Nine HISD high school bands will be strutting their stuff in the district’s eighth annual Marching Band Festival on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
The festival gives bands the opportunity to receive feedback on their music quality, sections, music effects, visual effects, and visual performance. The critiques will help the bands prepare for future performances and events.
Participating schools include: Continue reading
HISD’s annual Grads Within Reach walk took place on Sept. 12, 2015, and volunteers convinced more than 80 students to come back to school and continue their education.
Almost 500 volunteers fanned out across the city, visiting the last-known residences of students who had not shown up for class this year and leaving information on how to re-enroll if no one came to the door.
Members of the Austin High School community came out this week for the first of three community meetings to hear about plans for the school’s new campus. As part of HISD’s current bond program, Austin will receive a new $68.4 million building that will accommodate 1,800 to 2,000 students.
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Twenty-eight students in HISD’s English Language Learner and migrant programs spent two weeks of their summer participating in hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities at the STEM Leadership and Design Fabrication Academy at Rice University.
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The students, who attend Austin, Chávez, Davis, Furr, Kashmere, Liberty, Lee, Sam Houston, Sharpstown, and Waltrip high schools, got a taste of what careers in a STEM-related field could be like. Continue reading
In this week’s I am HISD, which features district students, graduates, employees, and other team members, José Saenz explains why he just can’t stop coming back to his high school. Saenz attended Austin High School and participated in the school’s teaching program. He graduated in 2003, and is now a teacher there. Given the fact that he also met his wife there in the ninth grade, it is clear that for Saenz, all roads lead to Austin.
Jose Saenz
You graduated from Austin HS in 2003, and you have returned as a teacher. What did you do after graduating, and what brought you back?
I had made up my mind to become a teacher towards the end of my senior year. I began attending the University of Houston in the fall of 2003 and majored in history. I went through the education program at UH as well. Students were required to do a set number of observation hours and a semester of student teaching. I requested Austin as the location for both. Since graduating, I was very interested in coming back to Austin to teach and having the opportunity to student-teach there helped me make that decision. I felt that I could connect with the students coming from the same neighborhood and having many of the same life experiences. I began working at Austin in 2008 and even returned to UH while working in 2010 to obtain my master’s in curriculum and instruction in social studies education. Continue reading
While navigating rough water is a tough job, actually learning the finer points of navigation is even tougher. Students at HISD’s Stephen F. Austin High School for Maritime Studies have a new tool that will make that learning process a little easier—and certainly more comprehensive. Students, faculty, staff, and members of HISD administration and Houston’s maritime industry christened the school’s very own navigation simulator on April 24. Continue reading
The top six Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) cadets, who were named earlier this month, were honored on April 25 at the Annual HISD JROTC Final Review and Awards Ceremony.
All were promoted to the rank of Cadet Colonel (Army) or Cadet Captain (Navy), which are the highest ranks in the program. The top seniors were chosen from among all the graduating seniors in HISD’s 25 JROTC programs.
Campus is fourth in a series of articles on magnet schools with space still available
Students who attend Austin High School have two enticing study pathways available to them. They can embark on a path to becoming educators themselves through the school’s well-established teaching professions program, or they can explore careers in the thriving maritime industry.
When the school’s teaching program was created in 1982, it was the first high-school teacher preparation program of its kind in the nation. Today, the program benefits from a partnership with the University of Houston that prepares students both for life on a college campus after graduation, and life in the classroom as professional educators afterwards.
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Ruben Cortez Jr., a member of the State Board of Education from District 2, visited Stephen F. Austin High School today to check on the progress of a new history class that is near and dear to his heart – Mexican-American studies. Cortez, who is from Brownsville, Texas, advocated for the new course and convinced the board to approve it in April of last year. The vote included asking the Texas Education Agency to draft new state standards (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, better known as TEKS) in Mexican-American history.
Houston Community College Professor Catherine Smith’s Business Dual Credit/College Credit students at Austin High School made “business dreams and ideas come alive” twice this past year when they participated in two high-level collegiate business plan and business development competitions. Continue reading