Our year-end honor roll isn’t just for students
We’ve already held our salutes to student valedictorians and salutatorians and to our EMERGE seniors, going off to the best colleges in the U.S. This coming Sunday, at the fifth annual Cool To Be Smart celebration, seniors who have braved the most rigorous academic path will have a chance to win a new Toyota Corolla (generously donated by Smart Financial Credit Union) and other prizes.
The end of the school year is also when we take time to acknowledge those who make student successes possible. Friday night, HISD will hold its annual Celebration of Excellence to honor Teachers and Principals of the Year and Employees of the Month for the past year. It’s an opportunity to treat the best of our front-line staff to a red carpet evening.
I especially like the story of Jose Saenz, who will be one of the night’s honorees. He came up through the HISD teaching program at Austin HS, returned to teach history at the school, and is now Austin’s Teacher of the Year.
Others on Team HISD have been tapped for outside honors, like Bellaire HS teacher Michael Clark. He won $25,000 for his school and another $25,000 for himself when H-E-B gave him its lifetime achievement award. He used a chunk of that money to buy gift cards for his colleagues.
That really speaks to the collaborative nature of what we do. Each award recipient has colleagues and families who contribute to his or her success — and ultimately, to student success. Let’s give them all a round of applause.
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