My Vanguard & Magnet School Advice

As the mother of two kids who are in Vanguard and Magnet schools, I am often asked questions by soon to be and new parents. They want to know how they can send their kids to good schools inside the loop (or close to it) without having to pay for private school or having to move to the suburbs. Here are links to some of my top blogs with advice on how to navigate the Houston Independent School District Vanguard and Magnet system. 

The Kids and I, Seth is in 8th grade at Hamilton in Vanguard and Miranda is a junior at DeBakey H.S.

If you have a child starting Kindergarten the Fall of 2018 you've missed the application deadline- it was in December. You'll have to check with HISD if they have a second phase application for Kindergarten. I'm not sure about that.

If you have a child starting Kindergarten the Fall of 2019 the application is due in December of 2018. Start drilling him or her on their alphabet, sounds, colors, shapes, now because they will have to take the Vanguard test January or February of 2019. That's only one year away! My best advice on this. Buy those workbooks at Walgreens and CVS in the book/magazine area. They were great for teaching the kids the basics and inexpensive.

My personal experience

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2011/03/controversy-about-magnet-schools-in.html

Elementary School

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2005/11/im-back-in-school.html

The Vanguard Test when they are 4 years old (for Kinder)

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-forget-im-mama-now.html

Middle School

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2012/04/update-on-vanguard-middle-school.html

Second Phase Application

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-quest-for-hamilton-vanguard.html

High School Application
http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2014/12/vanguard-and-magnet-school-applications.html

The Kinkaid EMSI program- a well kept secret. 

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/update-on-schools-and-kinkaid-emsi.html

Not everything is always rosy. If you aren't lucky enough to have a child attending a Vanguard or Magnet school, things can be tough. Or if your child has a special education challenge. Here is my experience when Miranda went on to middle school and Seth had to leave a really good elementary school to go to our neighborhood school because his sibling transfer wasn't renewed, before he was in Vanguard.

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-disproportionate-schools-part-i.html

http://shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-disproportionate-funds-for-school.html

Note: I added one more at 3:30 p.m. about high schools.

March Madness

March has been a pretty crazy month, thus the madness part. Miranda turned 15 and she had a karaoke party with a few friends. It's also the month of Spring Break so we went to New Orleans on the first weekend to visit my step-daughter and her new baby.  While we were in New Orleans I visited some of the oldest and coolest cemeteries, St. Roch 1 & 2. They were so old and so amazing. Here are some of the photos I haven't shared on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Kids on the St. Patrick street of the cemetery since it was the week of  St. Patrick's Day.

 

Creepy girl statue we suspected had blood on her forehead but we aren't for sure.

 

Shots of St. Roch Cemetery, NOLA

 

 

We came back from NOLA and Seth's cat had mysteriously had his jaw ripped off and broken. We had to take him to the emergency room that same night we got home and had him put to sleep. Tears from everyone.

I had to go back to work Wednesday-Friday. I had a short but very busy week as I felt myself getting more and more sick. I spent the better part of this weekend in bed sick with a bad cough because Murphy has a sense of humor like that.

We got a mild cool front, probably the last of the year because today is the first day of Spring, so the weather has been beautiful. I needed to cut the yard and treat it for fleas. I needed to spray in the house for fleas too as a precaution with all this cat activity going on in here. But since I was sick all I managed to do was stay in bed resting and trying to bring my fever down. It finally did come down and at 5 p.m. on Sunday I'm finally feeling better, just in time to go back to work tomorrow.

 Now it's on to a short week of school for the kids because they have Good Friday off but I don't.

Since the year started I've only written a blog per month. My goal is to increase that to at least 2 blogs per month or one a week if I'm really being ambitious.

I'd like to start blogging about the Houston Independent School District and the Vanguard and Magnet programs a little more consistently. I think it's a topic a lot of parents have questions about and now that I've been through it a few times I feel like I can be a source of information for parents with questions. I'm still interested in doing some grassroots outreach to lower income and minority parents to educate them about what opportunities there are for their kids. That's on the agenda of things to do as well. Stay posted!

The Quest for Hamilton Vanguard

As the 2014-2015 school year came to an end each child was accepted into a Magnet program/school and I thought we were done. Miranda was accepted into DeBakey, the High School of Health Professions and Seth was accepted into the STEM program at Hogg Middle School. However, Seth was not completely happy with that and he asked that I still try to get him into Hamilton. I spoke to the Vanguard Coordinator and found out that there is a Phase 2 application process.

