SBISD Convocation 2015

On August 14th, SBISD held Convocation 2015, to mark the start of the school year, our new Core Values, and our first school year with the leadership of Dr. Scott Muri. Convocation included speechs and performances from many SBISD students, from elementary through high school. This also included a band performance by students from the four traditional SBISD high schools; Memorial, North Brook, Spring Woods, and Stratford.

Speakers included a WAIS class of 2016 student, Josh McCune, who shared about the difference his studies at WAIS have made on him, not only educationally, but also as a person.

Josh McCune with Dr. Scott Muri and WAIS Director Jennifer Collier.

He’s the incredibly bright high school senior who has done research on eradicating the Ebola virus and who plans to become a biomedical engineer.

See the SBISD Blurb
Read the Full Article on SBISD Snapshots
See the SBISD YouTube Video

The Best of Spring Branch

New SBISD Superintendent Dr. Scott Muri wrote an article after witnessing the immediate response by many SBISD families and staff to the Gentry House Apartment fire. An article was also published in the SBISD Snapshots blog, read it here: Heart-Filled District Response to a Big Apartment Fire.


Published in the Houston Chronicle
in response to SBISD support of the
nearly 100 Spring Branch families
affected by an apartment fire in SBISD.

"One of the things I have heard over and over again this month as the new Superintendent is that a major strength of this school district is its community. This week, I had an opportunity to experience this in action first-hand after the devastating Gentry House Apartment fire. I was privileged to see your Collective Greatness as so many SBISD Family members responded immediately and with so much heart to support the over 300 individuals displaced by this fire.

Despite the sadness of this event, I was overcome with tremendous pride and personal emotion as I toured Edgewood Elementary‘ s hallways and cafeteria Tuesday night.  I smelled smoke on the clothing of our staff members and realized many had been out near the fire scene on Kempwood. You helped calm families, and you let them know that our doors were open. Edgewood became an American Red Cross shelter after the blaze.

I saw Edgewood teachers and staff nurturing their own students, Child Nutrition Services workers preparing food and sharing water, and both campus and district leaders working closely with the Red Cross and other community organizations to make sure we did all we could to support their efforts.

Our Transportation Department sent buses to the fiery scene to offer transport to all, especially the young, elderly and disabled. Operations Department staff turned up air conditioning and set up key building systems. Custodians showed up to clean and maintain the building. The Grounds Crew members moved donations inside and later moved the mountain of donated clothes to St. Jerome Catholic Church next door. I saw our SBISD Police officers creating a safe environment for everyone.  Principals, teachers, and staff members from all areas of our district put down what they were doing Tuesday night. and rushed forward to help. In just a few hours, you transformed Edgewood Elementary School into a home for those that had lost everything in this devastating fire.  

The SBISD family was not the only part of our community to respond.  The American Red Cross, local community crisis assistance organizations, the fire department, and faith community were all on site to provide support to those in need.  One of the most inspiring examples of support was the seemingly endless line of community members coming by to donate clothing, food, money, and supplies, with many of our own high school students volunteering to help unload and organize the donations. 

The CEO of The American Red Cross was there, too, and he witnessed this district’s strengths – our great community and our Collective Greatness.  He shared with me how incredibly impressed he was with the response of our district.  As many of you have told me, values matter in SBISD. One of those core values that matters when we are all at our best – Collective Greatness – was incredibly evident this week. What you did this week was awe-inspiring to me."

-Dr. Scott Muri

See the article on Chron.com

Website Updates

The district is currently updating our website content management system. Parts of the website may load slowly, incompletely, or not at all currently.

While things may look unchanged to site visitors, there is a large amount of changes currently being made on the backend (the servers that host the website). These changes include the user interface that the staff and faculty interact with.

 As such, content may also be a little slower to update as staff gets used to a different User Interface and the different quirks it may have. Please be patient as these updates are made, and as we adjust to the new changes.

SBEF support to WAIS Students

The Spring Branch Education Foundation is committed to supporting our students and educators. The SBEF contributes to many schools and students within SBISD, both to entire schools, but also to individual students as well.

The SBEF helped contribute to our 6th grade field trip to Pine Cove Institute of Wilderness Studies. SBEF also contributed to the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum, housed on the WAIS campus, providing Road Shows for 1st graders and Study Trips for 2nd graders in the district. Other contributions benefit the district as a whole, such as the 23rd annual Running for the Arts celebrated 2,243 registrations and participation from 41 SBISD's schools. The event benefits SBISD's Fine Arts and Health Fitness departments and the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum. The Next Running for the Arts event is April 30th, 2016.

SBEF Contributions also come in the form of scholarships for graduating students, including to WAIS 2015 Graduates Alexus McNeil, Alyssa Mahabir, Alex Schmidt, and Elizabeth Ucles through the Employee Campaign Scholarship program.

