Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Two SBISD seniors earn perfect ACT scores

Two seniors who attend Spring Branch ISD high schools are among members of a tiny group of U.S. students who have earned a perfect 36 composite score on the ACT national college admissions exam. Out of more than a million test-takers across the country, fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of all students earn that score. ACT Inc. reported last year that only 781 perfect scores were recorded out of more than 1.6 million tests taken.



Earning perfect test scores in the June administration of the ACT are Stratford High senior Annie Ye and Memorial High senior Grant Kirchhofer. “I did not think that I scored 36, but I felt pretty good about it,” Annie said.

She was traveling with her family on vacation in Barcelona, Spain, when she opened her ACT email and learned her score. She was pleasantly surprised, she said. Interested in medical studies and research, she is thinking about Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Rice, Cornell and Stanford universities.

The private universities are “dream” schools for her. “I want to major in a biology-related field and then go to medical school. I would like to do research in the health sciences,” Annie says. Advanced Placement (AP) chemistry was one of her favorite classes. A gifted cellist who began playing in sixth grade, Annie is a member of the Stratford High Orchestra.

She was a finalist in the Stratford Concerto Competition, a soloist in the orchestra’s Winter Concert, and is a member of the student pit orchestra for Stratford Playhouse productions. Annie organized the Environmental Club, which will focus on plastic recycling at the high school. She is also a member of the Stratford Academy Science & Engineering student program.

Annie grew up in the Spring Branch area and attended Memorial Middle and Wilchester Elementary, in addition to Stratford High. Memorial High’s Grant Kirchhofer had high expectations about his ACT results, but his walk-away feeling after the test was that the science section was difficult to call. Active in high school band and swimming, Grant was at a swim meet in Florida when his email test results arrived. He opened the ACT email when he returned home.


His whoops from inside the family game room drew his mother to the celebration. “I was just really surprised. I felt confident that I got a 34, but not a 36,” he said. Grant is considering state institutions like Texas A&M and UT at Austin as well as private and public universities nationwide. A National Honor Society member, he likes math best, and is exploring computer science, business and engineering as possible college majors and career areas.

A team co-captain this year, Grant swims butterfly, breaststroke and individual medley for Memorial. He has competed at the varsity level since his freshman year. The Mustang’s medley relay, for which Grant swims the butterfly, placed fourth at the district meet last year. He also competes in the USA Swimming meets with the Dad’s Club Swim Team. He took up clarinet in the sixth grade at Memorial Middle School. He’ll be a Memorial Band section leader for a second year this fall. Grant was named an Eagle Scout as a member of Boy Scout Troop 599 last fall.

Growing up, he attended Bunker Hill Elementary. In addition to band and swimming, Grant will take four AP courses this fall, including a calculus class that might earn him up to two full semesters of college credits. “My parents are really supportive of me in all my academics and they have also been supportive of me personally in swimming and in band,” Grant says.

His brothers include Ben, who is a senior at Texas A&M, and Davis, who will be a freshman at Memorial High this fall. Earlier this year, Memorial High seniors Rajat Mehndiratta and George Chen both received top scores on their SATS.

Their scores of 2350 to 2400 qualifed as “perfect” scores by the SAT’s College Board. Less than one-fifth of 1 percent of SAT test takers earns such high scores. More than 1.7 million students nationwide take the SAT each year.

Twenty-four Teach For America recruits prepare for the new school year

On Aug. 26, Spring Branch ISD will welcome 24 new Teach For America educators to its schools. This marks the third consecutive year that recent university graduates with this nonprofit group have joined the district’s teaching faculty.

The new Teach for America recruits include 11 elementary teachers, five middle school instructors, and eight new high school teachers. These 24 new teachers earned degrees from colleges nationwide, including familiar Texas ones like the University of Houston, Sam Houston State and Rice universities.

Many others will join the district from highly ranked national research, private and Ivy League colleges. These range from large, well-known schools including Carnegie Mellon, Boston and Columbia universities to smaller ones such as Smith and Colby colleges in the Northeast.

New Teach For America recruits include at least three SBISD high school graduates.

They are: Caroline Flowers, a 2010 Stratford High graduate who will teach integrated physics and chemistry at Northbrook High; Olivia Sher, a 2009 Memorial High graduate who will teach Algebra I at Spring Woods High; and Kerdia Kargou, a 2005 Spring Woods High graduate who will teach fifth-grade English as a Second Language (ESL) at Treasure Forest Elementary.

