Stangs for the Cure Rescheduled, by Guest Blogger Katie Denevan

Good afternoon! As many of you have heard, New Boston had to cancel the football game for this Friday night because of their district closure…which was also the “Stangs for the Cure” game. We have rescheduled the “Stangs for the Cure” game to now be October 30th. This time extension should make it even bigger and better than planned!!!

I am extending the shirt sales through next Friday (October 9th) and the flag sales through October 28th. Again, shirts are $10 and flags are $5 each. It is VERY difficult to find pink t-shirt in October (go figure), so I don’t know what shade of pink will be available…we will just get them as dark as we can. Next year we plan to purchase the t-shirts early enough to get the color we want! You learn from experience!

Thanks again for all of your support!!!

Battle for the Cure by Guest Blogger, Katie Denevan

For the past 25 years, the month of October has been a time for special focus on awareness, education, and cures for breast cancer. Last year, the HS Student Council took on a project that is now known as “Stangs for the Cure”. Our goal was to start small, selling a few T-shirts, and raise a little money to send to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for this cause. We chose a home football game during October to gear our focus, not only to football, but to a bigger issue. Many of the participants in the game supported the cause by wearing their shirts as they performed, the cheerleaders made a special pink run-through sign, the Starz danced with pink pom-poms, and the football players even showed their support by wearing pink sweatbands. Instead of the home side being flooded with red and black, it was flooded with pink!

The response by our wonderful community was AMAZING! It is not uncommon to run into someone from Hughes Springs, or one of our surrounding communities, wearing a “Stangs for the Cure” shirt. From T- shirt sales alone we were able to donate $2,500 last year.

This year we are not only selling T-shirts, but we are also taking donations for honorary/memorial flags that will line Mustang Drive on the night of the game…October 2nd.

Let’s make this year even “pinker” than last year! Please come out and support, not only the MIGHTY MUSTANGS on October 2nd, but wear your pink and support “Stangs for the Cure”!

Good Is The Enemy Of Great

In the spring of 2009, the HSISD administrative team and Board of Trustees began a book study on Jim Collin’s Good to Great upon the urging of Harvey Hohenberger, Region 8 Director. While many of us were skeptical at first, we decided to carry on, even if we learned only one thing from the book it would be worth the effort, right? After lengthy and sometimes heated discussions, we found ourselves immersed in frank and honest conversations about HSISD, about what we are and what we want to become.

We found out that we are a good district, and on some days, we do great things. However, we decided we were not “great” everyday and in everything. We decided that we did not want to become complacent and satisfied with the status quo ~ after all, “Good is the enemy of Great”. And we want to be a GREAT district.

We have decided to embark on the journey towards greatness. We know it is going to be a long road and it is not going to be easy, but we believe our community and most importantly, our students, deserve a GREAT district.

In September of 2009, we held a series of parent/community meetings. The purpose of the meetings was to invite parents and the community to join us in our journey and to draft a set of belief statements for HSISD. We have composed five statements, that we believe sum up HSISD and what we want for our district; the belief statements that will be proposed to the School Board in October are listed below.

At Hughes Springs ISD we believe….

….in challenging students to be life-long learners

….parents and staff lead by example and should continue to learn

….all students are unique and deserve the opportunity to achieve their potential

….staff, parents, students and community members are responsible for the learning and success of each student

….parental and community involvement are vital to student success

Blogs, Wikis and iPods - OH MY!?!?!

Digital Natives, Generation-D (digital), Nintendo Kids, the MTV generation, whatever term you chose to describe them, today's youth has grown up with an unprecedented access to and appetite for technology. Since 1970, when Pong (the revolutionary video arcade game, which I spent many hours playing as a teenager) was introduced, children have consumed a steady diet of digital games, music videos, and the world wide web.

More recently, they have enthusiastically embraced technologies that are on the leading edge of the technology wave including live chats, instant messaging, iPods, blogs, and more. While these terms might be the common language of “Digital Natives”, they are a foreign language to the "Digital Immigrants", like myself, who struggle to understand and master these new technologies.

Over the past 18 months or so, Hughes Springs ISD has jumped head first into the world of these “Digital Natives”. We have invested a lot of time, money and energy into creating 21st Century classrooms for our students. We have 2nd graders creating a class blog, junior high students using iPods to help them in math and high school students completing web quest. And now, I am blogging.

If we expect our students to be 21st Century Learners, and our teachers to be 21st Century teachers, then as superintendent, I must make that leap too.

This is the first post in what I hope is a continuing dialogue between Hughes Springs ISD and our educational community. It is my wish to maintain a site that keeps you informed about the issues that affect the school and community, and, at times, the world around us. I hope you enjoy the posts and look forward to hearing from you.