Peace,
Predominately black school. Guarantee it. Our kids need the best and get the worst.
Not with a name like Houston Energy Institute High School. Probably white oil execs kids.
Seems like a good opportunity, relatively. You would think parents sending their kids to a school like this would be too involved for this to last five months.
Just goes to show, though, that when you let business run education, everything that doesn't profit them goes by the wayside. They need oil technicians, not well-rounded people capable of understanding where the oil is coming from and the reality behind it. The core components of a liberal arts education and experiences like the exposure to a new language will be given lip service and they'll focus on training future workers.
We need a better way to prepare young people for the economy they're entering, including vocational training. But I don't think this is the way to do it.
Energy Institute thrives in inaugural year
By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE
Associated Press
Sunday, March 2, 2014
HOUSTON (AP) - This time last year, eighth-grader
Kaleigh Davis planned to follow her friends to Bellaire High School.
Somehow her mom convinced her to consider Houston ISD’s just-announced Energy Institute,
the first high school in the nation to focus on careers in oil, gas and other energy sources and technologies.
Even though the decision to join the 200 freshmen in the magnet school’s inaugural class forced
Davis to reinvent her social life, polish her math skills and spend 90 minutes on a bus every day, the 14-year-old knows she made the right call.
“I wanted to try something new, not to be a doctor or lawyer like everyone else. That’s boring,” said
Davis, who will speak about the Energy Institute at Wednesday’s State of the Schools address in downtown Houston.
HISD leaders are confident the Energy Institute will join the ranks of the city’s elite high schools - including the
DeBakey High School for Health Professions and Carnegie Vanguard, a school for gifted and talented students - and will fill a crucial gap in training Houston’s energy workforce, the
Houston Chronicle reported.
Plans for the school were announced a year ago, and it opened its doors to students about seven months later. Despite the quick turnaround, Superintendent Terry Grier said the campus is already a success.
About 650 students applied for next year’s freshman class, three times the number of open seats. Students are chosen through a lottery.
“It was well-planned out, well-thought out,”
Grier said. “The people in Houston, when they decide something is the right thing to do, they do it. They don’t lollygag around.”
In an economy with a shortage of qualified math, science and technology workers, these HISD freshmen are already receiving college brochures and will likely be heavily recruited by employers. Women are particularly in demand in these fields, and girls represent just 25 percent of the Energy Institute’s enrollment.
Davis and the other freshmen have lunched with ExxonMobil executives, toured energy corporations and learned to use state-of-the-art technology like 3-D printers.
“There’s all kind of things we can do with that school,”
Grier said, “We’re just scratching the surface.”
Unlike on other campuses, students are allowed to use their smart phones and even listen to music when it doesn’t disrupt learning.
The school features project-based learning rather than traditional lectures and pencil-and-paper tests. Students work in groups to complete complicated assignments and then present their findings. The projects help students develop skills like problem solving, working on teams and public speaking, educators said.
Because energy is Houston’s bread-and-butter, educators said they’ve been flooded with help from local corporations. Area professionals serve on an advisory committee and also as tutors, mentors and guest speakers. When the students near graduation, the companies will provide internship opportunities.
“We really try to find these unusual opportunities that give them glimpses into the professional world,” said Noelle MacGregor, dean of students.
While the opening has been fast, educators said they are thrilled with the first year.
“We made something from nothing,” said Principal Lori Lambropoulos, who added that her goals include recruiting more female students. “It’s been a very exciting journey.”
The biggest question remains the permanent location of the campus.
Grier said HISD will likely build a state-of-the-art campus on district-owned land, but officials haven’t selected a site. The
school probably will move to another temporary site next year to accommodate the growing enrollment - a grade level will be added each year until seniors graduate.
Davis, who was drawn to the
school because she loves technology and enjoys building things, said she’s glad HISD’s magnet system gave her a choice.
“Education is your choice,” she said. “You have to think about it long-term.”
Chisom Anyanwu, 15, left, and Blake Gomez, 14, work on a project about Laos at the HISD's Energy Institute High School last week.
New Houston location chosen for Energy Institute High School
Nov 19, 2014
Jordan Blum, Reporter
Houston Business Journal
Houston is home to the nation's first energy high school and, now, the Energy Institute High School finally has a permanent location to call home.
The plan is to build a $37 million, 110,000-square-foot magnet school campus at Southmore Boulevard at Tierwester Street, which is south of downtown and Texas Southern University, at the 12-acre site of the former Lockhart Elementary School, according to the Houston Independent School District.
HISD is working with VLK Architects on preliminary designs. The school also has partnered with the University of Houston's UH Energy initiative and the UH student organization, The Energy Association, on a design competition that will culminate with presentations on Nov. 22.
The HISD said the high school, which is in its second year and second temporary location, will house 800 students, which is twice its current enrollment. The goal is to start construction in the second half of 2015 and open in 2017 with construction lasting 18 to 24 months.
The Energy Institute High School is currently in the schematic design phase. It has already held its first community meeting and its Project Advisory Team is meeting regularly. Construction is slated to begin in the second half of 2015. It generally takes 18 to 24 months from the start of construction to build a new school.
The high school initially opened last year in the Heights at Interstate 610 and North Durham Drive in converted HISD office space, but the location was too small for the long term. So it relocated temporarily this summer to its current site at the controversially closed Dodson Elementary southeast of downtown off of Interstate 45.
Energy Institute High School Principal Lori Lambropoulos was not thrilled about the temporary location change, and said she preferred a site nearer to the Energy Corridor to be closer to industry, but she acknowledged that real estate prices could make that location impossible. The proposed school site is just a little south of the current temporary campus location.
She deferred to the HISD for this story. The school was initially formed with the assistance of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Lambropoulos has described the school as having an energy and STEM focus — science, technology, engineering and math — but not exclusively centered on oil and gas. The school prides itself on treating its students like project managers with less reliance on the classic classroom experience.
Jim Jelliffe, of VLK Architects, described the school as a high-tech corporate environment similar to Silicon Valley.
