Parent Involvement Most Consistent Predictor of Children’s Success
Students learn their best when schools and parents team up to give them all the support they need in the classroom and at home.
HISD is committed to making sure parents have the information they need to support learning at every stage of a child’s education, from preschool years to graduation. The district has a school-readiness program that helps parents prepare preschool children for academic success. Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) provides instructors who visit HISD parents once a week and teach them strategies for preparing preschoolers to start school. This program helps close the achievement gap and gives students the basic reading skills they need before they set foot in school.
HISD’s Family and Community Engagement website has valuable resources to assist parents in becoming effective educational partners and advocates for their children. Parent activities that directly benefit students include visiting their school frequently, meeting and staying in touch with their teachers, and being active in the PTO or PTA. At home, parents should establish a quiet place for their child to study and do homework, make sure they get plenty of sleep, and set limits on video games and similar activities. It’s also a good idea to set goals, discuss the importance of being in school every day, and encourage children to do their best work.
When families and schools work together, the result is children who are successful in school, have a positive attitude toward education, and graduate ready for college and a career.
A special thanks to those who transport our students
As National School Bus Safety week draws to a close, I want to personally thank the dedicated men and women who not only drive the district’s nearly 1,000 school buses, but who work to keep our kids safe and our fleet in top working order. Every day, HISD school buses transport more than 30,000 students and travel more than 70,000 miles.
To educate our students and our community on bus safety, HISD Transportation Field Safety Investigator Curtis Harris, who is also a local musician, created a music video that has received more than 17,000 hits on YouTube. Performers in the video include students from Yates High School, Peck Elementary, and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Check out their dance moves in this fun after-school project:
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Choose from an array of schools for next year
Choice, not chance, determines our students’ destiny, and one of the things that makes HISD great is that we are a district of choice. That means our students are free to attend any school in the district, as long as they meet the requirements and go through the application process.
There are many different schools in HISD. Our students can earn associates degrees at five early-college high schools, essentially getting two years of college for free. Specialty magnet schools include the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Carnegie Vanguard High School, and the newly opened Energy Institute High School.
Visit our School Choice web page to learn more about your options, or, if you prefer to meet face to face, come to the School Choice Open House on Nov. 2 at Northwest Mall. Representatives from HISD schools will be there to answer your questions.
There are also School Choice Fairs going on at elementary and middle schools right now, so come out and get your questions answered. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, visit the schools you are considering during Magnet Awareness Week the first week in November. See for yourself where your child might be learning, and meet the principal and some of the teachers.
As William Jennings Bryan said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.” We at HISD are proud of the variety of schools in our district, and we are committed to providing parents and students with the information they need to make the right choice.
Creating transformational Digital Age instruction
I had the opportunity this week to speak at the Future@Now Texas summit near Dallas on the topic of preparing Texas students for digital learning, and the timing couldn’t have been better. As a nation, we have a long way to go to implement digital-age instruction in the classroom, but I’m proud of the fact that HISD is out in front, with programs like the PowerUp Initiative, leading the way in the digital transformation that is destined to change an awful lot about how teachers teach and how students learn in the very near future.
The digital revolution is already here in a lot of ways, but big educational institutions by nature can be slow to change, and even skeptical of newfangled ways of doing things. A lot of teachers and principals want more than just an “expert” opinion about how technology is going to revolutionize learning. They want to see it in action, they want to know what they’re getting into, and they want the support and professional development necessary to make sure they’re as ready as their students are to make the most of 21st-century learning.
So that’s what we’re doing. We’re starting PowerUp in 11 schools this year. A handful of those students (at schools like the Young Women’s College Preparatory Academy and the Energy Institute High School) will be issued their laptops starting in the next few weeks, with other campuses following in January. And the teachers at these schools are already training so they can be leaders and examples for their students. Because, in the end, the technology isn’t the ultimate answer — it’s a tool, and it’s how we choose to use it and what we choose to do with it that will make all the difference.
It should come as no surprise to you that 21st-century learning isn’t really the wave of the future – it’s the wave of the present. We’ve been working hard, doing our “digital homework,” and ensuring that we have the necessary supports in place to make this transition work. It’s an experiment, but it’s a controlled experiment, and it has the potential to reap huge rewards for our kids as we seek to prepare them to succeed in a world that’s already here, all around us.
