What it means if your student’s report card has an ‘NG’

When HISD parents from grades K-12 receive report cards on Jan. 10, they may be finding a new notation – “NG” – that blocks the grade from being seen because of poor attendance.

NG isn’t a reflection of failure – in fact the grade may be passing – but under expanded state requirements for school attendance, the student didn’t put in enough time in class to receive a grade in it.

“Excessive, unexcused absences,” is the official explanation parents will see – meaning the student was missing 10 percent or more of the time the class met. A grade will actually be assigned and recorded by HISD, but it will, in effect, be masked on the report card.

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Top hoopsters hit the courts in 74th annual HISD tourney

Thirty-one of the Houston area’s best prep teams will begin three days of action Thursday in the 74th annual HISD Boys Basketball Tournament at nine district locations – and they’ll combine play with holiday giving.

Fans bringing two nonperishable food items and one unwrapped toy will gain free admission, with no re-entry permitted. The toys will go to the U.S. Marines Toys for Tots Drive, and the food will benefit the Houston Food Bank. Collection points will be located at each site for those who want to contribute additional items.

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Voice of experience: Successful 1:1 school district praises PowerUp

HISD’s implementation of the PowerUp one-to-one laptop initiative is getting rave reviews from a North Carolina school district which successfully implemented a similar program six years ago. A team of educators from the Mooresville Graded School District recently visited classrooms at three HISD campuses which distributed student laptops in October.

“One of the things we were very impressed with was the rather extensive use of laptops for instruction in the classrooms,” said Steve Mauney, executive director for secondary instruction at the Mooresville Graded School District. “That is something we didn’t expect to see at the schools only two months after deployment.”

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HISD Police Chief Dotson to retire in new year; Mock named as new chief

HISD Chief of Police Jimmy Dotson, left, will retire in January, and will be succeeded by now-Assistant Chief of Police Robert Mock, right.

When HISD Police Chief Jimmy Dotson broke the news of his retirement to his department a month ago, he told the officers that after five years, the time had come for him to leave the district.

“We have worked very hard as a department to get to where we are today,” said Dotson, whose last day with the district will be Jan. 31. “But it is time for me to go. Everything is about timing, and the time is just right.”

On Tuesday, Dotson, 66, was excited about the announcement of his successor – HISD Assistant Chief of Police Robert Mock, who will be sworn in as the district’s new police chief on Jan. 6 at a 2 p.m. ceremony at the High School for Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice. Continue reading →

Historic Milby High School yearbooks going digital

Florence Waters Schillaci, 95, displays her photo from the 1936 Milby High School yearbook "The Buffalo" on a tablet at her home, December 17, 2013. Milby students have been digitizing past copies of the yearbook for a class project. (HISD/Dave Einsel)

Milby HS alumna Florence Schillaci (née Waters) holds up an iPad with a photo of herself on it from the newly digitized 1936 yearbook, The Buffalo. (HISD/Dave Einsel)

Librarian Rowena Verdin has come up with an innovative way of handling the many requests she receives each year for copies of old yearbooks—she is taking Milby High School digital.

Verdin began digitizing the school’s old yearbooks in 2010, starting with two editions from each decade. “Right now, only the 1925 and the 1936 editions are online, but we’ve got about 15 of them in digital format,” she said. “We’ve even got one from 1920, back when Milby was still known as Harrisburg High School.”

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HISD students outperforming peers in large urban districts

Nation’s Report Card shows gains in math across all student groups since 2003; reading scores unchanged from 2007 to 2013

The Houston Independent School District performed better than most large urban school districts in math, showing increases across all student groups compared to 2003, while reading scores remained unchanged, in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report released Dec. 18, 2013 (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/).

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22 acceptances — including 3 at Yale — for HISD EMERGE seniors

To familiarize them with life on the campus of a select school, HISD’s EMERGE program took a group of rising seniors on a tour of northeast campuses over the summer. Here, they’re at Harvard University.

The acceptance letters for select colleges and universities are rolling in for HISD seniors working with the district’s EMERGE program – 22 letters so far, as of Dec. 18. On Dec. 16 alone, three HISD seniors were notified they had been accepted to Yale University.

All students are either receiving full rides or are having 100 percent of their financial need met by the school accepting them, according to Rick Cruz, assistant superintendent of college readiness and co-founder of EMERGE.

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Employees give up their holiday break to help students get caught up

While fellow employees are sipping eggnog, exchanging presents, or just visiting with their friends and family, some members of Team HISD will be spending most of their winter break at one of 12 schools around the city.

Those campuses, which include Fondren Elementary, Woodson K–8, and Austin, Chávez, Davis, Lee, North Forest, Reagan, Sharpstown, Jones and Worthing high schools, are conducting credit recovery programs during that two-week period to help students who are behind in their classes get caught up with their peers.

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Videos highlight progress on concepts for new Furr, Sharpstown high schools

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/82012862/ w=320&h=205]

HISD released two videos Tuesday that showcase the progress in the planning and design of Furr and Sharpstown high schools, which are being rebuilt under the district’s 2012 $1.89 billion bond program.

The video featuring Furr High School highlights work that is being done on the project advisory team, the collaboration with the architect and community input on the project. Preliminary drawings of what the campus could look like include flexible learning spaces with sustainable touches like repurposed wood from the current campus gymnasium.

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