A former Spartan cheerleader, Caroline Flowers graduated in May from Carnegie Mellon with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in chemistry. She is glad to be finished with cold and snow in Pittsburgh, and ready to make a difference back home. Medical school remains a future goal. “I read a lot in college psychology about social inequality, and what results from that.

I decided that focusing on education and teaching is really where I wanted to be for the next two years,” she said. The Spring Branch graduate has been excited to learn with her fellow Teach For America recruits about the diversity in student, family and neighborhood demographics that reflects the district.

“The impression everyone (in Teach for America) gets is Spring Branch consists of Northbrook and Spring Woods. I’ve enjoyed telling my fellow teachers about my experiences at Stratford,” she says. Olivia Sher is pumped about teaching Algebra I to ninth-graders at Spring Woods High School. “They have not been to high school yet, so they will be open to new ideas and people,” she says.

After graduating in 2009 from Memorial High, Olivia headed off to Colby College in Waterville, Maine. There, she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematical science with dual concentration in statistics and art history. She liked the balance of art and statistics, and remains interested in the research and epidemiology career fields.

“Since high school, I’ve always been passionate about what education can do for a person, and I am highly excited about what I can do to contribute to the lives of young people for the next two years,” Olivia says.

Spring Woods High graduate Kerdia Kargou worked as an analyst for several years with Harris County before finding Teach For America. The 2010 UH graduate is eagerly looking forward to his Treasure Forest Elementary students. Growing up, he attended Spring Shadows Elementary.

“The opportunity to pay it forward is what motivates me,” he says. “The trajectory out of being left behind and rising up out of poverty begins with education, and this is what I want to do to make an impact on this community. Spring Branch is where I grew up. Now, I want to pay it forward.”

Teach For America is a nonprofit organization that enlists high-achieving recent college graduates and professionals to become lifelong advocates for equity in education for all starting with a two-year commitment to teach in low-income or underserved schools with significant gaps in student achievement.

All new TFA teachers have attended an alternative certification program and have earned certified probationary teaching certificates. Most Teach For America recruits aren’t SBISD graduates. Recent Columbia University graduate Brandon Lewis will join Spring Woods Middle School to guide social studies and world cultures instruction. The Alabama native grew up in Atlanta and made the leap to one of the nation’s best colleges because of a strong family and great schools, he says.

“An Ivy League school was an opportunity for me because I had great family and good educators while I was growing up,” he says. “I want to help connect the opportunity that I knew to the next generation of students.”

At Columbia, where Brandon earned a bachelor’s degree in urban studies, he organized and ran a nonprofit called Youth for Debate, which brought public speaking, speech and debate instruction to about 1,200 New York City middle and high school students. Indiana University graduate Bianca Dávila brings several Romance languages as well as personal teaching experiences around the world to her bilingual Treasure Forest Elementary classroom.

At Indiana in Bloomington, Ind., she earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and French along with a minor in Portuguese. She speaks four languages fluently. Through family connections, she taught English in Peru for two months in a school with no electricity. She’s also taught in France. At home, Bianca has led ESL classes for adults and assisted at a private school. “I am passionate about education,” she says. “I can easily see myself working in the classroom for some time.

Teaching makes me happy. It’s the most enriching experience I’ve ever had.” Another strong passion for Bianca has been her volunteer and intern work with Indiana-based Exodus Refugee Immigration, which works with refugees worldwide who are victims of war, persecution and injustice. She was a college intern with the nonprofit group. During the past two years, SBISD has trained and hired 26 Teach For America educators.

New teachers joining SBISD for the 2013-14 school year through the TFA program include:

Elementary Teachers
Jared Braun, The College of New Jersey, Trenton, N.J. – Terrace Elementary
Bianca Dávila, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. – Treasure Forest Elementary
Jasmine Gutierrez, Boston University, Boston, Mass. – Sherwood Elementary
Ifetoya Hall, University of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C. – Sherwood Elementary
Kerdia Kargou, University of Houston, Houston, Texas – Treasure Forest Elementary
Kristian Lenderman, Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas – Shadow Oaks Elementary
Andrew Long, Florida University, Gainesville, Fla. – Edgewood Elementary
Julianna Parra, Boston University, Boston – Hollibrook Elementary
Akeem Perkins, Trinity College Connecticut, Hartford, Conn. – Sherwood Elementary
Aryan Rapp, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. – Treasure Forest Elementary
Caterina Stegemann, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas – Shadow Oaks Elementary