Scholarships through the SBEF from Prosperity Bankwere also awarded to SBISD students, including WAIS graduates Filipe Sanchez and Nancy Tran; and the Shantamboo Charity Scholarship to WAIS graduate Konnie Le.

See other contributions SBEF made to Spring Branch and other schools.

Spring Branch ISD Campuses Named as 2015 Best High Schools

Three Spring Branch ISD secondary campuses were named recently as Best High Schools in the state and nation by U.S. News & World Report in its 2015 ranking of public high schools in America.

Memorial and Stratford high schools and the district’s public charter high school, Westchester Academy for International Studies, were all rated among the top 100 high schools in Texas in the latest annual ranking. 

In addition, the SBISD high schools ranked among the top 1,000 high schools out of 29,000 campuses reviewed. They earned Gold and Silver category medals from U.S. News & World Report analysts and editors.

SBISD’s highly ranked high schools include the following reviews:

·         Memorial High School: Rated No. 41 in Texas, Memorial High rated as No. 262 overall nationally, which also earned it a Gold category award. The high school scored above the Texas average in student college readiness and in student proficiency in mathematics and English.

·         Stratford High School: Rated No. 73 in Texas, Stratford High ranked No. 625 nationally, earning it a Silver category award. The high school was above the Texas average in student college readiness and proficiency in mathematics and English.

·         Westchester Academy for International Studies: Rated No. 81 in Texas, this district public charter high school was ranked nationally at No. 719, which earned it a Silver category award. It also ranks above the Texas average in student college readiness and student proficiency in mathematics and English.

In the national rankings, only 500 high schools received Gold medals, 2,027 earned the Silver recognition, and 3,990 more were awarded Bronze medals.

Interestingly, the School for the Talented and Gifted, a Dallas-area magnet school, ranked as the No. 1 public high school in country for the fourth consecutive year in the U.S. News report. Of the top 40 high schools ranked in Texas, 37 operated as a magnet or charter school.

If all magnet and charter schools were filtered out, Memorial High School would rank as No. 5 among traditional high schools in Texas. Using the same screening, Stratford High would rank among the state’s top 25 traditional high schools.

To create the 2015 Best High Schools rankings, U.S. News worked with a North Carolina-based research firm, RTI International, to evaluate high schools in three stages, or review levels.

First, U.S. News looked at overall student performance on state-required tests. All ranked schools had to perform better than average to move forward, but more high schools still qualified this year due to a change in methodology.

In addition, U.S. News factored in how effectively schools educate disadvantaged students, including those of African-American, Hispanic and lower-income family backgrounds.

High schools were also assessed on how well students were prepared for college or university based on participation in, or performance on, Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate exams.

Spring Woods and Northbrook high schools weren’t ranked by U.S. News for this year’s rankings. To learn more about the 2015 Best High Schools rankings, please visit:

Spring Branch ISD High School rankings:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/texas/districts/spring-branch-independent-school-district-105239

2015 Best High School Rankings by State:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools?int=994d08

Press Release on U.S. News’ 2015 Best High Schools Rankings:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/us-news-ranks-best-high-schools

2015 Graduate heads to Google Summer Institute

Excerpts from SBISD School Zone:

On Monday, June 1, Cassandra Ung graduated magna cum laude with her 2015 WAIS class at Don Coleman Coliseum. Next month, she heads to Boston for a prized appointment to the Google Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI), which will be held July 12-August 1.

Cassandra’s travel and board is fully paid to Cambridge, Mass., the location of top schools like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Google students attend learning sessions that include several computer languages, as well as programming fundamentals. Students may even design or develop their own applications.

She credits the IB program at WAIS and the district charter high school’s small size and close student-teacher interaction with her own success as a top student.

Her interests include volunteer work in schools in Cambodia, where her parents grew up. She has traveled to the Southeast Asian nation and volunteered at Don Bosco High School in Phnom Penh, the capital city.

Read the full article, She's a Google Summer Intern, on the SBISD School Zone.

Learn more about Google's Computer Sciecne Summer Institute.

WAIS Graduation Commencement of 2015

Westchester students and staff celebrated the commencement of the graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2015, the 13th graduating class since WAIS opened in the fall of 2000. The ~130 graduates of the class of 2015 received more than a million in scholarships. In the fall, graduates will start a new chapter in their lives, with more than 90% continuing to higher education, and the rest directly entering the workforce or serving in the military.  

This years graduates include a notable number of students attending Texas A&M, University of Texas, University of Houston, several of the branch locations each offer, and the US Marines. Other students will pursue further credentials with the Air Force, Cornell, Notre Dame, CalPoly, as well as many other schools. 

See Special Speakers at the WAIS Graduation of 2015

See Photos from the WAIS Graduation of 2015