Five minutes into the competition, one of the electric car's back tires had blown out, bringing it to an abrupt stop and leaving a group of Southwest Independent School District students in a lurch.
Hundreds of miles from home in a national competition against more seasoned electric car teams, they repaired the busted wheel and performed well — then their other car took second place, math teacher Oscar Castañeda recalled as his charges tinkered with the vehicles back at their high school campus this week.
Southwest ISD has a mostly low-income population. It has struggled with standardized tests. But it has paid a lot of attention to adding career and technology programs, many of which offer certifications in promising job fields like cyber security, said Superintendent Lloyd Verstuyft.
The efforts of the rural school district south of San Antonio — growing at a rapid clip thanks partly to the Eagle Ford Shale play — drew a nomination this year for an
H-E-B Excellence in Education Award and now the status as one of a handful of finalists for $100,000 in its “large district” category.
Winners of the awards, considered the biggest education monetary competition in the state with more than $500,000 at stake, will be announced Friday at a gala in Austin.
The nomination validated the work of educators, parents, community members and especially students, Verstuyft said.
“We are only as good as our students,” he said. “What we collectively do as adults is try to make a better system for our students and that's what we hang our hat on and that's what we come to work for every day.”
Linking college, technology
Under a cloudy sky, Southwest Engineering Team students ran tests on a wind turbine they use to power the vehicles.
Energy from the turbine can be used separately from solar panels or together, senior Rolando Melendez said. He explained the difference between direct and alternating electric current to sophomore Tristan Mabe, who already has two welding certifications and said he was eager to learn the “new stuff.”
Melendez understands that younger students like Mabe are the future of the program.
“We've got computer kids, welding kids, dual credit kids,” he said. “You just go ahead and teach everyone everything.”
That's the part of the program senior Ronni Isham loves — it shows that “engineering isn't something you just learn in the classroom but something you do,” she said.
“One of the reasons we've grown is because we don't just want the straight-A kids,” Isham said.
The team membership has doubled in two years, said Isham, who joined when it started last year. She said the electric car team and others like it offer hands-on experience in science, technology and engineering and attract students because they help them connect concepts they learned in class.
The school district has more than 20 courses offering industry certification and licensing. Mabe said he's certified in two processes in welding. Melendez said he's certified in computer maintenance programs, including A+ and Network+.
“So if any of us go to college and get a degree and can't immediately find work, we'll be able to go out and get a job with our certifications,” Mabe said.
In his office this week, where the walls are lined with pictures not of his children but district students, Verstuyft said the move to connect career and technology programs with college-level courses was deliberate.
“We know that those are the types of experiences that really engage students,” he said. “We have to help them see that there's a purpose for them sitting in a classroom.”
Voters in the area approved $160 million in bond funding last year for a new high school and middle school.
High expectations
Nancy Oelklaus, one of nine H-E-B judges who visited the campus in the evaluation and interview portion of the competition, said that what struck her about Southwest ISD was the feeling that there were high expectations for students and a culture that grew strong leaders.
The district stretches over 115 square miles in still-quiet country in South Bexar County. Banners with the names of students in district programs like band and robotics hang on 72 light poles that line the main roads in the district's cluster of campuses. Oelklaus said the banners and a water tower lit green at night, the schools' color, contribute to a sense of pride.
“Every student I talked to could tell me exactly what they were doing after high school,” Oelklaus, a former educator, said Wednesday.
She praised the school board's ability to work with Verstuyft and said the district showed an improvement in student achievement despite having 88 percent of its 13,000 students considered economically disadvantaged.
“It's a challenge and we look to see if that they're meeting that challenge. And Southwest ISD is,” Oelklaus said.
The dropout rate has fluctuated but was 8.9 percent for 2011-2012, according to Texas Education Agency statistics.
Southwest was one of four area school districts with passing percentages in the 30s for the eighth grade social studies test in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness or STAAR test, which debuted last year and is more rigorous than previous state tests.
Verstuyft said the district's transition to a more rigorous curriculum last year left some gaps that educators are working to close. Boosting professional development and analyzing the data to see where kids struggled the most will help, he said.
“The one thing we won't do is chase the test,” Verstuyft said.
But the district's ability to grow its own leaders — like Verstuyft, who was a student, a coach and a principal there — also shows outsiders that something is happening that people want to stick around for, Oelklaus said. David Ruiz, a Southwest High School graduate and now its welding instructor, said he feels at home teaching in the district. He spoke with passing students this week outside the welding garage, then became serious for a moment, saying he was grateful that the district supported the professional development that now lets him train and certify students in welding. Former students, he said, now do it for a living, own small businesses and oversee construction projects.
Southwest ISD will compete Friday against four other school districts. Several San Antonio educators were also nominated, along with the Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children in the early childhood category.
“Whether we win it, whether we don't, doesn't really seem to matter at this point,” Verstuyft said. “We're nowhere near done. We just need to smile and keep working.”
mcesar@express-news.net
Twitter: @mlcesar
Source: southwest - Yahoo! News Search Results http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/Southwest-ISD-shines-despite-problems-4481150.php
