Seven-venue event combines hoops with holiday giving
Michael Sudhalter photo/The Leader News
The Houston area’s best girls basketball players will face off at seven HISD venues December 5-7 in the 30th annual Houston ISD Basketball Tournament – combining action on the courts with a giant food and toy drive, in the spirit of the holiday season.
Milby, Reagan, Yates jumping two levels each
(Michael Sudhalter photo/The Leader News)
The University Interscholastic League has unveiled its realignment for 2014-2016, including the addition of a sixth conference for its smallest schools which play six- or 11-man football.
Those smaller schools are now categorized 1A, and other high schools have either stayed the same or moved up depending on these revised enrollment ranges:
HISD has selected the 18 high schools whose students will be receiving laptop computers in the 2014-2015 school year in the second phase of PowerUp, the district’s one-to-one digital transformation initiative.
More than 150 parents, teachers, students and alumni of Milby High School turned out Tuesday night to learn more about the preliminary designs and concepts for the new school being funded by the 2012 bond program.
Milby is slated to be rebuilt into a 21st century facility while maintaining the campus’s architecturally significant building structure. On Tuesday, HISD staff and the school’s architects fielded many questions about the project, including size, classrooms and athletic fields.
Sitting down at flexible tables with swivel chairs and tablet compartments, students, teachers and parents moved quickly from one piece of furniture to the next to see which ones were the most comfortable and collaborative.
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More than 70 people tested out furniture on display Tuesday at Houston ISD’s first furniture expo showcasing 21st century learning environments. The event allowed Project Advisory Teams (PATs) to explore different learning spaces and provide feedback to help guide the design for the new schools being built and renovated under the district’s 2012 bond program.
Seventy-five Milby High School teachers and administrators hit the streets in search of more than 80 students with excessive absences or failing grades during a recent “Milby in Action” outreach program.
More than 150 sophomores from Milby HS, Westside HS, and the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy (YWCPA) in Houston ISD and Southwest HS in Fort Worth ISD competed in the fifth annual PetroChallenge held Sept. 20.
The computer simulation exercise, which took place this year at the Houston Community College’s Alief Campus, asks teams of students to form an energy company entering a new oil and gas field. Starting with $200 million in funds, their goal is to achieve the highest company value by finding oil or gas and investing in other teams’ opportunities.
From friendly campus competitions to going door to door in their communities, HISD schools are getting creative in ways to increase student attendance. September is Attendance Awareness Month, and HISD is joining school districts around the nation to deliver the message that attendance matters for success in school and in life, and that too many absences can easily add up to academic trouble.
At the monthly HISD principals’ meeting on September 4, school leaders shared what they are doing to reward students who come to school every day, and how they are reaching out to those who are having attendance issues.
Milby HS sophomore Kenneth Andrus (kneeling, R) poses with fellow Woods Project participants on the trail heading from Vogelsang Pass to Merced Lake in Yosemite National Park.
For a few weeks every summer, The Woods Project shutters its Houston-based office while the entire staff goes backpacking with local teenagers.
At first glance, this might not seem to be a very effective business strategy, but the trips are actually aligned with the non-profit organization’s mission—getting economically disadvantaged urban youth out into the wilderness. The idea is to build their self-confidence by exposing them to unfamiliar people, environments, and challenges, and along the way, teach them the value of teamwork, the need for perseverance, and the reality they can accomplish far more than they ever thought possible.
At DeChaumes Elementary School, the main entrance to the school is controlled through an intercom system and two sets of locked doors.
The design process has started for the first phase of HISD’s 2012 bond program, and district officials plan to incorporate crime prevention through environmental design on all 40 campuses under the $1.89 billion bond project.
“We’re going to create safe and secure environments for our students and faculty,” HISD’s General Manager for Facilities Planning Sue Robertson said. “That doesn’t mean creating prison-like environments, but including common-sense applications.”