District News

Today, Sasha Cabral and Emily Tobar are college upperclassmen, political scholars, multimedia artists, global citizens, and pre-law professionals—each building a future shaped by the goals they once set for themselves as high schoolers in Houston ISD. 

As both near their graduation dates, they reflect on some helpful advice for the HISD students that come after them. 

Dual Language campuses seek to cultivate bilingual students by splitting the class times evenly between English and another language. By starting students as early as preK, the goal is to achieve academic and social bilingual proficiency by the time they reach fifth grade. 

The number of campuses offering the program have expanded from 47 to 105 in the last three years.

With 64% of students classified as English-learners at Revere Middle School—higher than the district average of 37%—a single classroom might hold speakers of Pashto, Turkish, and Arabic. Because students may not share a primary language with their peers or teachers, phonetic instruction gives everybody a common means to communicate while they are immersed in English-language classes. 

This spring, Northside High School's Great Depression-era May Day ceremony was revived just days after the campus received its first A rating from the Texas Education Agency, marking another moment of possibility for a school whose student body has transformed dramatically since its 1926 inception. 

What does it take to be ready for an AP exam? HISD NOW asked Westbury students who earned at least a 3 out of 5 on their most recent AP test to share what they learned—and their advice for students preparing to take one.