria Martinez, along with their Environmental Communications instructor Assol Kavtorina, picked up the award for Division 1 Documentary. Continue reading →

T.H. Rogers, DeBakey students win at Exxon Mobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair

HISD students came in second in the Senior Division and second and third in the Junior Division of the 2015 Exxon Mobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair competition held in San Antonio, Texas, the weekend of March 28 and 29. Continue reading →

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

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“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.

Foundation poured for new Delmar Fieldhouse

Delmar1Construction for Delmar Fieldhouse reached a milestone this week, as workers poured the concrete slab, in preparation for the project to go vertical this spring.

The old 55-year-old Delmar Fieldhouse was demolished in 2014 to make way for this new facility that will be part of the new Delmar-Tusa Athletic Complex. As part of the current bond program, the new three-story, 139,000-square-foot facility will include a basketball and volleyball arena, modern locker and training rooms, and ample athletic storage for the complex’s existing stadium and ball fields.

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Light It Up Blue to raise autism awareness on April 2

April is Autism Awareness Month, and in recognition of World Autism Awareness Day, communities across the globe are being asked to “Light It Up Blue” on April 2.

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People will be lighting up their homes, schools, offices, and iconic landmarks with the color blue, and HISD will observe the month in different ways across the district, including adding blue accents to the cafeteria of the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (HMWESC) and even changing up the appearance of the main district website.

There are endless ways for individuals to participate—you can swap out a blue light bulb on your front porch, get folks to wear something blue at work, or turn your Facebook profile picture blue to show support.

This is our chance to shine a light on autism, so please join us.

The Office of Special Education will also be hosting an autism parent support meeting on Wednesday, April 22, 2015, at the HMWESC (4400 W. 18th, 77092) from 9–10 a.m.