Hamilton Middle School

This is how that works for you parents out there wondering about this. If you applied to Vanguard and your child didn’t get accepted based on his last year test scores or testing you can reapply in the summer. Let me use Seth as the example so you understand exactly what I mean because when I say “last year” it can be confusing.

So when we applied to Vanguard for 6^th grade this past school year, Seth was in the 5^th grade. The application asked for his test scores from his 4^th grade year. Seth didn’t have the best year that year but his 5^th grade teacher wrote him a great recommendation and I had high hopes. We also applied to magnet school programs. When we received the results he had been accepted into two magnet programs but not into the Vanguard program at Lanier, where I initially applied.

Important lesson to note here. Now that the application is done online you MUST apply to every Vanguard school you are interested in attending, not just one. In the past it was only one application and you chose the three schools you wanted in order. This year it was different because it was online. I didn’t know that and I applied to Hamilton late.

However, since he didn’t qualify for Vanguard all together he still wasn’t accepted into Hamilton. So the Vanguard coordinator told me this. You can reapply this summer with his last report card of 5^th grade and his Iowa test scores from 5^th grade. It took FOREVER for them to send us the Iowa test scores but last week they made them available and I dropped off a copy of Seth’s report card. I was thrilled when I received the news that he had been accepted to Hamilton into the Vanguard program.

I think this is important to know because there are so many parents out there that have no idea that they can still apply to the Vanguard program or Magnet schools, that still have space available, as late as the summer. It was a learning experience for us too and I thought I knew everything there was to know about applying to Magnet and Vanguard schools, but everything is a learning experience.

Hard to believe that this fall I’ll be the mom of a high school and middle school student! I have to cherish these next 4 years because in 3 years we’ll be dealing with college applications and more.

In additional good news, Miranda was invited to go back to Kinkaid next summer so I have 4 busy years ahead of me, between high school, middle school for Seth and summer programs for Miranda at Kinkaid. Hopefully Seth can also attend Kinkaid and his first summer will be Miranda’s last summer in the program.

I don’t even want to think that far ahead. I want them to stay exactly the same age they are right now. They aren’t babies any more but they are still young kids. In four years all of that is going to change.



Vanguard and Magnet School Applications Round 3

Vanguard/Magnet application time Round 3 for me. On April 11, 2006 I wrote about Miranda being accepted into the Vanguard program at Oak Forest in Kindergarten. Then on April 1, 2012 I blogged about middle school. Now here we are almost three years later and we're applying to four different high schools.

Miranda's medal, 3rd Place UIL with Lanier Theatre Group

This past October I wrote about Seth and what an amazing year we're having in the 5th grade. We had a good 3rd grade but then in 4th grade his school went through a terrible ordeal Seth had a really tough year. He lost half of his teachers and he had a whole new administration. This year he had new teachers but it has been a completely different experience. He just made a 360 and I couldn't be happier.

His teachers, especially his science teacher have recommended that he apply for Vanguard. I'm not limiting him to just Vanguard. We're also applying to Magnet programs like STEM, a science/Montessori school and foreign languages. Miranda is applying at DeBakey for health professions, Carnegie Vanguard, Lamar and Bellaire IB. If she goes to Bellaire she wants to pursue her love of languages like German and Japanese and she can learn Russian.

It's amazing that I'm doing this for the third and final time with Miranda. This is it. Next we'll be applying for colleges. Wow! Just wow!

After this I will be a pro in the whole application process. I hope that parents come across my blog when they Google Vanguard in HISD or Magnet Schools and that I can offer up some advice or direction. I should write a blog on best tips and I can get input from other Vanguard/Magnet experienced parents. There's an idea for a future blog post.

For now, I need to finish Seth's applications. I still have one more document to upload. HISD has really impressed me with the online application process. It has made everything so much easier, especially when applying to multiple schools. New parents will never know the joy of paper applications and making copies of all the paperwork that us pioneers experienced.

Miranda's applications are done but she needs to take an admissions test for Debakey. Now we wait on decisions until Spring Break or shortly after.

The Disproportionate Funds for Schools- Part I

I have said it many times, especially on here, I am a product of a the Houston public school system. I have always believed in the public school system, especially the magnet program in HISD and especially the Vanguard and IB programs.