I can’t wait to see what we learn – and how we learn it – as this transformation moves ahead.
Working to Step Up Recruitment, Rigor, and the Transition to 21st Century Learning
We had a lot to celebrate at this week’s principals’ meeting after winning the Broad Prize for Urban Education – for the second time. By working together, we’ve improved our reading scores over the past four years twice as much as any other urban school district in the country. We’ve raised graduation rates, lowered dropout rates, and increased SAT and AP test participation. This effort involves every single person on Team HISD, but our principals work every day championing change and progress in our schools, and they deserve sincere thanks for all that they do.
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When we met on Wednesday, we talked about several ways the district is going to build on our momentum – by stepping up our recruitment and development efforts, by increasing rigor in the classroom, and by continuing to implement 21st century learning.
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Nothing is more important than having a great teacher in every classroom, and we’re focusing on hiring better teachers and doing everything we can to develop and reward the talent we already have. As for rigor in the classroom, it’s the foundation of everything we do — students need it, teachers want it, and parents know their children have got to have it to be successful in the future. We want our students to be engaged by great lesson plans and project-based learning, and a laser-like focus on rigor can help us get there.
In addition, HISD is moving forward rapidly in the transition to 21st century learning. We’re training teachers to effectively integrate laptops into their classrooms, because in the next few years, every HISD high school student is going to have one. After that, we plan to give students in grades 3-8 laptops as well, while every K-2 classroom will have at least 10 computers. We’re living in an increasingly high-tech world, and we have to equip our kids to both survive and thrive in it.
I’m thrilled we won the 2013 Broad Prize, but now I want to make sure we keep our standing as America’s top urban school district. I want to see HISD become the first district to win the prize three times, but getting there means continuing to improve what we’re doing.
Broad Prize a Huge Win for HISD Students
Although I couldn’t be happier about HISD winning the Broad Prize – the largest education award in the country – I am especially thrilled for our students, because this means that our graduating seniors will receive $550,000 in college scholarships. It also means that all of our students attend the best urban school district in the country.
Although we are a team, and we all worked hard for this, it is the students who are being recognized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. It is the students who have brought in the greatest overall performance and improvement in achievement over the past four years. And it is the students who will reap the rewards.
Moving forward, we will continue to work on improving our graduation rate and making sure that HISD graduates are prepared for college. We will continue establishing 21st century learning environments where students have access to the latest technology, including laptops for all high school students. These advances in technology are transforming education by giving students access to the world outside the classroom and encouraging them to construct their own learning.
But first, let’s take a moment to savor this honor before we get back to work on becoming great all over.
Way to go, Team HISD!
Pulling out all the stops to get kids back in school
Exactly one week from today, an important accounting will take place. Any student who has not reported to school so far this year will be counted as a dropout.
There are many reasons why we can’t locate students, and not all point to a student who has dropped out – addresses change, and students move away or enroll in other programs but have not shown up in the state database yet. So we must investigate, track, knock on doors, ask questions, and provide support to campus-based staff during this crucial window of time.
That’s why we launched Youth Watch, a dropout-recovery program that enlists the help of everyone in the district, from principals to parents, administrators to students. Collectively, we all need to commit to recovering these students to improve their futures and that of future generations. Since school started, we have been working to identify and reach out to these students. In the past week alone, staff members have made more than 180 home visits. In one case, a T. H. Rogers MS student had undergone spinal surgery over the summer and was not cleared to return to school. At Austin HS, a student who received a telephone call from HISD returned to school that same day. So far, about two-thirds of students who were missing for various reasons have been recovered and re-enrolled.
Preparing every child in HISD for success is a district priority. Making sure that all of our students are in class is vitally important to us, because teachers can’t teach and students can’t learn if they are not in school. Dropout prevention and recovery is an ongoing effort that involves everyone in the district.
