Houston Independent School District
S.P. Waltrip High School
1900 West 34th Street · Houston, Texas 77018-6186
Phone: 713-688-1361 · Fax: 713-957-7743 · Website: www.houstonisd.org/waltriphs
Andria Schur
Principal
Rick Shore
Dean of Instruction
Anna Valls
Dean of Instruction
Reginald White
Dean of Students
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
SDMC Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 4:20 PM. Attendance was as follows:
Members Present:
Blackmon, Ruby
Donaldson, Jennifer
Dunn, Kevin
Espinosa, Jesse
Hobart, Debby
Krohn, Cynthia
Ortiz, Ernest
Reibenstein, Cindy
Schur, Andria, Principal
Turner, Jeff
Villarreal, Elizabeth
Members not present: Deb Adams, Delinda Holland, and Dan Kelly.
Principal Schur quickly thanked members for volunteering to be part of the SDMC and reiterated the
SDMC’s main goals: establishing, monitoring, and evaluating goals for budgeting, staffing,
curriculum, planning, school organization, staffing patterns, and staff development. The goal of the
SDMC is to pull together our community in a constructive, organized, and unified body to enhance the
education of all students.
Bond Construction Update:
Great strides made with electrical, plumbing, and other infrastructure over the summer and this fall
thus far. The plans are almost ready to submit for the bidding process with HISD.
SIP Update/Vote:
Data is looking good in our academic areas, teachers are doing a great job, attendance is good. This
year’s attendance in the first week of school compared to last year, first week, was 1% higher. We are
on the right path.
We have big strategies and focus this year. Last year we voted on the late start waiver. Late start
Thursdays are being used for technology – around HUB – getting ready for 1-to-1 laptops in January
2015. Even with linked learning, getting all of the teachers together to plan on late start Thursdays
helps everyone have time together and touch base.
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Houston Independent School District
S.P. Waltrip High School
1900 West 34th Street · Houston, Texas 77018-6186
Phone: 713-688-1361 · Fax: 713-957-7743 · Website: www.houstonisd.org/waltriphs
Andria Schur
Principal
Rick Shore
Dean of Instruction
Anna Valls
Dean of Instruction
Reginald White
Dean of Students
Staff Development – Core Instructional Framework (Rounds Model), HUB, Linked Learning:
We have 3 initiatives for staff development which are embedded into PLC groups. Core Instructional
Framework, Linked Learning, and HUB. 6 core instructional strategies – same strategies that the early
college high schools use – they are similar to the Bill and Melinda Gates strategies – writing to learn,
writing across curriculum and questioning; really helping teachers be more adept with questioning …
scaffolding … getting kids to write down their thoughts and process their thoughts incorporates
scaffolding. Linked Learning is similar to Project Based Learning. HUB is our district dashboard for
teachers, students, and curriculum.
Principal Schur discussed collaborative groups, literacy groups and HUB. There is a district push for
technology with the 1:1 laptop initiative (students get laptops in Jan) – we are providing additional
tools, helping them to be much more efficient with time consuming tasks such as grading papers, etc. 1to- 1 will increase efficiency and make it a lot easier for kids to give things to their teachers … they
will be able to turn in assignments through HUB.
Staff development is a large part of our SIP. We will go in and do progress measures throughout the
year. We plan for our grade level teams and our instructional specialists to go down and visit PHAR
Early College High School. Through the tools and strategies learned, we expect higher End of Course
(“EOC”) results utilizing these instructional strategies, and teachers will give one another feedback.
[Model of how they work together … ?? ]We are studying the cost of the trip. Principal Schur will
provide the SDMC with cost estimate as soon as available.
Initiatives:
 Waltrip’s team’s big focus is writing and questioning. If our students can process thoughts and put
them into written form, they will benefit in all areas academically.
 Another big initiative is increasing positive behavior and decreasing or changing negative
behavior. As Dean of Students, Sgt. White is working with students and their families, getting to know
them. Knowing where the students come from and creating a relationship with them increases Sgt.
White’s ability to help them better. In School Suspension and our own campus Discipline Alternative
Program will improve our attendance and dropout rate by keeping kids in school with academic
support. Our team is also doing home visits.
This year we welcome Mr. Gonzalez, certified registrar, to our campus. He comes to us from HSPVA
and the Young Women’s Prep. and he is teaming with Sgt. White.
 Another vital initiative --- college readiness. Increasing SAT and PSAT scores is our goal that that
goal is embedded in instruction every day.
The new state ranking system is a lot more complicated – Index 4 covers a lot of that – staff
developments, attendance, recovering kids – all of those things get calculated into Index 4.
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Houston Independent School District
S.P. Waltrip High School
1900 West 34th Street · Houston, Texas 77018-6186
Phone: 713-688-1361 · Fax: 713-957-7743 · Website: www.houstonisd.org/waltriphs
Andria Schur
Principal
Rick Shore
Dean of Instruction
Anna Valls
Dean of Instruction
Reginald White
Dean of Students
 Another target area contains two big areas of concern: 1) We want 100% of our students to pass
EOC; and 2) ELL population. Of the students who did not pass EOC, approx. 80% of those students
were ELL students. When focusing on vocabulary – terminology can be difficult for these students.
Infrequently used words unfamiliar to today’s teenager can be a roadblock. Example: the word “spirits”
used in historic texts versus “alcoholic beverage” or theme vs main idea.
When you look at our focus areas, the main components are college readiness; increasing readiness in
PSAT and SAT scores; attendance; graduation rate; and ELL students.
SIP Vote:
The SDMC held a vote for approval of Waltrip’s SIP. By a 2/3 quorum of SDMC members present, all
in favor, the vote passed.
Budget:
Principal Schur explained how to read the budget as well as what is allowed as far as moving funds
from one item to another. She is going to post Waltrip’s budget online and there will be a template to
explain what each code means.
Yearly patterns, UIL fees, staff projections, stipends (Waltrip has over $100,000 in stipends), and
monies allocated to clubs and organizations are all things shown on the budget.
Clubs and organizations need to be raising money because the District does not give us much money
for entrance fees, supplies, travel and support. Teachers and coaches school-wide are doing an amazing
job of raising money and making fundraising a priority.
Current expenses/needs: There are unfunded mandates that must be covered by campus (Grad Lab
Coach, Reading Teacher, SAT courses, etc) We don’t get a lot of AP materials, this are campus
expenses. Each teaching position cost the campus about $52,5000; we have about 4 teaching units that
come as funded mandates, which takes away from campus monies for flexibility. We have enough
students to need another foreign language teacher – but only have enough students that would justify
about ½ Spanish teacher and ½ French teacher. Also we need another science teacher – but currently
our numbers show we need a ½ science teacher and ½ math teacher. When we hit 1,800 student number
mark, we’ll be able to get there.
We are currently at 1,668 students.
There was a general discussion of funds for fine arts, athletics, and comparison of other districts’
schools’ income vs. HISD schools’ income.
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Houston Independent School District
S.P. Waltrip High School
1900 West 34th Street · Houston, Texas 77018-6186
Phone: 713-688-1361 · Fax: 713-957-7743 · Website: www.houstonisd.org/waltriphs
Andria Schur
Principal
Rick Shore
Dean of Instruction
Anna Valls
Dean of Instruction
Reginald White
Dean of Students
Principal Schur stated that Waltrip’s campus can show how to be self-sufficient because of our
wonderful staff.
Heights Chamber of Commerce:
The Chamber is planning a teacher happy hour for all elementary through high schools in this area in
November and information will be made available to our campus as soon as it is sent out. The Chamber
plans to make this a per semester event to encourage and promote community with our area schools.
They also propose a student mixer for 8th through 12th grades at the YMCA to promote unity among our
students. Cindy Reibenstein reported the Chamber of Commerce is going to provide identification
luggage tags for our new laptops.
PTSA:
PTSA reports approximately 20% of Waltrip’s teachers have joined the PTSA. PTSA membership is
currently under 100 overall.
Feeder and area schools:
There was some discussion regarding bridging with area middle schools and Ms. Schur explained
Garden Oaks Montessori Magnet’s wish to build a school within a school, Montessori students
attending Waltrip or another area high school, and those incoming students becoming part of the
comprehensive high school life while studying in a project based learning way.
Principal Schur closed the meeting by stating she feels Waltrip has the very best teaching team she has
ever personally worked with in all of her experience.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:25 PM.
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