School of Excellence in Education

Superintendent Ricky Hooker's Corner

The saying "It takes a village to raise a child," is an old, but still relevant cliché. I reflected on that adage as I met new teachers and returning staff at David Walker Elementary earlier this week. I know that our greatest value to the community is through our "family" atmosphere. Here we often forego hand shakes for hugs and enjoy an atmosphere more like a family reunion than a convocation. What it boils down to is that at the School of Excellence, it's about people. Collectively, it takes all of us, the students, parents, staff and yes you the community, to successfully help children reach the potential God placed inside of them before birth.

Let's take a look at our school district and see what makes us tick. Since 2003 we've grown from three schools to eight including two high schools, a junior high, four elementary schools and a pre-kindergarten academy. Our schools are named after "living" namesakes to help our children establish an identity with someone they see periodically.

Our enrollment has grown from 400 students in 2003, to 2600 for the 08-09 school year. Have you ever wondered why we've had such tremendous growth in a short period of time? For the answer, look at the heart. Children need to feel a part of a family. Children need to feel wanted and accepted. In our district, we know the child's name; and each child has caring adults to nurture them. Once a child knows that you care, then they care what you know. Some of the most caring and committed adults I've ever served with invest their time and talents in our schools.

Some students are like the Chinese bamboo tree; once the farmer plants that tree; you fertilize the soil and water it. The plant, however, doesn't break through the ground right away. Over the next few years the farmer tends the soil, but no plant. Finally, after 5 years of faith, the bamboo shoot breaks through the ground. Now over the next few months, the tree grows to a height of over 60 ft. Why such growth in so little time? The power was always in the seed, but the breakthrough needed faith, effort, patience, and the right attitude. We know that our students will break through at different times and we believe in their success. As a result of that belief our students graduated at an 85% rate and over 60% attended college.

Our parents also make us tick. Sixty percent of our students are dropped off at one of our 5 campuses. The other 40% catch our buses at one of our 16 locations citywide. This means that as partners for educational excellence, our parents get students up early and make a decision to get them to the School of Excellence. Parents want the best for their children and don't want them to fall through the cracks. Additionally, our parents serve on our planning committees and help us raise resources as well as expectations for success.

Back in my day, when the school called my parents to complain about my behavior, things got heated at home. (If you know what I mean!) At SEE parents are very supportive and they join us as partners in the village.

Our partnerships make us tick. This year, we launched the Milton B. Lee Academy of Science & Engineering through the support of the namesake and City Public Service. We have 200 students in 9th and 10th grades poised for challenges in math related education. Our higher education partner, St. Philip's, joins the community effort as a major partner on two grants. They are partners with the Texas science, technology, engineering, and math grant, which launched our Science and Engineering Academy. Additionally, they partnered with us on a dropout prevention grant, designed to combat the city's high dropout rate.

How big is the partnership? Imagine your child is about to enter high school and you live within a 50 mile radius of SEE. Now imagine that your child is a good student, who scored well on the 8th -11th grade TAKS test. What if your child could take a college placement test and begin to take college classes at no cost in the 9th grade? It's true! As a student of SEE, students in grades 9th through 12th can take up to two college classes per semester at St. Philip's and St Philip's picks up the tab!

Your child gets dual credit for the classes and can take up to 30 hours at no charge. Add to this the opportunity to graduate in 3 years and earn additional scholarship money by scoring above 2200 in Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests.

Our presentation makes us tick. Students this year in grades 9th thorough 11th will wear actual "private school" uniforms. The girls will wear the checkered skirts with white blouses and penny loafers. The boys will wear white shirts, ties, slacks and penny loafers. We are preparing our young people to be leaders for tomorrow. We want to teach them that they can be business owners, architects, police officers and also run TV stations. A student has 5 academies of specialization to choose from. They are: Design & Build, Pre-Law, Culinary Arts, TV & Radio Production and Science & Engineering.

Finally, Oh yes, we have sports and we compete beginning this year as a 3A school. This will be our inaugural year for football. We will field an 8th grade team. Our philosophy for sports comes from "old school" as well. We don't believe in using an athletic period because it takes the focus away from academics. Our students practice after school and we provide bus transportation after practice to pick-up locations.

We're excited about our direction at SEE. We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support. We want to be a place of pride and preparation for tomorrow's leaders. Hurry, if you want to have your child take part in the experience. We have registration open from 8 am - 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Call us @ 210-431-9881. Check our website.

School of Excellence in Education where you get a "Private School Education at a Public School Price".