Regional Roundup

Kansas

There are more than a thousand school districts in Texas and each one has success stories. Regional Roundup highlights some of the achievements happening in our public schools.

3 Oklahoma

5

ELECTRA

6 1

WHITE OAK

YSLETA

IRION COUNTY

4

UNITED

2

GALENA PARK

Gulf of exicM

From Across the State

1Firing Up

White Oak ISD wants to give its students the opportunity to explore alternative career paths after high school, including fighting fires. A new year-long fire academy class partners White Oak ISD with Kilgore College and the White Oak Volunteer Fire Department to allow students to Arkansas learn and train to be firefighters after graduation. Once students complete the course, they then go to Kilgore College for two weeks to prepare for their certification exam, take the exam, and then finish as certified firefighters.

2Student Space Race

Galena Park ISD’s North Shore Senior High School hopes to soon be the alma mater of a future space engineer! A new aerospace engineering class Louisiana offered at the school allows students to build bigger and bigger rockets throughout the course of the class. Teachers help guide the class, but ultimately students choose who will lead the projects and thus lead the class. Galena Park ISD hopes its students will be inspired to pursue careers in STEM.

3Keeping Up with Kindness

At the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, the Ysleta ISD administration announced the start of a new Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum called Kindness in the Classroom. The SEL curriculum is being used to provide support for students as they transition back to an in-person environment after learning from home during the height of COVID-19. The program features 30-minute weekly lessons for pre-K through eighth grade students and incorporates monthly themes, including respect, caring, inclusiveness, and courage.

4Honoring a Hero

United ISD paid tribute to its fallen hero alumni. Lance Corporal David Lee Espinoza was a graduate from Lyndon B. Johnson High School in 2019 and one of the 13 American troops killed during a suicide bombing near Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport August 26, 2021. Espinoza was honored by the district during a ceremony in which a pair of boots and American flag was displayed for Espinoza and the 12 fallen soldiers.

5The Super Supplier

School supplies can be expensive—but they’re a necessary purchase for students and teachers. Luckily, thanks to a partnership between Electra ISD and the Electra Hospital District, each child in the school district will receive free school supplies this year! In a back-to-school event, students and families were able to pick up supplies including pencils, crayons, and paper at no cost to guardians. The school district hopes that setting children up with the materials they need right away will encourage them to succeed in the classroom.

6Cooking Up Some Team Building

Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned cookoff? Irion County ISD staff competed in the Irion County Iron Chef cooking competition! During this event, Irion County ISD staff were placed into teams to create the best dish for the judges. This was a fun, tasty way to encourage team building before the new school year began. Bravo, chefs!

Want to highlight your school district’s latest achievement? ATPE is always searching for the greatest happenings in Texas public schools. When something special is happening in your district, let us know! Send news to comm@atpe.org.