A letter of thanks for a great first day
Below is a letter that Dr. Grier sent out to community leaders via email on Aug. 27.
Dear HISD Community:
Thanks for everything you have done to help us get the new school year started off right!
It’s because of your support and our staff’s strong effort that we have been getting rave reviews. This is not by accident. All the time we put in this summer to make sure that every classroom was prepared to offer rigorous teaching and a safe, comfortable environment has paid off.
We opened the school year with 99.7 percent of our classrooms staffed, thanks to the efforts of our principals and our Human Resources Department. Focused on filling vacancies with quality teaching candidates and providing great professional development opportunities to both new and returning teachers over the summer, HISD started this school year off on a very strong note.
We also welcomed seven North Forest community schools that have been completely transformed in less than two months’ time. A special thanks to our Construction and Facilities Services Department for their hard work. They have created warm, welcoming school environments for the student in the North Forest community that we can all be proud of.
We are also proud of our two new magnet schools that are unlike any others in the nation. These two schools – the Energy Institute High School and the Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan – are at full capacity in their inaugural years. We also opened two new neighborhood elementary schools – Atherton and Dogan – without a hitch, and the communities they serve could not be more pleased with their modern new 21st Century campuses.
Again, Monday was a banner day for HISD—and lots of people noticed. But don’t just take my word for it. Click here to read and hear some of the many positive things people are saying about us. This praise rightly belongs to our wonderful staff, so I wanted to take a moment to brag about them.
We still have much work ahead of us, but thanks to the entire community, every child in HISD felt valued and important on the first day of school, and that’s what it takes to become great all over.
Thank you.
A new school year and the path to greatness
Next week, our students will begin a brand new school year, and we’ve got a lot to be excited about.
Students at Dogan and Atherton elementary schools will be returning to brand new facilities on Monday thanks to the 2007 bond, and those attending Sherman Elementary School will be moving into a new one by the end of September.
At the secondary level, students now have an exciting new option to consider—the first-of-its-kind Energy Institute High School, and at 11 high schools across the district, they will be receiving laptops through HISD’s ambitious PowerUp initiative. We’ll also learn later this year if HISD has been selected as the 2013 winner of the Broad Prize, which brings with it quite a bit of money in college scholarships.
Our faculty and staff members have been preparing all summer for the new school year, and I can’t wait to see where this one will take us. I wish everyone on Team HISD success as we begin the next leg of our journey together, on the path to becoming great all over.
Two programs power a new way of learning
A few weeks ago, I talked about how a change in the way our students learn is driving a shift in the way we design schools to serve them. But it’s also changing the way we deliver instruction, and the way we structure partnerships with businesses and other community members.
The hyper-connected world we live in demands graduates who are tech-savvy, yet flexible enough to adapt easily to the next big thing. To fully bridge the digital divide, students need portable personal-computing devices and any-time access to the Internet. They also need exposure to real-world careers, and the field-specific knowledge that is necessary to succeed in growing industries.
Two exciting things happened this week that will help fulfill those needs. First, teachers at 11 of our campuses began receiving laptops through the district’s PowerUp initiative, and next January, 17,000 high school students will also receive theirs. By the end of the 2014–2015 school year, all of our high school students will have one to take home, and we can’t wait to see the way this improves the high-school experience for them.
We also formally opened our new Energy Institute High School, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between HISD, Petroluem Equipment Suppliers Association, and members of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Through this partnership, students will receive rigorous, STEM-based instruction, get hands-on learning experiences, and land externships in the fields of geoscience, alternative energy, and offshore technology with industry leaders.
A new era demands a new model of delivering instruction and handling partnerships, and that’s why these two developments have me so excited. The old ways are just not going to cut it anymore, but HISD is staying on the frontier of public education by transforming the way we do business—both inside and outside the classroom.
Why it’s important for all of us to practice
At our annual Welcome Back event at Chávez High School, where principals, assistant principals, and support staff gather to greet new faces and get energized for the coming year, we heard a rousing speech from our new Leadership Development officer, Alan Hooker.
He challenged us to “dream beyond our circumstances,” and outlined four steps to becoming great all over:
- Picture your dream
- Plan it
- Practice it
- Go after it!
