Friday, December 21, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Questions raised after differences in school's punishment for teen and boy
The 10-year-old boy's family says he was taken into custody Wednesday at Emmott Elementary School. They're asking whether the school district is equally applying its own zero-tolerance discipline policy.
Anna Patterson says she watched in disbelief Wednesday as her 10-year-old great-grandson was hauled away from Emmott Elementary to juvenile detention.
"I was really hurt," she said. "I couldn't believe that they were going to, you know, take him down. I was really hurt."
Cy-Fair ISD says Darrin Banks caused chaos inside his classroom. They accuse him of vandalizing school property. A district spokesperson also says, "Assaulting a public servant is against the law."
However she couldn't say if the teacher was hurt. Still, compare this incident to that which we reported at Cy Creek High School just a day ago. A student there was neither detained nor expelled, even though he allegedly shot another student on campus in the face with a pellet gun. The district tells us a pellet gun is not on a list of prohibited weapons in the student handbook.
Patterson doesn't see equal application of discipline in these cases.
"I would have thought that they would've been arrested," she said.
Patterson admits Banks has been suspended repeatedly from school. The school district meantime says there are "some inaccuracies in the information" Patterson is claiming. Privacy laws however prohibit Cy-Fair ISD from specifying what those might be.
Patterson says her great-grandson has ADHD and takes medication for it. The 10-year-old Banks remained in custody Thursday night at the juvenile justice center downtown. Privacy laws keep officials from telling us what charges, if any, he actually faces. A court hearing is set for Friday morning.
(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »local, kevin quinn
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Schools incorporating smart devices in learning
Whether it's a smart phone or an iPad, mobile devices are part of our daily lives. And it's the world our children our growing up in. So four years ago, administrators in Katy ISD started planning for the future.
"For us it was not about the device, it was changing instruction. That was our goal. We wanted to philosophically change how we were instructing in the classroom," Katy ISD Chief Information Officer Lenny Schad said.
In 2011, 'Project: Bring Your Own Device' became reality.
"I think we have seen phones evolve from just the phone that maybe you had 20 years ago to just being able to make calls to where it was a useful thing within the classroom, to where you can look up that information instantaneously," third grade teacher Teri Howerton said.
All at once, nearly 60,000 students from second to 12th grades would have access to a filtered WiFi network.
"When you start bringing in devices and web 2.0 tools, the roles start changing. Now you have students in front of the class telling the rest of the class and teachers, here's how you do something in this device or here is how you do something on this web 2.0 tool," Schad said. "So you have teachers actually learning from the students and the beautiful part about that is they're comfortable with this."
"I think they're definitely more engaged and I think what's cool as the teacher is that the author hasn't changed the words. You have just changed the medium. And the kids are way more excited about looking at something through an e-reader, an iPad or something like that than they might be a book," Howerton said.
And while teachers were excited about the change, parents had some concerns.
"My first thought was there's no way these children are ready to take on the responsibility of these devices, much less get any kind of benefit from having them at school as a distraction," mother Rebecca Cortez said.
"It's like your playing on a phone kind of but you have lots of math things, social studies, readings, stuff like that," sixth grader Micah Cortez said.
"It kind of slapped me in the face where they started learning more responsibility with them," Rebecca said.
For now, the district will not be supplying the devices; that's up to parents. And for those students who don't have a smart device, they can team up with a classmate.
"There were a couple things that we were concerned about, equity being one of them and we never approached bring-your-own-device as an equity solution," Schad said.
Ultimately, Katy ISD hopes to become a model for mobile learning. As they move toward the future, they're confident this is quickly becoming the way kids learn.
Katy ISD is not alone. There are other school districts in the area moving towards mobile learning, including Spring ISD. They're asking for donations of old smart phones, to be used in a pilot program this year.
-- See if you would like to see if your school district is using mobile learning.
(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »local, ilona carson
Friday, June 22, 2012
HISD bond would rebuild schools
The plan calls for $1.9 billion, and no matter what you spend that kind of money on, it is a lot of cash. The school board is proposing spending that money to renovate dozens of schools. It's mostly targeting high schools, with $1.3 billion of the money spent to rebuilt 14 high schools.