Middle School Teachers
Kara Cannon, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. – Northbrook Middle
Molly Haas, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va. – Landrum Middle
Ashley Holton-Westhaver, California State University – Northbrook Middle
Brandon Lewis, Columbia University, New York City – Spring Woods Middle
Daniel Lopez, Boston University, Boston, Mass. – Landrum Middle

High School Teachers
Christina Beeler, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tenn. – Northbrook High
Ryan Beeler, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill. – Spring Woods High
Audiel Espita, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas – Northbrook High
Caroline Flowers, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Penn. – Northbrook High
Elizabeth Huffaker, Rice University, Houston, Texas – Spring Woods High
Isabella Morana, Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, Penn. – Spring Woods High
Olivia Sher, Colby College, Waterville, Maine – Spring Woods High
Miranda Szucs, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio – Northbrook High

New teachers in SBISD share inspiring life stories


One is a Northbrook High School graduate and the first in her family to earn a college degree. Another has written adventure/fantasy books. A third spent 24 years in the U.S. Navy before he created from scratch a high school Navy Jr. ROTC program.

New teachers in Spring Branch ISD have great, inspiring stories to share. All are focused on the positive shaping of student lives. SBISD this year will hire 326 campus professionals, including 293 teachers, to replace open positions or fill newly created ones.

On Aug. 26, Natalia Solano will have one incredible déjà vu moment when she greets seventh-grade mathematics students at Northbrook Middle School. A May University of Houston graduate who completed her student teaching at Cornerstone Academy, Natalia is a Northbrook High graduate.

She attended Ridgecrest and Valley Oaks elementaries and Northbrook Middle School. Today, the married mother of three lives within minutes of her middle school. The first in a family of seven to graduate from college, she never thought about teaching elsewhere. She is ecstatic about her middle school posting.

“I love Spring Branch ISD, and I believe that all the of the SBISD schools are great! When my husband and I purchased our house, I told him that I wanted a house with a big kitchen and said it needed to be right here in Spring Branch because that is where I want to live and teach. I wouldn’t want to be teaching in Katy or in Houston ISD, or anywhere else,” Natalia says. Her student teaching at Cornerstone Academy was even a reminder of where she belonged.

Jill Wright, the director there, was Natalia’s eighth-grade teacher at Northbrook Middle School. Navy Retired Cmdr. Jerry Coufal has already joined Master Chief Mark Heuser at the district’s Guthrie Center as part of the new leadership team in the popular Navy Jr. ROTC program. The elective program is open to high school students across SBISD. Cmdr. Coufal joins the program here after leading the Navy Jr. ROTC program for 11 years at George Bush High School in Fort Bend ISD.

In addition to starting up the high school program there, he served 24 years in the Navy in naval engineering and combat systems. A 1977 graduate of Texas A&M University, Cmdr. Coufal lists career highlights that include teaching at Texas A&M University in College Station for two years, serving 18 months at the naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, and working with the Navy Jr. ROTC consortium classes that met at Rice and Prairie View A&M universities and included students from the University of Houston.

In 2001, he helped start up the high school ROTC program at George Bush High School. After 12 years there, this retired Navy officer was ready for a new challenge. His new Guthrie Center position will reduce his commute from his home in The Woodlands, too.

“The Guthrie Center is unique in that the students come from different high schools, and return to their high schools. The Guthrie Center has an outstanding reputation, and I do like the family atmosphere that I have experienced so far,” he says.

He began working here this summer. Watching students enroll in ROTC as high school freshmen, and then grow over four years has been fulfilling for him. “The Jr. ROTC program has been the most satisfying experience I have had in my career. I really want to be that father figure for students and see them later graduate,” Cmdr. Coufal says.

At Spring Forest Middle School, meanwhile, students will get a self-published author as well as a new instructor when they meet Marselus Martin in seventh-grade language arts. Martin is the author of several adventure/fantasy books, including “Deceptions: The Children of the Sky,” which is available in paperback online at Amazon.com.

A Chicago native, Martin earned a bachelor’s degree in both criminal justice and Japanese from Illinois State University in Normal, Ill. His goal at that time was to teach in Japan, but he served three years in the U.S. Navy at the Great Lakes facility near Chicago and then earned a master’s degree in teaching from Aurora University in Aurora, Ill., which is also near Chicago.

In addition to writing several novels, he has worked at the Chicago Palmer House Hilton, one of the city’s top hotels, in the international travel area. His commitment to personal publishing won over his principal, Dr. Kay Williams. “I’ve learned enough about self-publishing to know that others can do it, too. Dr. Williams told me that all my writing and book publishing will apply well here,” he says.