Now as a parent I have experienced two totally different schools in HISD, a Vanguard recognized school with all the resources a school could want and a neighborhood elementary with not even enough resources for a school nurse.

When my then husband and I decided to stay in the city we knew that our future children's education depended on the Magnet and Vanguard program and if our children would be accepted in one of these. When our daughter was accepted into the Vanguard program I was ecstatic. The fact that she got into our first choice school made it even better.

Our first choice had been Oak Forest and a lot of thought had gone into that choice. One of the reasons I chose it was because it was so diverse and I thought the teachers were also diverse. At least that was according to the Report Card on the Schools published in the Houston Chronicle. Sure it meant driving out a little farther every morning and afternoon but I felt like it was worth it and it was. Our daughter did really well in her years at Oak Forest and excelled in all subjects. I know the education she received there had a lot to do with where she is now in middle school.

The school has great parent involvement and they give a lot to the school, in both time and money. I just took for granted all the things Oak Forest has. They have a nurse, a beautiful library, a librarian, an arboretum, a science lab, a computer lab, an art teacher, a music teacher, a band teacher and so much more. I thought the world of Oak Forest.

That is until I had a son that wasn't in Vanguard. I was so excited when he was accepted on a sibling transfer so that I didn't have to drive to two different schools. He would get to attend a great elementary school with his sister.

It wasn't long before the concerns started. They started in Kindergarten and escalated in first grade. It wasn't until second grade that the terms ADHD and Asperger's were used to describe him. I had started seeing a child psychologist who agreed that Seth was probably ADD but when I mentioned Asperger's to him he was outraged that the teachers and assistant principal would use that term so loosely. I agreed, until I had to see a different doctor for medication to manage the ADHD.

This doctor asked me right off the bat, "Has anyone said Asperger's?" When I finally accepted that my son probably had Asperger's, which is protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was too late for my son's future at Oak Forest.

When I went back to the doctor to ask him if he could give me a diagnosis of Asperger's he told me, "The school district will test him for you. That's what your taxes pay for. They will diagnose him and  they will make accommodations for him."

So even though it was the school who brought up the term ADHD and Asperger's first, they didn't tell me this. I guess they thought I should figure it out on my own. By the time I could request that the district test him so he could receive the official diagnosis from HISD the school year was ending and it was a lot easier for the principal to say, "DENIED" on his sibling transfer due to too many behavior and disciplinary issues. Besides, they justified it, his sibling wasn't attending any more.

Welcome to the flip side of not having what the schools consider a "model student." He wasn't important enough because he wasn't a student who helped them with their test score average and thus how much money they would receive from the state. My daughter was that kind of student.

The great great irony in this story is what happened next. I didn't fight Oak Forest even though one of the moms was outraged and told me I should. I figured why should I stay at a school that didn't want him.

This school year my son is attending a much smaller elementary school adjacent to our neighborhood. It is not Vanguard or even Magnet. It doesn't have anything that makes it stand out and probably gets lost in the shuffle of the many schools in HISD.

But when my son started attending this school I saw such a dramatic change in his grades and in his behavior. Granted he was on medication regularly now but he also has two awesome teachers that get his off the wall sense of humor and quick wit. They learned how to channel his boredom to drawing and always provide him with paper and pencils to draw. They have just been great. Yes, they got started a little slow at the beginning of the school year because he was new and they didn't really see any challenges right away since he was doing fairly well in school.

When the challenges started, especially towards the end of the school day when the medication was wearing off, the school took action, especially the Assistant Principal, Principal, and the Special Education teacher. It only took one semester and a couple of challenging episodes for the school to have him tested by the district.

The district found that he does not have any learning disabilities and is in fact reading and doing math at 4th and 5th grade levels while in the 3rd grade. His challenge is staying focused and not getting over stimulated by too many children or getting upset.  Now he will receive accommodations if needed when he takes the STAAR test and other standardized tests this semester. Meaning he can take the test in a smaller group if necessary.

What's the point of my story? That this school, with all of its limited resources, is the one who took action and made things happen. This elementary school does not have A NURSE, a library, a librarian, an art teacher, a science teacher, a lab, an arboretum and there is no toilet paper in the restrooms. The teachers allocates a little toilet paper to each child when going to the restroom.

