District trumpets launch of 180 plan
Community at heart of program to boost schools
The hook of fanfare, food and fun drew the Sunnyside community Saturday to learn more about Achieve 180, the Houston Independent School District’s ambitious new strategy to increase the academic vigor of underperforming schools.
A parade followed by a resource fair at Worthing High School — tagged on social media as #SouthsideTakeover — served as critical pieces of the all-in plan to resolve longstanding academic issues at nearly three dozen HISD schools.
Achieve 180 is a turnaround plan for 32 campuses announced by HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza in April and funded by trustees in June.
The plan aims to create learning environments with high expectations and to ensure that each school has a nurse, counselor and librarian. The framework for school transformations rests on six pillars: leadership excellence, teaching excellence, instructional excellence, school design, social and emotional learning support, and family and community empowerment.
Carranza, who showed up in a 10-gallon hat, could hardly move around campus amid ongoing handshakes and hugs. He said Achieve 180 is a “movement” expected to include more than 1,000 teachers, 20,000 students and their families.
“This is pillar six of our Achieve 180 plan —
empowering the community, not just engaging. … It’s important because this is what we need to do to reconnect with our communities to make our communities understand that they own our schools. This is their school,” he said. “This is a celebration — but if you think we’re celebrating now — wait until a year from now, when Worthing High School is out of Improvement Required status and they are just academically accelerating. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s what we’ll be talking about next year.”
Achieve 180 also seeks to distribute resources from “an equity perspective,” according to Carranza. This move may address criticisms that these schools became less attractive to families as programs were removed, which led to students seeking transfers away from neighborhood campuses.
“The schools that have been underperforming have not had all of the essential pieces in order for a school to be successful,” said Felicia Adams, the school support officer assigned to manage the turnaround strategy. “We want the community to see that there are good schools in our community … and that they can come back to those schools. A lot of them have left because they are underperforming.”
For the first time, HISD will have a universal digital assessment tool available to every student in kindergarten through 12th grade to determine their instructional needs, Adams said, and Achieve 180 schools with have unprecedented Advanced Placement offerings in addition to on-level and intervention courses to meet the needs of every child. Achieve 180 teachers will have two hours of additional professional development every Wednesday to improve their instructional practices.
“Houston has established cross-functional support teams and has set up professional learning communities that are working together to ensure that we are not just providing an ordinary plan. It’s something totally different that Houston has never done before,” Adams said by telephone Saturday. “We monitoring the results. We’re customizing the support. We’re problem-solving. We’re sharing our expertise and assessing our practices. Nobody is working in isolation.”
For many, Saturday was their first visit to the reincarnated Worthing campus at Reed and Scott, which is under renovation.
Exhibitors included community-based nonprofit organizations, such as the Houston Area Urban League and the Worthing alumni association. The Houston Health Department offered free immunizations. Giveaways included bookbags, school supplies and uniforms. Elected officials handed out goodies. Outside, food trucks sold seafood dinners and snow cones.
Lorine Robinson, of Sunnyside, found about the event while registering her 5-year-old grandson, Javon Rogers, for kindergarten at Reynolds Elementary — a school in the Worthing feeder pattern. She received a backpack and one uniform to check off her needed supplies list.
“I’m glad they are getting the community involved,” the home health care worker said.
Ray Eli, a 1971 Worthing alumnus and home builder, said he wants the community to provide more support to the campus and stop blaming teachers for school performance issues.
“We’re meeting the students along with the parents and finding out the needs. You can’t supply all the needs, but you can give them avenues. I really applaud this,” he said. “The community has to get involved. The new school is great, but we’ve got to get these students back on track.”
Tanliesa Turner, a 31-year-old health care provider, is raising her three children and two more who belong to her sister.
“When I registered my kids at Woodson, they gave me the flyer about this event. It was so convenient for me. It helped me out a lot,” the Sunnyside mother said. She left with school supplies and information about where to go for uniforms in the right sizes.
“I was surprised they were actually doing something in the community like this,” Turner said. “It’s just so helpful.”