TIBS provides numerous scholarships and innovative teaching/training grants to deserving students and teachers each year.
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TIBS 2022 eNewsletter, Spring Edition
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Dear TIBS community,
Welcome to the 2022 Spring eNewsletter.
What a year! We often hear that 2021-2022 has been the most difficult yet! Schools are dealing with learning gaps and all the other frustrations that the pandemic has brought to our world and into our schools. We know that you are looking forward to a much-deserved summer break. In spite of the difficulties of the year, we felt some of you would have something to share when we asked you to "tell us something good." And we were right!
Thanks so much to those of you who responded to our request. We were impressed with the things you had to share. We are also going to share some good things that we know about later in the eNewsletter when we reveal our article regarding things that TIBS has been a part of during this difficult period in history.
This edition brings an interesting array of information to your inbox. It is always our hope that sharing accomplishments and good things that have happened will either inspire you or confirm that you, too, are doing good things. Please let us know what other kinds of items you would like to see in this eNewsletter in the future.
We are grateful for your continued support and truly appreciate your inspiring community and classroom work. Don't forget to keep us updated with your stories, photos, and videos! We can't wait to see them this fall.
Best regards,
Karen Phillips, TIBS Executive Director
Courtney Smith, TIBS Associate Executive Director
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- Scholarship Winners
- What We've Been Up To / What's Coming Up
- Recently Authorized Schools
- 2022-23 Board Members
- Global Conference
- 2022 College Fair Report
- February Meetings
- Summer Training
- Good Things Happening in our Schools
- Announcements
- Contact Us
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TIBS DP Scholarship Winners
- Karla Acosta (Trinity High School)
- Samia Bruster (Westwood High School)
- Mazie Johnson (Rockwall High School)
- Christian Lopez (South Texas ISD World Scholars)
- Elise Pham (L.D. Bell High School)
- Hang Pham (Lamar High School—Houston)
- Andres Luna-Chavez (IDEA South Flores College Prep)
Thanks to the generosity of Toddle, we were able to award a 7th DP scholarship this year.
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What We’ve Been Up To:
- Uplift Education Virtual Workshops (January 3 & 4)
- TIBS Spring Meeting—Virtual (February 25)
- TAGT Leadership Conference—Georgetown (March 27-29)
- TIBS Virtual College Fair
What’s Coming Up:
- DFW Area Workshops—June 9 & 10
- San Antonio Area Workshops—June 13 & 14
- Austin Workshops—July 25-27 & 28-30
- Houston Area Workshops—August 4 & 5
- Round Rock Area Workshops—August 11 & 12
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Congratulations to our newly authorized schools in Texas!
We are very proud of all of your hard work. If you are not on this list and have been authorized, please let us know.
- Crow Leadership Academy (PYP)—Arlington
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- Linda Buie (At Large) - Longview ISD
- Seby Meloni (At Large) - Houston ISD
- Penny Tschirhart (At Large) - San Antonio ISD
- Katie Biela (DP) - Uplift North Hills Preparatory, Irving
- Margaret Davis (DP) - Alcuin School, Dallas
- Toby Klameth (MYP) - Hutchinson Middle School, Lubbock ISD
- Jennifer Love (MYP) - Thomas Jefferson High School, San Antonio
- Kelly McBride (PYP) - International School of Texas, Austin
- Ashley Swindle (PYP) - International School of Texas, Austin
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Enhancing Innovation and Inspiring Action
San Diego, July 16-19
Texas IB Schools, along with the folks at TCIS, will once again be a sponsor for the IB Global Conference in San Diego in July. We hope many of you will be able to attend.
Here is the link to information about the conference, including the registration link.
We are proud to announce that Veronika Gutierrez’s session proposal for the July 2022 IB Conference has been accepted. Veronika is the PYP coordinator at Huppertz Elementary School, San Antonio ISD. The session title and description are below. If you are in San Diego for the conference, please consider attending her session described below:
Empowering students through IB retreats
Retreats allow individuals to take a pause from the fast-paced interactions of the real world to reset and deepen their understanding of the world around them. Huppertz Elementary in San Antonio, Texas, US has established IB retreat days for students in grades 2-5 to deepen their relationship with the elements of IB. During these days, students dig deeper into the learner profile, student agency/action, ATL skills, and exhibition to enhance their personal well-being and the well-being of others. This session will show participants how Huppertz designed these IB retreat days, allow participants to engage in discussion about the content, and see authentic student artifacts. Participants will hear about the impact these days had on students, be provided an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, and be inspired to introduce IB retreats at their campus.
Submitted by Penny Tschirhart, Assistant Director of IB Programmes,
San Antonio ISD
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College Fair 2022 Was/Is Virtual!
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College Fair 2022 was scheduled for April 22, 2022. Even though all schools were back for in person learning, we recognized that the difficulty of providing substitutes continues to limit travel. We wanted to continue to connect our wonderful IB students to colleges and universities. So, Texas IB Schools, in partnership with the Texas Council for International Studies, again created a virtual college fair sponsored by Johns Hopkins University Office of Admissions, University of Texas at Austin, and Southern Methodist University. College Fair 2022 is available to IB students and their families.
On the website, students can listen to messages from universities recorded especially for IB students. Visitors can also access the university websites and mailing lists. Universities will be added to the website as they come in. Here is the link: http://www.texasibcollegefair.com.
Texas IB College Fair 2022 provides
- a link for students to use to join a university’s mailing list on the same page as the university’s video
- a link to all the university websites together
- a calendar of events hosted by participating universities
- recorded presentations of general interest submitted by universities
College Fair 2023 has been tentatively scheduled for April 27, 2023. We hope to see you and your students there in person!
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Coordinator Meetings
February 25th
All coordinator meetings this year have been virtual. A recording of each of the breakout sessions remains available on the homepage of our website: https://www.texasibschools.org/
Links to the sessions from November remain on the website as well.
Texas IB Schools thanks our friends at Toddle not only for providing the technology which made these meetings possible, but also for providing us with wonderful guest speakers.
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SUMMER TRAINING 2022
The Texas IB Schools staff will be busy this summer, as we return to a more normal list of training opportunities. It is our hope that our offerings will provide the IB schools in Texas the ability to provide and perhaps catch up on training for those who have joined your staffs during the last two years.
Here is where and when our trainings will be in the summer of 2022:
DFW Area: June 9-10
San Antonio Area: June 13-14
Austin: July 25-27 & 28-30
Houston Area: August 4-5
Round Rock Area: August 11-12
Registration for the two Austin workshops is on our website. Registration for the area workshops is handled through your IB Coordinator.
Let's toast Courtney Smith, Workshop Director, for the fabulous job she does organizing all these trainings. We are so lucky to have you, Courtney!
We hope to see many of you during the summer at one of our trainings.
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Briscoe Elementary Students Learn First Hand About Architecture
Students at Briscoe were part of a unique program where they learned from local architects to create workspace throughout their school.
For months, Briscoe Elementary School students met with architects to make their visions come to life. The school partnered with Alamo Architects and the nonprofit Supporting Multiple Arts Resources Together, also known as SMART, to transform these unutilized spaces in the school.
“Five architects have worked with a group of five students apiece to create these pods, and they went through the whole design process,” said Jennifer Emerson, head of school at Briscoe Elementary School.
Students are improving on math, reading, writing and art skills through the project.
To learn more, follow these links:
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21-22 De Leon Middle School Community Project Showcase
Grit. If there is one word to describe the 21-22 academic school year, it is that. Despite teachers and students collaborating with each other to close the learning gaps, grit is what this school year has brought out in our students.
The 21-22 Community Project Showcase was like no other in the past despite being in the middle of a pandemic. Students excelled in developing a project to make a positive change in their community. Students took on eco-friendly projects,
such as having to plant trees for every bag of trash collected at school. They also held various campaigns around the campus.
One of the most impressive projects at my campus, however, was a group of two boys who tied their passion for orchestra with their love of animals and decided to hold a concert, with all of the proceeds donated to a local animal shelter.The students called this “Strings for Strays." Students sold tickets throughout school lunches, as
well as to the public to raise awareness of the high number of stray animals in our community. Overall, these two boys raised over $600, all of which was donated to the local Palm Valley Animal Shelter.
Submitted by Kimberly Alaniz, MYP Coordinator, DeLeon Middle School, McAllen ISD
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Action and Agency at Grandview Hills
When you walk through the halls of Grandview Hills, you wouldn’t believe that we are finishing out our third school year impacted by COVID.
This year has been the year of action for our students. Students from first grade to fifth grade have used their voice to make a change at our school, our community, and the greater Austin area.
Plastic bags -- they are everywhere. One student in first grade saw the problem and decided to do something about it. Throughout the year we have been collecting plastic bags to weave mats and blankets for our homeless population. Currently, our school has collected 8,000 bags which will make 11 mats that are currently being woven by students throughout the school.
Fruit trees were a passion for one of our fourth graders. This student researched the importance of trees and presented the idea of a fruit tree fundraiser to our principal and PTA. From there the fruit tree fundraiser was born, headed up by this fabulous fourth-grader. After sending home flyers, creating announcements, and talking at a PTA meeting, our community purchased over a hundred fruit trees.
During a unit of inquiry, one fourth-grade class learned about the blood shortage in the Austin area. With the help of their teacher and our nurse, they contacted We Are Blood and put on a blood drive right here at our school! All slots were taken, and blood was donated!