A school like Oak Forest with all its resources was able to send my son to the Principal's office a hundred times, suspend him, write him up and suggest that he had Asperger's but not once did they inform me or educate me that I could have him tested by the district. It was obvious that they wanted to have a big enough paper trail so that they could justify denying his transfer. They wanted to wash their hands of the "challenging" child who didn't help their test scores.

It took the smaller school with the limited resources and the disproportionate funding to take action. When telling this story to a friend today I likened Oak Forest to a beautiful woman with no soul and Jefferson an ugly duckling with a big heart. As a parent that is how I feel and I'm sure that there are many parents out there who feel the same way.

What I want to do here is to educate parents and make them aware that this kind of situation does exist. You can have one child in the Vanguard program with no problems and then you can have a child with special needs and you won't receive the same attention at the exact same school.

I also want to make parents aware that there are schools out there in HISD that have VERY limited resources yet they do an excellent job with what they have. The question that baffles me is this. Why don't these smaller schools with an obvious need receive more money from the district and from the state?

P.S. Just to clarify. Seth has 2 challenges. He has ADHD and Asperger's. The medication helps control the ADHD but not Asperger's. There is no medication for Asperger's.

Next Post: Why do some schools get a school nurse and a library and others don't?
Part 3 will look at race/ethncity and if it plays a role.

And We're Out of the Waiting Place

The wait is over!

On Friday I got out of teaching a class and I had a couple of missed calls so I checked my voice mail. And there it was... The call we had been waiting for all week. The call telling us that Miranda made it into our first choice middle school for Vanguard. I was thrilled!!

Apparently they moved down the waiting list quickly because Miranda was #65. The voice mail message said that I have until 8 a.m. on Monday to accept the invitation. Just on a fluke that they were still there working late I called. Of course they weren't working on a Friday at 5:30 so I left a voice mail message for the Vanguard coordinator and also followed up with an email. I'm making sure I cover all my bases and I'm calling again to confirm at 7:30 on Monday.

After that excitement I debated how I would surprise my little girl. I didn't want to just call and give her the news over the phone. I finally decided on some cupcakes from Kroger so I called my niece Hannah who takes care of her and her brother after school and told her that I'd be a little late. I had already worked late for a Friday too.

So I ran off to Kroger but when I got there I saw this cute little purple cake (above) and I asked the cake lady if she could add something real quick. She said she could and I debated what to write. I didn't want to just write a lame, "Congrats on Lanier" and "Congrats on Being Accepted at Lanier" just seemed way too wordy for such a little cake. Finally I remembered that their mascot was the Purple Pup. That just seemed very appropriate and I knew that it would take her a minute to get the message when she saw it.

My plan worked. When she saw the cake it took her a full 5 seconds to get what I really meant. When she realized that she'd been accepted she jumped for joy. I was so happy for her! It was so worth the wait and getting the cake. One of the wonderful joys of motherhood.

I know that Lanier is a really great school (not only one of the best Vanguard schools in HISD but also one of the best city wide) and I want for her to have the best foundation now for her future. That little girl has big goals and I want to give her all the support that I can as her mother. I want her to achieve more than I did because that's how it should be. Hugs to my big girl!

Update on Vanguard Middle School

Just yesterday I was blogging about my daughter going off to Vanguard kindergarten. I was blogging about the Vanguard test and waiting to find out what school she would be attending. I've blogged about public education and the Vanguard system several times over the years.

Cute image from michigan.gov

Well here we are SIX YEARS later and we are in the waiting place waiting to find out what middle school Miranda will be attending. We didn't have as many choices inside the loop, as we did the first time around for elementary school. We really only had one first choice. The others were okay choices, but not the best. We had one great choice for a magnet school back-up and thank goodness she did get into that one. However, she was wait-listed #65 for the our first choice Vanguard school.

What does this mean? When you apply for Vanguard you have to list  your 3 school choices in order of preference. First they check all your test scores, report card grades, and teacher recommendation to see if you even made it into Vanguard. Next they do a lottery. They choose their designated number of students and wait list all the rest who want to go to their first choice school.

We received a letter on Monday telling us that Miranda was accepted into the Vanguard program for middle school, however she was #65 on the waiting list for her first choice school. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that our first choice school is also everyone's first choice school. My initial reaction was sadness and then as the day went on, and via facebook conversations and comments, I found out that #65 is actually really good. I found out that the school got as high up as #242 on the waiting list last year.

