Residents honor work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

By Jenn Griffin – The Huntsville Item

HUNTSVILLE — More than a hundred people attended the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration on Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Mack Hines III, and Joreen Waddell sharing her experiences growing up as a youth in Huntsville.

Huntsville High School 2009 Homecoming Queen Jasmine Davis introduced Hines, who spoke of the future of King’s message.

“You are going to need more than a blueprint to be successful in today’s society,” he said. “You’re going to need a blueprint, footprint and imprint to get to where you want to be.”

Hines said there are two types of people — those who face reality, and those who fake reality.

“Facers search themselves to find their values and morals and strengths,” he said. “Fakers refuse to value anything and allow other people’s morals to become their views and feelings.

“Being yourself takes time, dedication and patience. But if it is not done, life will not be easy for you,” he continued. “You must have a 3-D vision. You must be a defined, developed and devoted human being.” Read more

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A Desire for Change: Parents, leaders seek to resolve race issues at HISD

By Lisa Trow – Managing Editor – The Huntsville Item

HUNTSVILLE — Google “perseverance,” and you’ll find that praise for this quality is as old as the Bible and Plutarch and as fresh as football’s superstars.

Perseverance, the necessary grease of  the wheels of industry, is what it takes to get things done. So say philosophers, statesmen and entrepreneurs.

And so say the parents and advocates of African-American students who are concerned about discrimination and racial sensitivity at Huntsville Independent School District.

These advocates have become regular visitors to Huntsville Independent School District facilities and meetings of the HISD Board of Trustees to address their concerns about racial and ethnic sensitivity, equality and other issues — and to offer their solutions, some of which the district has adopted. Read more

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Forum focuses on improving education for African-American students

By Mary Rainwater – The Huntsville Item

Huntsville Independent School District administrators took another step to improve the education of its African-American student population Thursday, holding a public forum Thursday to gather input from parents and members of the community on the issue.

The meeting, held at Mance Park Middle School, was attended by over 100 concerned parents and residents, with 12 to 15 people participating in the concluding public input portion of the meeting.

It was one of several meetings that have taken place between the district and specific groups in order to gather input about the needs regarding the education of African-American students and to formulate and effective plan to do so.

“The district has shown generally upward trends in test scores, but there are some variants in this group that led us to this effort,” said HISD Superintendent Dr. Richard Montgomery, who presented a review of student data at the meeting. Read more

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‘CSI’ Work Benefits Local Elementary School

Nine graduate students have taken what they learned inside the classroom and turned it into a resource kit for Scott Johnson Elementary school teachers.

The kits, called “CSI packets” as a spin off the popular crime scene television show—with CSI standing for Curriculum Students and Instruction in this case, were designed for assistant professor of education Mack Hines’ curriculum planning class, a principal preparation course. Read more

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Empowering parents and developing teachers for the success of African American students

 

Dr. Mack Hines III
6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 11
Mt. Moriah Baptist Church
1202 Champion Lane, Commerce

Because of the importance of seeing all students succeed, Commerce ISD is bringing back Dr. Mack T. Hines III, a highly sought after author, educator, consultant and speaker, to share
his approach to building positive behavior and academic success within African American students.

Hines will conduct a workshop for African American parents. His presentation focuses on how parents can work with teachers to benefi t their children, academically and behaviorally.

Please attend Dr. Hines presentation to learn how we all can play a role in student success.

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Hopkins Public Schools hosts three-day Equity Symposium

Hopkins Public Schools hosted an Equity Symposium on June 7, 8 and 9. Each day was devoted to a different topic around equity and education. About 60 people attended each session, which was open to equity specialists, equity team members, principals, master teachers, and school board members. Three facilitators led the symposium. The lineup is listed below:

  • June 7 – “Undoing whiteness: calling out the wizard behind the curtain.” Led by Dr. Heather Hackman.
  • June 8 – “Teaching BeBe’s kids: methodology for teaching ‘hard to teach’ students.” Led by Dr. Lucian Yates, III.
  • June 9 – “Race matters when teaching and reaching African American students.” Led by Dr. Mack Hines, III.

The purpose of the seminar was to give teachers and staff the tools, knowledge and instructional methods to reach the knowledge base of all students and teach to their strengths. These tools increase the self-confidence and self-esteem of students, which also broadens the potential for academic success.

“In order to become culturally proficient, we must constantly be in search of opportunities to grow our knowledge of the cultures and races represented in our schools and classrooms,” said Dr. Stanley Brown, coordinator of equity and inclusion for Hopkins Public Schools.

Hopkins Public Schools is committed to equity and inclusion for all students. Currently, 36 percent of students are of color and 34 percent qualify for Free and Reduced Price Lunch. About 7 percent are English Language Learners.

Participants left the symposium with a greater knowledge of the importance and the relevance of teaching with race and culture in mind. Each day was constructed to challenge thinking, provoke courageous conversations on race and expand perceptions on teaching and learning.

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Workshop held to improve teachers’ relationship with African-American students

By Meghan O’Toole-Pitts – The Daily Sentinel

“Our African-American students are really struggling,” said G.W. Neal, NISD assistant superintendent for human resources.

NISD African-American students are 10 points behind the average TAKS, TAKS-acc, TAKS-m, and TAKS-ALT scores among African-American students statewide.

“We feel like we have to be able to make the curriculum relevant to them as well as build a better support system both inside the school district and outside the school district,” said Ronny Knox, assistant superintendent for instruction.

To improve academic achievement, principals and other administrators participated in a workshop Wednesday led by author and educator Mack Hines to learn how to build relationships with African-American students. Read more

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Black students more likely to be kicked out of classrooms for incidents not warranting removal

By: Dallas News

Black students in Texas are much more likely to be kicked out of their regular classrooms than children of other races when the decision is left up to school administrators, according to state data from the last three years.

Texas Education Agency data shows that black student referrals to “disciplinary alternative education programs” were twice the rate of those for Hispanic students and three times the rate for white students for incidents not serious enough to warrant automatic removal.

In these lower level cases, administrators can decide if a student should leave the school. And for black students, one child out of 30 was removed in 2009-10, compared with one in 96 white students and one of 62 Hispanic students.

The trend is not new. Read more

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