All summer across our district, teachers, principals, support staff, and students have been practicing away. Getting geared up for PowerUp—our laptop program that launches this year in 11 pilot schools—brought tech-savvy teachers together for training. On Monday, those teachers will get their laptops, and we couldn’t be more excited about how this will transform instruction in their classrooms.
In about a week, 13,000 teachers will participate in the Rigor Institute, which will help students receive rigorous instruction every day in every classroom. Our school bus drivers learned from the Houston Fire Department how to respond to emergencies during realistic rescue drills—these photos are unbelievable.
Even our students have been practicing. About 100 students attended a four-week SAT boot camp, and some of them saw scores improve by 600 points.
That’s why we practice—it pushes us closer to our dreams.
Providing teachers with the support they need to excel
It’s amazing what people can do when they feel properly supported. No matter how prepared someone may be for a particular task, few things are as intimidating as facing a challenge alone. Sometimes just knowing that additional resources are available can give people the courage they need to press on in the face of adversity.
This week, hundreds of new teachers came together at the Houston Independent School District’s New Teachers Academy, and I was pleased to hear how many of them cited our support structure as one of the reasons they joined Team HISD.
Lonny Harris, who will teach English as a Second Language at Austin High School this fall, said, “I chose to come here because HISD gives its teachers an excellent support system—and because there are lots of opportunities available for good teachers.”
HISD has a robust support network in place to bring out the best in its teachers. Our instructors can take comfort in knowing that they are supported by a cadre of veteran educators who stand ready to provide them with whatever they need—whether it be encouragement, guidance, or simply the benefit of their own experiences.
You can read more about how we support great teaching through HISD’s Effective Teachers Initiative by clicking here.
Having a highly effective teacher in every classroom is one of HISD’s commitments to the Houston community, because we know that no other single factor has more impact on a child’s academic success than the quality of our teachers. Houston is a thriving city on a strong upward trajectory, and the teachers who do such a great job of preparing each new generation of leaders are a big reason why.
EMERGE inspires our kids, opens doors to top colleges
Whenever I see our students reaching a little higher and pushing a little further to achieve their dreams, it inspires me to think about how we can best support them along the way. I want HISD to be continually opening doors for students, encouraging them to dream big, and equipping them with the tools they need to get where they’re going, both in their education and in life.
That’s one of the reasons I was so glad this week for the chance to visit and talk to students participating in the EMERGE Institute program at Rice University. I wrote not too long ago about the 80 HISD students who took a tour of seven Ivy League and Tier I colleges through the EMERGE program. Programs like this are teaching our kids that they can reach for the stars, even if those stars seem a long way off. Our kids are learning that attending a top school can be a real possibility for them, even if they can’t imagine where the money will come from, or if no one in their family has ever attended college before.
And EMERGE is doing more than just inspiring our kids to dream big, it’s also working to give them practical tools, and helping them to develop a map and a plan for how to get from “Point A” to “Point B.” The journey to college can be filled with unfamiliar territory, and even the most resourceful families often run into roadblocks and confusion along the way. At the EMERGE Institute at Rice this week, about 70 top-performing, low-income rising HISD seniors got a lesson in how to translate big dreams into big actions. They attended sessions on navigating the college application landscape, on writing personal statements, and on acing the interview process – and they did it while staying in the Rice University dorms and getting a feel for life on a college campus.
The hard work these kids are putting in and the incredible support they’re getting from the EMERGE Foundation are inspiring me this week, and they should inspire you, too. As is so often the case in education, our kids are teaching us a valuable lesson! It’s great to dream big, and we should all do it more often. But it’s also important to plan and take action and get to work on making our dreams a reality.
Taking education into the next century
It’s been said that one of the only constants in life is change, and never has that been more true than now for us in public education.
We can’t expect today’s schools to look like the ones we attended when we were young. The world has gone digital, and we have to change with the times if we are going to produce graduates who are not only comfortable with technology, but also ready for the challenges they will face in the global economy.
