Board of Education to Consider Policy Update Banning Offensive Mascots

HISD also scheduled to honor outgoing Trustee Larry Marshall for his service

Dec. 11, 2013 — Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier on Thursday will recommend the Board of Education take the first steps in approving a policy update that would prohibit offensive or culturally insensitive mascots.

The proposed policy would affect four HISD high schools — Lamar High School Redskins, Westbury High School Rebels, Hamilton Middle School Indians and Welch Middle School Warriors. The measure must be approved on Thursday and then again in January after its second reading.

The new policy would allow schools to respectfully retire their existing mascot while also acknowledging the important role their related traditions and symbols have played in their community.

Continue reading →

Pumps and Pipes give STEM Schools Taste of Real World

It’s not every day that a freshman in high school gets to talk one-on-one with a former astronaut and current NASA chief, but for Energy Institute High School students Chisom Anyanwu, Matthew Brack, Timothy Chung, and Avin Passalar, meeting NASA Director Ellen Ochoa was beyond comprehension.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Passalar. “I could have talked to her for hours. She had such amazing things to say about being a woman in the space industry.”

Continue reading →

Lee HS Grad Leads Tech Solutions Company to $18 Million in Business with HISD

Editor’s note: This profile is part of an occasional series on minority or women-owned companies that do business with HISD. The district’s minimum M/WBE goal levels are 20 percent for all levels of purchasing and construction, and 25 percent for professional services. In the 2007 bond program, that commitment reached nearly 34 percent. In the 2012 program, the contracts awarded to date reflect a nearly 51 percent M/WBE commitment.

Continue reading →

Wheatley Takes HISD Tournament Crown

After three days of play last week, Wheatley’s varsity dominated a field of 29 teams to win the 30th Annual HISD Varsity Girls Basketball Tournament.

Wheatley High School’s squad was crowned champion in the 30th Annual HISD Varsity Girls Basketball Tournament, and Wheatley’s Arie Taylor was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Continue reading →

Televisa Foundation to Help English Language Learners ‘Live the Dream’

Latina entertainer, neuroscientist kick off new partnership at Burbank MS 

English language learners at HISD’s Burbank Middle School got a lesson in the importance of aiming for the stars recently, when a neuroscientist and a popular entertainer came to that campus.
Continue reading →

Board of Education to Consider 7 More Contracts under 2012 Bond Program

Administrators are recommending firms to provide CMAR services

Administrators are recommending that the HISD Board of Education authorize the district to negotiate contracts with five firms to provide construction manager at risk (CMAR) services on selected 2012 bond projects.

Continue reading →

Carnegie Vanguard Honored by Neighborhood Business Group

Carnegie Vanguard High School is being celebrated as a gem in its Montrose neighborhood.

The Museum District Business Alliance presented the school with a New Construction Community Improvement Award and a $250 donation at its annual Holiday and Community Awards Luncheon on Thursday at Hotel Zaza. The program honors individuals and organizations that embody the artistic, entrepreneurial, and civic spirit of Montrose and the Museum District. Continue reading →

Creative Use of Literary Classics Helps CVHS Students Master Rhetoric

A selection from the Pinterest page in the voice of “Ma Joad”

Don’t look now, but Tom Joad is on Twitter, and Adam Trask has a webpage. If those two names seem vaguely familiar to you, it’s probably because they are characters in a pair of American literature classics written by John Steinbeck. Joad is the protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath, and Trask is a wealthy Salinas Valley ranch owner in East of Eden.

Students in Jocelyn Ellis’s pre-Advanced Placement English class at HISD’s Carnegie Vanguard High School are creating the characters’ Twitter exchanges, websites, and even Pinterest pages as part of a class project.

Continue reading →

Food for Thought: Hamilton MS Students Learn About Homelessness and Hunger

Hamilton MS students made sandwiches for the homeless as part of their partnership with the Rice University Coalition on Hunger and Homelessness. Working with the coalition, students have been focusing on children who are experiencing hunger. (Photo by Michael Sudhalter/The Leader News)

Hamilton MS students have joined the fight against hunger among the homeless – especially children – and they’re in it for the long haul.

Hamilton is the only HISD middle school to partner with the Rice University Coalition on Hunger and Homelessness and Kids’ Meals to develop a program that specifically focuses on ways to feed children in Harris County, where 25.5 percent of youngsters live in food-insecure households.

Continue reading →

Two Schools to Plant Dozens of Fruit Trees on Their Campuses

Lantrip Elementary also receives $20,000 grant for campus beautification project

Lantrip Elementary School and Austin High School are the recipients of two grants from the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation that will fund the planting of 25-30 trees at each campus in the coming week.

The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF), an international nonprofit organization dedicated to planting fruit trees to improve health, strengthen communities and combat climate change, has joined the East End’s GreenSchools! Greenbelt, which currently includes Austin, Lantrip and Jackson Middle schools.

The GreenSchools! Greenbelt initiative, funded by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council, connects schools and communities through campus and community greening efforts in Houston’s East End.

Continue reading →