If voters agree to increase their own taxes for decades to come, a number of high schools will soon be history. Lee, Yates, Sharpstown, the High School for Performing and Visual Arts and four others are all set to be torn down and rebuilt. It's part of a nearly $2 billion bond program Houston home and business owners will soon be asked to pay for.
HISD Superintendent Dr. Terry Grier said, "This is a good investment. This is good for Houston. When you start replacing this number of high schools, it can change an entire city."
HISD says its aging buildings are too old for school. A consultant hired by the board says Houston high schools are eight years older than the national average, and the rest of the schools are right at it.
Susan Zoeller with Parsons Engineering said, "You have aging buildings. 1925 I think is the oldest one? Tthings have changed since 1925."
At the same time, the consultant admits this is a huge proposal -- maybe a little too big.
"Few school districts in the country would take this on," Zoeller said.
"I'm pretty concerned by the size of this," said former tax assessor collector Paul Bettencourt. "I question in an economy that's soft, even certainly nationally, why we're going for such a huge amount of money all at one time."
Already there is some opposition, not necessarily to the need, but for the size of the program. The $1.9 billion is twice what the district asked for just five years ago. For an average $200,000 home in HISD, that's $91 in extra school taxes every year for decades.
"If you have a brand new school, the value of your home goes up," Dr. Grier said.
Your choice -- $100 for 30 years for a new school in your neighborhood. Voters will likely be asked in November. A poll commissioned by an outside group for the school district said about 48 percent of Houstonians already support it.
View a map of the school campuses HISD proposes to have completely rebuilt, partially replaced, renovated, converted and expanded.
The proposal calls for $1.67 billion to be spent on improvements at 42 schools. According to HISD, this would cover: (Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more In Focus »
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Sunday, June 3, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Murder suspect who forced lockdown of four Houston area schools earlier this month arrested in Virginia
On Wednesday, police in Virginia arrested Zumbotha Newsome. 
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We have an update on the search for a murder suspect who forced the lockdown of four schools earlier this month. On Wednesday, police in Virginia arrested Zumbotha Newsome. Deputies have been searching for Newsome in connection to a deadly road rage incident in April. He disappeared in north Harris County earlier this month.
Four Klein ISD schools were locked down as deputies searched an area where he was possibly sighted.
It's not yet clear when he will be transferred from Virginia to Texas.
(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »local
Friday, May 11, 2012
FBI investigating suspicious packages at Crockett and Bush elementary schools
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Envelopes with a mysterious white powder inside were sent to two local elementary schools yesterday. The FBI is now looking for a possible connection between the two incidents. Field tests on the substance came back negative for any hazardous substance, but the FBI will do some additional testing.
Emergency crews and the FBI were called out to Crockett Elementary School in the First Ward yesterday morning, and then to Bush Elementary School in far west Houston in the afternoon. In both cases, an envelope with a suspicious substance inside was sent to the school.
At Crockett, a administrative assistant opened an envelope in an office area of the school and saw a powder-like substance inside. As a precaution, the office area was isolated and the air conditioning turned off. Students were kept in their classes during the investigation, but were not evacuated.
The scene was cleared about an hour later and there was said to be no danger to students.
Then yesterday afternoon, a suspicious substance was found in an envelope at Bush Elementary School in west Houston at around 1pm. HISD police and HFD are investigating.
According to the FBI, they will perform further tests to determine if it's the same substance that was found in other envelopes around Texas this week.
Students took letters home to their parents yesterday informing them that a white powder was sent in envelopes to their schools.
HISD sent out an email alert to its principals yesterday afternoon.
"Fortunately, the principal here at Bush read that email and as she was checking her mail, came across a letter that seemed to meet the description of what the others had looked like, so she immediately put it down; she did not open it. She cut off the air conditioning in the school, according to procedure," said HISD Spokesperson Jason Spencer.
School at Bush Elementary let out at the regular time Wednesday, although parents arrived to find a HazMat truck parked in front.
There were no injuries, but obviously a lot of parents were concerned.
This is the third such incident in the last year and a half. Last May, a white substance was found in a letter at John Paul II Catholic School in west Houston, but it turned out to be harmless silicone. In October 2010, more than a dozen HISD campuses found envelopes with a white powder inside.