HISD is already working hard to bring the campus of tomorrow to our students today. We are considering everything from acoustics and safety to furniture and sustainability in the plans for our new schools. We are looking at how libraries have changed, how new technology is used, and we are even touring other school districts with new facilities for ideas and inspiration.
This fall, we will also be launching the first stage of our PowerUp program, whose goal is to close the digital divide by eventually providing every HISD student in grades 3 through 12 with a laptop they can use in school and at home.
As I mentioned in my State of the Schools address earlier this year, this is not a case of trying to keep up with the Joneses. We are on the cusp of a new era in education, and it’s one in which we plan to be a leader.
The importance of having the right tools for the job
You wouldn’t send a firefighter into a burning building without a heat-resistant suit, a heavy-duty water hose, and lots of training on how to squelch flames in different situations, because doing that job effectively requires a very specific set of skills and equipment.
The same principle applies when it comes to our campus leaders. To be successful, our principals need every tool at their disposal to do their jobs well—and whether it’s a digital dashboard that provides at-a-glance student achievement snapshots, guidance on how to create dynamic professional learning communities, or training on how to manage various budget strings, we aim to provide as many as we can.
One of the ways we set the stage for principals’ success is with the New and Emerging Leaders Institute, which started this week and lasts through early August. This marks the second year for HISD to conduct this event, which gives first-year and up-and-coming principals valuable tips and insights into how to manage their campuses.
Since September 2012, more than 50 aspiring campus leaders have been promoted to principals in HISD. The majority of these were internal candidates who were already serving in other administrative roles, such as assistant principal or dean. Please join me in wishing these Team HISD members well as they assume their new positions. I know that as a district, we will be doing everything we can to ensure their success.
The importance of dreaming big…for all of our students
As educators, one of the most important things we do every day is to show doubtful students that earning a college degree is not just a wild dream.
Even if no one else in their family has ever pursued higher education, and even if they cannot imagine how they will pay for it, our goal is to make sure every child graduates from high school utterly convinced that college is not just a possibility, but a certainty.
That’s why I could not be more pleased to hear about the trip 80 students from five of our high schools took earlier this month through the EMERGE program. These young people went on a whirlwind tour of seven Ivy League and Tier I colleges, including Harvard, Yale, and MIT, in only six days. At several, they got a chance to talk with students who had just completed their first year of college.
One of the best things to come out of those visits was the realization that the prospect of attending an Ivy League or Tier I school is an attainable dream for many of our students. Before that trip, one said that she had imagined those schools to be out of her reach, but after speaking with her peers and hearing what they had to say, she realized that it was a distinct possibility for her, too.
And helping our students reach for the stars is what “becoming great all over” is all about.
No matter how high the quality of instruction is in any given classroom, if children don’t feel safe enough to focus on what’s being taught there, they are not going to learn the material as well as they should.
“Safety Above All Else” has long been HISD’s top core value. That’s why the theme of this year’s Summer Leadership Institute is how “Becoming Great All Over” is connected to rigorous and consistent instruction and school safety.
At this annual event, principals, assistant principals, deans, and other members of Team HISD who serve in leadership roles get to hear from respected national experts in the field of education. They also discover new strategies for creating friendly, positive learning environments at their campuses in which both students and staff members feel safe and fully supported.
HISD is committed to keeping its facilities secure. That’s why we have our own, fully certified police force, and about 175 police officers patrolling our campuses. In addition, we have more than 12,000 security cameras in place at facilities across the district, and more than $17 million from the 2012 bond program has been earmarked for security, including fencing and other access controls. We also have a group of field safety officers who make unannounced campus visits throughout the year to test schools’ adherence to established safety procedures.
In addition, the Board of Education strengthened HISD’s existing bullying policy in 2011 and many of our schools have campus-based anti-bullying programs in place. About three dozen of our schools have also completed the Anti-Defamation League’s requirements to become “No Place for Hate” campuses.
Clearly, our efforts are working, as crime statistics continue to drop. During the 2012–2013 school year, HISD campuses reported 3,131 crimes, compared with 4,242 the previous year and 5,135 the year before that.
We still have work to do so that every child in Houston feels safe and secure every day they spend in our classrooms. I am confident that we can make this happen as we continue pulling together as a community for our children’s sake.
