Isaac Daniels has been selected as the new principal of Hobby Elementary School. Daniels has been an educator for 11 years and has served in various roles, from teacher to assistant principal. He began his career in HISD as a science teacher before becoming a teacher development specialist to support teachers in science, math and English language arts. Since 2016, he has served as the assistant principal at Gregory Lincoln Elementary Center. Daniels earned his bachelor’s degree in pre-medical biology from Texas Southern University and his master’s degree in educational leadership from University of St. Thomas.
Thanks to the Moran Norris Foundation and artist Fernando Romero, dozens of HISD elementary students had a chance to create new murals at their schools in early September.
Wearing face masks, the students learned how to apply spray paint under the direction of Romero, a former graffiti artist from New York City, and Moran Norris, a retired NFL player who enjoys giving back to his community. Moran and his wife Tamara established their foundation to help students succeed.
HISD is expanding its successful dual language program to 21 more campuses in 2015–2016, launching thousands of additional pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students on the road to learning a second language. Currently, 31 HISD schools offer a Spanish dual language program.
Starting in August, kindergarten students — and pre-kindergarten students, at some schools — will be learning in both English and Spanish. One grade will be added to the program each year until it reaches school-wide.Continue reading
Six months ago, Lauren Paquette was teaching in North Carolina and living at the poverty level with her husband and son. Now, that’s all changed.
“We started realizing, ‘We can’t afford to live here anymore,’” explains the Hobby Elementary School fourth-grade teacher. “I saw that HISD was coming back to Charlotte, and I said, ‘You know what, let’s just go and see what happens.’”
That was this past July, and within weeks of meeting with HISD’s Teacher Recruitment team, Paquette had packed up her classroom and headed to Houston.
“For me, it was a $20,000 raise, and that’s huge,” said Paquette. “It’s almost a whole other salary.”
Fall is always a time for adjusting to new routines, as the regular academic year gets underway. But in HISD, many students also spent the first five weeks of the new school year adjusting to a new method of reading.
“Principled habits,” which are a part of the district’s Literacy By 3 movement, are designed to allow students to build literacy skills independently while their teacher works with smaller groups of students. Continue reading
What do a national judo champion and a member of an up-and-coming European band have in common? They’re both bilingual teachers in HISD!
The district has been hiring highly qualified bilingual teachers from Spain to fill critical shortage areas in HISD through a partnership with that country’s Ministry of Education since 1997—and Blanco “Miguel” Lopez (Law ES) and Juan Luis Alonso-Benito (Coop ES) are two of them. Continue reading