Birdville ISD Jazzfest
Birdville ISD’s Jazzfest featuring Wycliffe Gordon and the BISD All-Star Jazz Band is Feb. 7 at Richland High School.
Dinner begins at 6 p.m. and the concert at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 for dinner and the show. Tickets for only the show are $8 for adults and $5 for students (first-12th grade). For information, visit schools.birdvilleschools.net/jazzfest.
Birdville Education Foundation Tribute to Leadership
2011 Public Reporting of Progress in Meeting Highly Qualified Teacher Requirements
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that all core academic subject area teachers should have met the highly qualified (HQ) teacher requirements by the end of the 2006-07 school year. The core academic subjects are: English, reading/language arts, math, science, civics and government, economics, history, geography, foreign languages and fine arts (music, art, dance and theater).
NCLB requires each local education agency to publicly report progress toward meeting the HQ teacher requirements as defined by the State’s measurable highly qualified teacher objectives.
Birdville ISD is in compliance with the NCLB requirement and has reported that 100 percent of all core academic subject area teachers are highly qualified for 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.
Richland High School Receives College Readiness Recognition
Richland High School has received the “2011 College Readiness Award” from the Texas ACT Council for increasing the number of students taking the ACT Assessment over the past five years and significantly increasing their level of achievement and college readiness. The Texas ACT Council is comprised of secondary and postsecondary educators who advise ACT, Inc. on the utilization of ACT programs and services in Texas schools and colleges. ACT, Inc. is the not-for-profit organization that provides assessment, research, information, and program management services in the broad areas of education and workforce development and the publisher of the ACT Assessment. The ACT Assessment is the college admissions test that is used and accepted by all colleges nationwide and throughout Texas. In 2011, over 205,000 Texas students took the ACT which was an all-time high and Texas ACT scores have increased substantially over the last five years.
According to Karen L. Pennell, assistant vice president and ACT southwest regional manager: “The Texas ACT Council wanted to recognize those Texas high schools that have made significant strides in increasing the college readiness of their graduates as demonstrated by their ACT score increases over the past five years. This can only happen as a result of the high school’s faculty and staff efforts and the dedication of Richland High School students and parents to focus on college readiness and raise the level of college readiness for all students. Only 10 percent of all high schools in Texas were honored for this superior level of accomplishment. These outstanding Texas high schools should be proud of their faculty, staff, and students.”
The 2011 Texas School Ready! Certification Awards were announced recently by UTH Children’s Learning Institute.
Texas School Ready!™ is a program that certifies preschool education classrooms that effectively prepared their students for kindergarten. BISD teachers participated in this certification application through the Prekindergarten Early Start Grant during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years.
Birdville ISD 2011 Texas School Ready! Certification awarded to:
Birdville Elementary
Mick Sandoval, Principal
Laura Tippett and Yesmin Mejia, Teachers
W.T. Francisco Elementary
Janelle Rayfield, Principal
Priscila Lunsford and Rene Grimes, Teachers
Major Cheney Elementary at South Birdville
Han Arthurs, Principal
Judy Peresh and Vicki Miller, Teachers
Academy at West Birdville
Lindi Andrews, Principal
Margaret Estrada, Valarie King and Celestina Olguin, Teachers
Holiday Heights Elementary
Patrick Guy, Principal
Diana Gauthier and Maeghan Johnson
Watauga Elementary
Jennifer Salyards, Principal (Sharon Heier, Principal 2009-10)
Gloria Montemayor, Teacher
The Sunshine House
Angie Barton, Principal
Julie McElroy, Teacher
Carson Head Start
Monika Koenig, Principal
Rana Greathouse, Laura Guinn and Emily White
Prekindergarten teachers in Texas will be rewarded this week for their dedication to preparing students for kindergarten when their classrooms receive School Readiness Certification for the state of Texas.
For prekindergarten classrooms assessed from the 2009-2010 school year, 3,152 classrooms are receiving 2011-2012 certification through a legislatively-funded evaluation system operated by the Children’s Learning Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). More than 65 percent of eligible classrooms were certified.
“Texas School Readiness Certification demonstrates the dedication of local prekindergarten educators to ensure that all children are prepared to enter school,” said Susan Landry, Ph.D., Children’s Learning Institute Director and Albert and Margaret Alkek Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education. “This certification program continues to make a difference in children’s lives because of the support of parents, teachers and community and state leaders.”
To achieve certification, teachers at preschools and other early childhood education and development centers provide information about their classroom instructional practices. The results are then studied along with information provided by Texas public school districts to assess students’ early reading and social development skills after they advance to kindergarten. The annual certification shows that children who graduated from these prekindergarten classrooms went to public kindergarten with the fundamental early literacy skills in place to be successful. Licensed childcare providers, Head Start and public prekindergarten classrooms are included in the program.
The Prekindergarten Early Start Grant allowed our district to participate in the Texas School Ready! Certification system which was designed to increase school readiness for at-risk preschool-aged children. The PKES staff provided support throughout the certification process including extensive professional development, classroom mentoring for teachers and ongoing progress monitoring tools to help guide instruction.