School is just around the corner! HISD starts on Monday, August 25th, but many private schools have already started. Take advantage of the first, slow weeks of school to make sure your student has a strong framework for success. We will cover the following topics: Establishing a conducive study spaceRead More

One of the highlights of the Houston Independent School District’s recently passed 2014-215 budget is a renewed focus on reading instruction. Much public attention on the $1.74 billion plan has focused on the district’s decision to standardize funding for magnet schools based on the type and level of the school.Read More

As part of the $1.74 billion budget, a sharply divided Board of Education approved a new magnet school funding formula for the Houston Independent School District. The board split 5-4 over the program, with board members Juliet Stipeche, Harvin Moore, Michael Lunceford and Anna Eastman voting against the proposal. TheRead More

As part of its $1.68 billion budget unanimously approved by the Board of Education last week, the Houston Independent School district allocated $30 million to increase pay for teachers. A new teacher with the district will earn $49,100, a raise of 4.9 percent over the current $46,805 paid to newRead More

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) posted mixed results on the latest standardized test results. According to a district press release, HISD tended to show more improvements on the math sections of the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test, particularly for grades 3 through 8. Scores on theRead More

Administrators at the Houston Independent School District have made some slight adjustments to finalize their new magnet school funding mechanism. The new plan keeps the broad outlines of the revised plan presented at a budget workshop in May, keeping  proposed per-student allocations the same for most programs including the VanguardRead More

The Houston Independent School District has delayed a scheduled vote on a proposal to change its Magnet school funding program. The vote was scheduled for tonight’s  HISD Board of Education meeting, but will take place at next week’s meeting, when the board will vote on the district’s proposed 2014-15 budget.Read More

The Houston Independent School District has earned the platinum seal from the Texas State Comptroller’s Office Leadership Circle Program last week, recognizing its efforts to maintain financial transparency to taxpayers and voters. Sixty-two districts out of more than 1,000 in the state received platinum certification from the state. Other localRead More

HISD’s Scarborough High School is now offering a retail immersion course entitled “Etail/Retail,” which includes an on-campus Walmart mockup, as the class is sponsored by the well-known big box chain. The product of an idea from Tracy Davis, Director at University of Houston-Downtown’s Center for Retail Management, Etail/Retail includes lessonsRead More

A data analysis error has led to large revisions in the Texas non-profit advocacy group Children at Risk’s annual rankings of schools. The Houston Chronicle reported on May 19 that a miscalculation in the organization’s “growth index” rating led to the errors in the final rankings. The growth index measuresRead More

Under its May 15 budget proposal, the Houston Independent School District recommends a 3.4 percent raise for new teachers. The plan includes smaller raises for experienced teachers and eliminates elevated salaries for advanced-degree holders. During the current school year, teachers with less than four years’ experience are in step 1Read More

The Houston Independent School District has modified a controversial proposal to standardize future magnet school funding. During the April 24 budget workshop, HISD administration proposed eliminating extra funding for Vanguard programs that serve gifted and talented students to redistribute funding more equally across non-magnet schools. On May 15, the administrationRead More

The doors on each of The Emery/Weiner School’s instructional areas say “classroom” in both English and Hebrew. Students who go through the school’s entire middle and high school curriculum will study the language for at least two years and take required coursework in Judaic studies every year. Each senior classRead More

According its recent budget proposal, The Houston Independent School District will eliminate local magnet funding for its Vanguard schools that serve gifted and talented students in the district. The $3 million will be redistributed among zoned non-magnet schools to expand programming. “There are some schools that don’t receive any fundingRead More

The Spanish Embassy has honored Wharton Elementary School’s Dual Language Program as its School of the Year for the United States and Canada in 2013. The award for academic excellence in Spanish is given by the Education Office for the U.S. and Canada, which is a technical body of theRead More

A cheating scandal at two Houston Independent School District Elementary School deepened on Thursday, May 8, as the HISD Board of Education terminated five teachers from Jefferson Elementary School accused of “improperly assisting” students on statewide standardized tests, including the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. The five dismissalsRead More