AISD holds annual State of the District Breakfast

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Aldine ISD held its annual State of the District Breakfast and added a new twist as a number of district students took part in the event along with Superintendent Dr. Wanda Bamberg.

The event, held Friday, Jan. 23 at the Sheraton North Houston Hotel, took a look back at the 2013-14 school year and the challenges the district will face in the future.

Before the presentation began, U.S. Congressman Gene Green delivered remarks. Congressman Green’s wife Helen taught in the district for close to 30 years and their two children both graduated from Aldine High School.

“I just want you all to know how proud of Aldine I am,” the Congressman said. “You’re job is to educate the next generation of children just as you educated our children. I want to thank you Aldine for dong a great job to produce the next doctors and members of Congress.”

Davis High School senior Jayleesia Moore opened the program by introducing AISD Board Members, elected officials, and district stakeholders.

Following breakfast, Nimitz High senior Ebony James shared the district’s vision and mission statement.

Carver High School senior Bruce Westbrook followed up by sharing information about the district’s demographics. AISD’s enrollment for the current school year is 69,716 and should top 70,000 during the 2015-16 school year. Westbrook also announced that the district is 71% Hispanic, 26.6 Africa-American, and 1.9% Anglo. The district is 82.3% economically disadvantaged and 6.8% of its population is served by some type of Special Education program.

Dr. Bamberg then shared how the district’s students fared on the STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) test during the 2013-14 school year. “We are struggling compared to the state, but we are working hard to get to where we need to be,” she said.

She also announced that the district is dealing with reconstitution at three schools (Smith Elementary, Hall Center for Education and Nimitz High School). Reconstitution is a state-mandated process when a school is rated “Improvement Required” for two consecutive years. The district has submitted a plan for reorganization to the Texas Education Agency and as part of the process, must evaluate all staff and programs at each school.

The process is being overseen by the district’s School Improvement Officer, a Professional Service Provider and the district’s Support Officer.

MacArthur High senior Ida Hernandez then discussed that the class of 2015 will be the first in the state that will be required to meet not only the traditional graduation requirements, but also the additional requirement of passing the state’s five End of Course (EOC) assessments. Currently, 658 AISD seniors need to pass at least one test to graduate in June, while 51 need to pass all five tests. Hernandez told the audience that State Senator Kel Seliger has filed Senate Bill 149 to provide emergency and temporary measures to help students who meet all of the regular graduation requirements except for passing all five EOC’s with an opportunity to do additional work or projects to demonstrate mastery of an EOC course.

The district is also providing additional tutoring to assist those seniors.

Aldine High senior Marisol Diaz then provided the audience with the number of extra curricular activities AISD students have to choose from, such as performing arts, athletics, history fair, science fair, choir, band, and academic decathlon, just to name a few. She then introduced a video produced by AISD videographer Alyssa Duty titled, “The Faces of Aldine.”

The video featured a number of students on Dr. Bamberg’s Student Advisory Committee with one-on-one interviews, footage of them taking part in extra curricular activities and showed footage of them during an average day at school.

Eisenhower High senior Marco Medina then spoke on the Aldine Education Foundation (AEF) and what it accomplished during its second year of existence. During the 2013-14 school year, AEF awarded 149 scholarships from AEF and the Aldine Scholarship Foundation to AISD seniors. Additionally, AEF awarded eight teacher grants in excess of $31,000 last school year. Medina also shared with the audience that during the 2013-14 school year, AISD seniors received 1,140 scholarships worth $17.8 million. The district also received 79 grants totaling $1.5 million.

The audience then heard from three AISD students who spoke about their plans after high school. Victory Early College High School junior Oscar Cruz announced he wants to attend Texas A&M University and major in petroleum engineering, while Hall Center for Education junior Mariel Moreno plans to attend Lone Star College-North Harris for one year before hopefully attending the University of California to study medicine. Eisenhower High senior Bryttany McClendon-Weary hopes to attend Creighton University, Howard University or New York University to also study medicine.

Dr. Bamberg then provided an overview on the district’s finances, which are in good shape and announced that the district will open Cypress Point Elementary School in August of 2015-16 and a new Child Nutrition Center and Aldine Education Center, which will house COMPASS and GAP students. The Center is also expected to open in August of 2015.

Dr. Bamberg then spoke on what the district is doing to prepare for the future. She announced the district is beginning a strategic plan to look at what programs should be offered in the future, what the district’s facilities should look like and what the district should do to meet the technology needs of its students.

The district is working with DeJong-Richter and Jacob’s Engineering, who will be part of the strategic planning process. The community will also be involved in the process and two Community Dialogue meetings will be held in March and April.

Now that lawmakers are back in Austin for the 84th Legislative Session, Dr. Bamberg said the district would closely monitor the session and added the district hopes lawmakers provide full-day funding for Pre-K, full funding for instructional materials, provide funding to support recent arrivals and provide funding for facilities, and return local control to school districts.

“Today, we heard from some of the Nation’s Best,” she said, in reference to the students who took part in the breakfast. “We are so proud of them. I’m glad our students had the chance to share their stories with you.”

View a video of some of the students on the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Committee.

[vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/119868700″ width=”560″ height=”315″]
 [themeloy_button class=”btn_smallred” url=”https://aldineisd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/APR_English.pdf” text=”Download Annual Performance Report (English PDF)”] [themeloy_button class=”btn_smallred” url=”https://aldineisd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/APR_Spanish.pdf” text=”Download Annual Performance Report (Spanish PDF)”]  

View more images from the State of the District Breakfast below.