And the winner of the 2013 Broad Prize is…
In a little more than a week, we are going to Washington DC to find out if we won the 2013 Broad Prize for Urban Education. The Broad Prize is huge. If we do win on Sept. 25, our students will receive $550,000 in scholarships, and HISD will be showcased as a successful model for other school districts across the country. And even if we don’t win, our seniors will still receive $150,000 in scholarships. Graduates from the winning and finalist districts are eligible for two- or four-year scholarships of up to $20,000.
HISD is competing against three other school districts in the U.S. for the largest education award in the country. The Broad Prize is awarded annually to honor urban districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students.
Our challenges in HISD include the fact that 80 percent of our students are on free or reduced lunch. We know that we can’t control the challenges they face at home, so we focus on the things we can control – the quality of teachers in the classrooms, the quality of the learning environment, the level of academic rigor, and the level of expectations. We are constantly asking ourselves, do we have engaging lessons? Do we have enough tutoring? Do we have a structure in place to give students the support they need to succeed? Our goal is nothing less than to change their lives of our students forever.
I could not be more proud to work in a district led by visionary people who truly believe that every child has the ability to excel in the classroom as long as we give our teachers and principals the tools they need. HISD won the Broad Prize in 2002, the first year it was offered, and I think we can do it again.
For more about how HISD became a 2013 Broad Finalist, visit our website. To learn more about the 2013 finalists, watch this Broad video, which includes interviews with the superintendents of the four competing districts.
Formula for Success – Teach, Assess, Reteach. Celebrate and Repeat.
The second week of the new school year is almost over, and we are off to a great start. Over the past two weeks, I have visited many HISD schools and dropped into many classrooms. What did I see? I saw teachers teaching, and I saw students engaged. I saw clear objectives written on the board, and heard lessons that matched those objectives. What did I not see? Kids with their heads down. Kids staring out the window. Teachers just sitting behind their desks.
We had great teacher training before school started this year. We had the Rigor Institute for all HISD teachers, in with which they were coached on how to create an environment in which every student is expected to learn at a high level. We had the New Teachers Academy for hundreds of teachers new to the district. But all this training will be in vain if teachers don’t implement what they learned.
Teachers need to be teaching, and students need to be learning from day one. There should be frequent assessments to make sure they are getting it. Not more major tests but more pop quizzes. And if they aren’t getting it, reteach until they do. Reach out to students in need and help them grow and improve daily. Change the C students into B or even A students.
Doug Lemov has a website—Teach Like a Champion—based on his first book by the same name, which was based on a study of top teachers in high-poverty public schools. He wrote a column recently on Rigor Collapse, a term that refers to what happens when the teacher asks a really hard question that the students can’t answer. What do you do? You “break it down” until the students are able to leap across that rigor gap. Instead of giving them the answer, you narrow the question until you arrive at the core of the misunderstanding. And then you reconnect to the broader question.
When students do get it, when they do succeed, celebrate. Don’t wait until the end of the six weeks — give students frequent feedback and recognition. Let them know they are doing a good job. Don’t just say “great job!” Give specific feedback explaining why it was good and how they might improve next time. Send a postcard or email home praising them. Display their work on a bulletin board or in the hall outside your room. Choose a student of the week. Reward them with a class job. They will reward you by trying even harder.
We are off to a great start, but we need to keep the momentum going. Refer back to your training, assess your students frequently, and reteach as needed. And don’t forget to celebrate your successes.
Thanks for all you have done, and have a great year!
Why attending school every day matters
September is Attendance Awareness Month, and starting next week, HISD will be launching a multimedia campaign to share information with parents about the risks of chronic absenteeism.
We’re not talking about a day or two lost here and there because of illness. We’re talking about children who miss 10 percent or more of the total number of school days in any given year—a serious impediment to learning.
According to the Attendance Works advocacy organization, research shows that 5 million to 7.5 million students are missing nearly a month of school every year and that these absences – excused or unexcused – add up to academic trouble. Too many absences in the early grades can leave children unable to master reading by the end of third grade, a key indicator of school success. By middle and high school, chronic absence becomes a red flag that a student may not graduate from high school.
Visit the Attendance Matters website to learn more about why coming to school every day is so important, and check the HISD website regularly next month for updates. You can also visit HISD’s budget website to learn how district funding is affected by daily attendance rates (.pdf).