Other Texas schools affected today, yesterday
Seven schools and a church in the Dallas area received white powder filled envelopes yesterday and today. This morning, the administrator of a Dallas preschool opened a powder-filled letter. The administrator put the letter in a plastic bag and called 911.
The administrator was taken to the hospital for observation. Ten staff members and a class full of children ages three to five years old were evacuated from the school as a precaution.
"They weren't exposed to anything, but it's only because we don't have another classroom to put them in here at this facility; we have to go ahead and send them home today," said Gayle Nave, Executive Director of Mi Escuelita Preschool.
On Tuesday, five schools and a church in five different Dallas area cities received threatening letters with what turned out to be non life-threatening powder. It's not known if the North Texas and Houston cases are related.
(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »houston isd, local
Thursday, May 10, 2012
High marks for HISD schools
HOUSTON -- Eight Houston ISD high schools are among Texas' top 100 in US News' Best High Schools Rankings issued today, and six HISD schools are listed among the nation's top 400.
The magazine produced the rankings based on an analysis of data from nearly 22,000 US high schools. The rankings' methodology gives considerable weight to the percentage of graduates who are considered college-ready based on students' performance on college-level Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams. Using the magazine's standard, 27 of HISD's 33 rated high schools -- 82 percent -- meet or exceed the state average when it comes to college readiness.
The rankings are based on data from the 2009-2010 school year, when the Board of Education and Superintendent Terry Grier launched an aggressive expansion of the district's AP program in all high schools. Since then, the number of AP exams scored 3 or higher (the generally accepted passing score) has increased 35 percent.
"This is great news as we celebrate National Teacher Day," Dr. Grier said. "Teachers across HISD are proving that the AP program is not just for the academically elite students. AP is for prepared students."
The news also comes on the heels of the latest Children at Risk rankings of Texas high schools that included eight HISD campuses among the top 50.
In addition, the strong all-around performance of HISD students has placed the district among four national finalists for the coveted Broad Prize for Urban Education, which recognizes the top urban school district in America. As a finalist, HISD is guaranteed a minimum of $150,000 in college scholarships for students graduating in 2013. The scholarship total will climb to $550,000 if HISD wins the award.
The nine HISD schools that earned spots in the magazine's national rankings were: Carnegie Vanguard (U.S. rank: 33; Texas rank: 3)DeBakey High School for Health Professions (U.S.: 36; Texas: 4)Eastwood Academy (U.S.: 121; Texas: 14)Bellaire (U.S.: 349; Texas: 29)Lamar (U.S.: 376; Texas: 32)The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (U.S.: 377; Texas: 33)High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (U.S.: 950: Texas: 81)Challenge Early High School (U.S.: 1,069; Texas: 90)Empowerment College Prep (U.S.: 1,947; Texas 159)
Get more In the Classroom »
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Friday, May 4, 2012
Lockdown lifted at four Klein ISD schools; search continues for murder suspect
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Four Klein ISD schools were put on lockdown Wednesday afternoon as authorities searched for an armed murder suspect. The lockdown was in effect for about two hours and was finally lifted shortly after 4pm, Klein ISD says. The schools affected were Klein High School, Klein Annex, Kleb Intermediate and Mittelstadt Elementary.
The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office says the search for the murder suspect, who was believed to have a gun, began near York Minster and Wimbledon Estates after investigators say a tip led them to the area. The suspect was spotted getting into a vehicle. A Precinct 4 deputy constable tried to stop him and that's when the suspect got out of the vehicle and fled on foot.
The suspect, Zumbotha Newsome, is wanted in connection with a fatal road rage case from April 15 in northwest Houston. That crime happened in the area of 34th Street and Bella Vista.
Newsome, 36, is described as a black male about 5-foot-9, 200 pounds, with a scar on his forehead. He also sports tattoos on his left and right arms. Newsome also goes by the alias Michael Ray Bunn.
"We're asking anybody if they've seen anybody about 5'9", 200 pounds, black male wearing black T-shirt and black shorts to go ahead and either call Crime Stoppers or call 911," said Alfredo Perez with the U.S. Marshals.
Perez says Newsome is considered armed and dangerous.
Stay with Eyewitness News and abc13.com for the latest on this developing story.
(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »local