A group of enthusiastic teachers clad in blue Huskies t-shirts cheered as students arrived at the new Scarborough Elementary School for the first time on Monday.
After undergoing temperature checks, the students marveled at their new surroundings and the colorful bilingual welcome signs awaiting them.
Fourth-grader Elizabeth Garza wore a black mask imprinted with the smile of a Cheshire cat, but the sparkle in her eyes made it clear she was smiling just as wide underneath it.
Continue readingAs Mitchell Elementary School students arrived for the first day of in-person instruction, there were plenty of bright eyes and broad smiles, evident even underneath their masks.
The students entered the new school and looked on in amazement at their new surroundings. Teachers stood nearby reminding them to walk while observing physical distancing.
With their backpacks filled, the students made their way to their classrooms, greeted teachers, and quickly found their seats, ready to begin the school day.
Continue readingA day before Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, Tiffany Irving and her son Grant eagerly delivered school supplies to his kindergarten classroom at Mitchell Elementary, just south of Hobby Airport.
Little did they know then that Grant’s supplies — along with the rest of his building and three other elementary schools across the district — would be destroyed in the coming days as the storm dumped unprecedented amounts of rain on the city.
Unfortunately, the damage wasn’t limited to the school. The Irving’s home just around the corner from the school also flooded.
Continue readingStudents couldn’t hold back their delight as they entered the new Braeburn Elementary School for the first time on Monday — the district’s first day of in-person learning.
The long-awaited day marked not just a return to classrooms, but also the first time since 2017 that Braeburn students have been able to settle into a permanent home.
Teachers offered a friendly ‘hello’ and ‘welcome back’ to students as they entered the main hallway, were positioned in physically distant single-file lines, and then led to their new classrooms.
Continue readingKolter Elementary School Principal Julianne Dickinson began to feel the weight of Monday morning before the sun went down the day before.
For Dickinson, Monday was different for a few reasons — the start of in-person instruction, the return of students to classrooms after eight months, and the required use of masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the most special reason was that it was her students’ first day in their newly constructed school.
Continue readingFacing hundreds of cars in a line that stretched down the street and around the block, it would have been easy for Nutrition Services staff to feel overwhelmed at their first neighborhood supersite in southeast Houston.
But for a department known for its dedication to keeping families fed and well-nourished, it was all in a day’s work on Wednesday — the launch of weekly community food distributions.
Hosted through a partnership with the Houston Food Bank, the supersites provide a place where Houstonians can go each week to pick up 32-pound family food packages and a week’s worth of student meals.
Continue readingNutrition Services Chef Trainer Brittany Jones is used to teaching others how to prepare tasty, nutritious meals. Now she’ll get to share her expertise with others around the state thanks to a virtual learning seminar.
Jones recently visited Texas A&M University where she filmed culinary demonstrations to be included in virtual lessons for the Learn, Grow, Eat, and Go program offered by Texas AgriLife Extension’s Junior Master Gardener program.
Learn, Grow, Eat, and Go curriculum is used in select HISD elementary science classes to teach students about gardening, nutrition, and physical activity to promote long-term health. Nutrition Services hopes to share the new virtual lessons, which complement the in-person curriculum, all HISD elementary teachers via science curriculum coordinators.
Continue readingWhen walking into Jennifer Heemer’s fifth grade classroom at Kolter Elementary School, it’s hard not to get excited about learning.
The walls are adorned with colorful decorations, including a poster reminding her students to “think outside the box” and class photos from her 21 years of teaching. Natural light from a wall of large windows fills the room and illuminates the two rows of perfectly-arranged desks.
There’s only one thing missing. Students.
Continue readingUnder a cloudy sky, Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan greeted Westbury High School students and their parents on the first day of the school year.
But instead of navigating blue and grey painted halls that would normally be crowded with students, she and new Principal Jerri Nixon were busy handing out pre-packed meals to Westbury families in the parking lot.
As students across the district return to school virtually, HISD Nutrition Services is offering daily curbside pickup for breakfast and lunch meals at 86 strategically located schools, including Westbury.
Continue readingA group of Windswept Gardens Apartments residents made their way through the complex’s tree-lined central courtyard, which sits just a few hundred yards from the speeding cars and unending traffic of the Southwest Freeway.
Clad in face masks and carefully keeping their distance from each other, the families gathered around a blue tent where HISD’s Nutrition Services staff were handing out student summer meals in the afternoon sun.
The district has long offered a free summer meal program for students throughout the greater Houston community. In previous years, children would come to local schools to eat. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed the game, prompting Nutrition Services to look for innovative and safe ways to feed kids without a cafeteria.
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