7-30-09

The new school year is on its way and White Oak ISD is gearing up to welcome students, faculty and staff back for another year of outstanding accomplishments. I am going to make an effort to be more active on this Blog site and give some of the activities and achievements of the district the recognition they deserve. With that in mind, I want to share three things that will make WOISD a better place in 2009/2010.
Pam Cranford is moving to a position in the Intermediate School that will allow her to touch the lives of many of our students and also help our teaching staff become even more proficient in educational technology. After accepting the Texas Computer Educators Teacher of the Year Award, Mrs. Cranford now serves on a state level technology committee in Austin. In July, she was able to share many of the best practices being applied at WOISD and learn from other outstanding educators across the state. The meeting was attended by Commissioner Robert Scott and I know that Mrs. Cranford’s position on this committee will bring valuable new information to White Oak. You can keep up with Pam Cranford’s efforts to improve the quality of education at http://testing123.wonecks.net/2009/07/30/help-you-need-somebody/.
During our in-service training the week of August 17th, many of our teachers will receive training on the use of electronic student portfolios. This is an emerging technology that will allow our students to display and store samples of their work and demonstrate their mastery of required technology TEKS. As this process grows, our student will have a portfolio that will be a valuable tool when they apply for college and/or enter the work world after school. The use of portfolios will also allow our faculty and staff to identify and meet the technology training needs of our students on a more individual basis.
The last thing I want to share is an ongoing success story starring a White Oak Graduate. Emanuel Gawrieh is currently a student at Baylor University. Mr. Gawrieh shared some of his experiences with me in an email earlier this summer and I was very proud to read that he felt his education at White Oak provided him with the tools necessary to succeed at the university level. We hope to schedule time for Emanuel to share his experiences with our current student body and to allow our students to see there is no limit to where you can go from White Oak High School. Emanuel’s story is not just a tale of going from White Oak to Waco. During his time at Baylor, he has successfully completed internships at the State Capital in Austin where he worked with our legislators and gained valuable insight in the inner workings of government. Most recently, Mr. Gawrieh successfully completed an internship in Washington D.C. Our White Oak High School Grad worked in the Supreme Court of the United States of America! I look forward to hearing what he has to share with our students.
White Oak ISD is a great place to live, work and study. I can assure you that no one here thinks it is a place that can not be better. We know that the best things to happen in White Oak are yet to come. I hope to share those successes through this media.