How is this possible? They send out the letters and parents start calling in to accept or decline. Once they have all the replies on April 9 they start calling down the waiting list. So that's when we get called. One mom told me that anything under 100 is "golden."

Now to wait until April 9 to get the official offer so we can celebrate!

Controversy About Magnet Schools in Houston

I've been somewhat following all the talk in the news about the magnet school recommendation. The one that the HISD superintendent decided to hold off on until the 2012-2013 school year. I must admit, I didn't attend the meeting with Houston Independent School District that many parents attended to voice their concern over the cuts and changes. But then I read a Houston Chronicle article about the whole situation and I was appalled by the comments that I read from our readers. I wondered how many of them had actually attended, or had children attending, a magnet school.

Image by jacksonville.com

I've written about magnet schools before and I will talk about it again. I didn't attend the town hall meeting regarding the changes but I will write about magnet schools all day long because I totally believe in the program. A magnet school saved my life.

When I was a little girl in elementary school my parents sent me to my home school like so many parents do in this city, especially Hispanic parents that don't know any better. I quickly excelled in school with high reading and vocabulary scores. I was always at the top of my class and struggled very little. Math wasn't my strength, but I really think that was psychological because now that I use math as much as I do in my adult life I do okay.

When I was in 5th grade we had a new principal who took an interest in all of the kids with high test scores and I was one of them. My friend and I were writing and drawing a comic strip about two young single girls and I showed it to her. She was very impressed and she asked my teacher about me. My teacher shared my test scores with her and she recommended me and a group of other students to take the Vanguard test for middle school. And that is where my life changed.

I went to a Vanguard middle school that fell under the Magnet program in HISD. This is where it gets interesting. When I went to Hamilton Middle School I found out how little I really knew. I had always been the smartest kid in my class and now I knew why. I wasn't learning anything!

That is why I know that these schools in the lower income neighborhoods aren't always the best. The kids that had gone to Vanguard or other Magnet elementary schools knew way more than I did. I was perplexed that I never really learned where the equator, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn were. All these other kids knew these things and I didn't. I was embarrassed and I had to work twice as hard than most of my friends. I survived middle school as a B-C student, but it was a great learning experience. On my very last semester of 8th grade I finally made the honor roll. I felt so proud because it took me so long to get there.

This is why when my daughter was getting ready to go to Kindergarten five years ago I planned to send her to a Vanguard elementary school. I wanted for her to have a head start in elementary school and I'm so glad that I did. My daughter is learning things in elementary school that I learned in middle and high school. (I attended an International Baccalaureate high school)

When I was reading the comments from different Chronicle readers I read some from people who obviously didn't have first hand experience with the Magnet program. Some of them said that Magnet schools were for rich white people. That isn't exactly accurate. I wasn't a rich white kid. I was a poor Hispanic kid and I knew a lot of other poor minority kids who were in Vanguard. Magnet programs are for everyone, but they can also be a lifesaver for poor minority kids who wouldn't have had an opportunity to have such a great educational experience otherwise.

Neighbors Project Article

Check out this interview about my belief in the Magnet/Vanguard program in the Houston Independent School District.

How exciting! Although I wish I had a better picture than this one. I look old!! And this picture was taken around 4 years ago! I think I'm pregnant with my son in that picture.

Neighbors Project Blog

Remember that website that's linked back to a couple of my blog entries? Well the editor "interviewed" me on something that I feel really strongly about, public education. The feature on my "project" will publish this week some time. Pretty cool!

Living in Houston, and being an inner city dweller at that, can be challenging for some parents. Some may opt for a private school education for their kids. I am a firm believer in the Magnet program within HISD and especially the Vanguard program.

I already have to start working on my little one. Just this morning I had to get off at my daughter's school to drop off her after school program payment. (they have extended day) When we were walking up to the school I started telling my son that he too can go to the same school if he works with me on his ABCs and numbers. I told him that that's why it's so important for him to learn the phonics song with me. He was listening to what I said too. I just have to keep reminding him, without too much pressure.

I have a year to prepare him for the Vanguard test. He'll have to take it next year for Kinder in the Fall '09. If he doesn't make it we'll have to have a back up plan at a Magnet school nearby.