Tis the season for championship academic competitions. And while not as well known as UIL or quiz bowl, the inaugural Vocabulary.com  Vocabulary Bowl was notable this year for crowning a champion from Houston. Chavez High School students won the national championship with a collective total of 303, 387 points amassedRead More

Earlier this week, HISD announced the first concrete programs created under the Arts Access Initiative. The initiative, which is organized by the local nonprofit Young Audiences of Houston, focuses on creating opportunities for arts education in Houston’s public schools. In 2013-2014, the initiative conducted preliminary research in HISD K-8 schools. InformedRead More

A large portion of the STAAR tests, which are mandated for public school students in grades 3-12, will be administered next week for the elementary and middle school levels. Students in grades 3-8 will be tested in math. Students in grades 3-4 and 6-7 will be tested in reading, andRead More

For high school seniors and magnet school applicants, acceptance season is here. Universities have issued their  initial round of acceptance offers; students with offers from multiple schools have until May 1 to decide where they will attend. Meanwhile, in HISD, students were notified of their magnet admission status in mid-March;Read More

The newest school to be profiled on the Houston School Survey is the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (HSLECJ). HSLECJ was founded in 1981 by Dr. Judy Morris. The institution was originally designed to serve students interested in law enforcement careers and to encourage recruitment of more minoritiesRead More

If your child was accepted to an HISD magnet school this year, congratulations! And don’t forget – this Friday, April 10, is the deadline to claim their spot. To get details on how to secure your child’s spot, visit HISD’s magnet application page or login to your online application. ToRead More

It’s a sad fact that socioeconomically disadvantaged students are less likely to attend college than their wealthier counterparts. Not only that, but when they do pursue higher education, they’re less likely to apply to and attend elite schools. A recent feature on NPR addressed the phenomenon of “undermatching,” the tendencyRead More

Last month, HSPVA principal R. Scott Allen was among those chosen to attend the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s first annual “Closing the Excellence Gap” education summit. At the summit, more than 100 high school principals met with education researchers, Department of Education officials, and other experts and interested parties. TheRead More

Two weeks ago, HISD Superintendent Terry Grier gave his annual State of the Schools address, in which he discussed strides the district has made in the past year and revealed plans to make further progress in the coming year. The most prominent announcements this year dealt with programs undergoing considerableRead More

It’s no secret that HISD is home to some of the best public schools in the country. The excellence of the district’s offerings was reaffirmed this month with the publication of the Washington Post‘s annual list of the most challenging schools in America. Two-thirds of HISD’s high schools made theRead More

In 2014, HISD partnered with myON, a service of Capstone Publishing which allows students to access hundreds of books online for free. The partnership was intended to support the Literacy by Three program, which stresses full literacy by the end of third grade, and the Read Houston Read program, whichRead More

The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, or HSPVA, was among the first magnet schools in HISD. And while many people assume that fine arts schools are less academically rigorous, the opposite is true of HSPVA – it challenges students both artistically and academically. It is ranked 19thRead More

The Texas Education Agency published its annual Public Education Grant list which is used to rate which schools across the state require improvement. Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, topped the list with 86 different elementary, middle and high schools requiring improvement due to low test scores and other factors contributingRead More

As students return to class from holiday celebrations, several new educators are starting new positions in HISD beginning in 2015.   New Principals: Steve Guerrero will start as the new principal of Austin High School, filling the position after Jorge Arredondo’s move to HISD’s Central Office. This leaves Guerrero’s previousRead More

HISD last week announced plans to build three new school buildings not covered in the 2012 bond budget. The district plans to raise $128.7 million over the next five years to fund the construction of new facilities for North Forest High School and the recently-opened Energy Institute High School, asRead More

The HISD PowerUp Initiative, which began implementation in the summer of 2013, will reach a dramatic milestone in January. The three-prong initiative is intended to improve learning through technology by improving access to linked learning, creating a comprehensive web portal as a resource for students, and, most impressively, by makingRead More