District Elementary Science Coordinator Gelyn Cornell was awarded the Distinguished Leadership in Science Award by the Science Teachers Association of Texas. This is a prestigious award for outstanding achievers in science.

Alief ISD Education Foundation recently kicked off the Pay It Forward campaign with assistance from Superintendent HD Chambers. The campuses with the highest percentage of staff participation are Collins Elementary, Crossroads, Budewig Intermediate, Taylor High School and Elsik Ninth Grade Center. We will be looking forward to adding more schools to this list.

Elsik High School Air Force Junior ROTC recently celebrated the Air Force’s 67th birthday. According to tradition, the oldest and youngest members of the unit cut the cake. Senior Aerospace Science Instructor Lt. Col. Lance Murray and Cadet Airman Basic Angel Molina performed the cake-cutting ceremony.

Kerr High School Speech & Debate won 2nd place sweepstakes at the Elsik High School tournament. With support from a grant from the Alief ISD Education Foundation, Kerr took 55 students to the tournament, their largest outing to date. Tournament Champions include :

  • Jun Tan (1st in Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking [FX]; one of the first state qualifiers in FX and Congress)
  • Inmer Carbajal & Misti Fulmer (1st in Cross-Examination Debate; 1st and 2nd Speaker Awards)
  • Mariah Menendez (1st in Dramatic Interpretation)
  • Saira Martinez & Melissa Ramos (1st in DUO)
  • Julia Taboh (1st in Novice Poetry)
  • Christopher Trinh (1st in Novice Prose)

Budewig Intermediate will be hosting award-winning author Michael Dahl to complement the school’s myON reading program. Dahl, whose non-fiction has won the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Award three times, will be chatting with students.

Alief ISD’s Elsik vs Taylor varsity football game on September 19 was named the ABC 13 Game of the Week and was also featured on Channel 2’s Friday Football Frenzy.

Elsik High School Lead Counselor Jeannie Knierim was accepted into the Texas Education Agency’s Professional School Counselor Leadership Academy. This is a year-long project, and only a select few counselors in the state were chosen for the academy.

Elsik Ninth Grade Center teacher Britt-Marie Kristina Abshire was published in the Journal of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. Her article, “Making Time for Meta Moments: Effective Closure for the Secondary Classroom,” explains how a high school English teacher implements Meta Moments, a systematic time for closure that fosters metacognitive habits in students.

Alief Early College High School teacher Noemi Dimaliwat-Frias was presented the Leo Club Advisor Outstanding Service Award by Lions International President Joe Preston through District 2S2 Governor Chris Moorman. The award was given for “dedicated service in fulfilling the roles of educator, motivator, counselor, liaison, and humanitarian as Leo Club Advisor.”