During How We Organize Ourselves, students in second grade worked with the Pulsera Project to sell handmade pulseras and bolsitas to help bring money to artists in Central America. They sold out in three days and were beyond proud of the outcome from the action they took. Along the same lines as second grade, we had a group of fourth grade students who took it upon themselves to create a lemonade and snack stand to raise awareness that Austin Pets Alive was struggling financially to get supplies for their animals. Our students were able to raise money and awareness for this amazing organization. The Knittin’ Kittens, our knitting club, has decided to take their final project and turn it into action as well. For their final project they were going to knit scarves for themselves; however, they felt that since we have talked about action all year, they want to donate them to a homeless shelter to be passed out to those in need.
Great action and agency are taking place at Grandview Hills, and we can’t wait to see what the 2022-2023 school year brings!
Submitted by Erin Carroll, PYP Coordinator, Grandview Hills Elementary, Leander ISD
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Patterson Elementary Supports Teachers as Learners
After spending nearly three years in a global pandemic, we saw a gap in knowledge and experience in our staff. We had to come up with a plan to support our staff in their PYP journey, so we consulted a variety of sources and created a school-wide unit of inquiry to support our new and veteran teachers.
Our unit of inquiry would focus on the central idea that the PYP is a framework for significant, relevant, engaging, and challenging international education. Our lines of inquiry would explore and inquire into the elements of the PYP, how the elements work in a classroom, and how elements work in subject/grade specific areas. We hosted nano PD's with the various grade levels in our school in combination with collaborative planning sessions. We covered transdisciplinary learning, international-mindedness, and concept-based teaching and learning to name a few. The overarching goal we wanted for our staff was to learn about the PYP by learning through the PYP. We modeled inquiry based, concept-driven teaching and learning practices in each session that staff could immediately take back and use in their classrooms. This school wide-unit of inquiry has allowed our teachers to stay connected to unit planning, unit delivery, and unit reflection from a teaching perspective.
Submitted by Karlie Signor, IB Magnet Coordinator, Patterson Dual Language Literature Magnet, Houston ISD
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Mading Elementary Launches Laps for Literacy
Mading Elementary partnered with Chris McGilvery who is the Founder and Director of the Texas based nonprofit, The Leaders Readers Network , which is dedicated to equitable education and literacy for all students . We launched a Laps for Literacy campaign at Houston ISD's Mading Elementary on April 8, 2022.
The purpose of this campaign is to encourage all students, teachers, and family members to get moving and reading. The entire campus community will work together to get moving and reading to help give kids' books. The goal is to walk/run 5,000 laps to help provide all kids at Mading Elementary school with high quality diverse books to support their literacy development and love for reading.
Just in case you might be unfamiliar with our work, here is a quick snapshot of the need our programs address, our activities, and our impact. The organization recently celebrated 10 years of operations and our impact of supporting over 175,000 students.
Watch the video to learn more:
Submitted by Cshenal Jackson, Dean of Instruction, Mading Elementary, Houston ISD
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Maker Mania at Westlake Academy
The Westlake Academy community gathered for Maker Mania night in April, bringing together PYP students and their families. The primary teachers organized STEM and literacy activities around a shared unit of inquiry:
Creative thinking is a process of expression and problem-solving.
An inquiry into:
· How differences influence creativity
· How humans collaborate to find solutions
· Problem-solving using the approaches to learning (ATLs)
The community engaged in various activities, such as coding, circuit building, paint chip poetry, origami, and word values using Scrabble tiles. Creativity and problem-solving came to life through several approaches to teaching (ATTs): inquiry, conceptual understanding, collaboration, and differentiation. This provided parents with an active glimpse into the power of an IB education.
When the school year started nine months ago, Maker Mania was a dream we hoped could happen amid the pandemic. Seeing this event come to life and hearing all the creative excitement in the building reminded us of just how important community is.
Submitted by Alison Schneider, IB Primary Curriculum Coordinator, Westlake Academy
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TIBS Shares Its Own Tell Me Something Good Story
Texas IB Schools was asked to submit an article for the April newsletter of the IB Associations of IB World Schools. What follows is our submission:
Texas IB Schools’ ability to adapt allows them to thrive during the pandemic
Adapting to a global pandemic brought many changes to Texas IB Schools, but it didn’t slow us down. Like most everyone else, we changed our gatherings to virtual events until July 2021, when we seamlessly shifted back to providing in-person professional development for 600 teachers. We also continued to arrange consultation visits for schools in the application process and support other schools preparing for the evaluation process.
TIBS has sponsored an IB College Fair since 2015, with nearly 100 colleges and universities and 2,000 IB students attending annually. When we could not gather in person, we launched an ongoing virtual College Fair by creating a website where colleges and universities can post short informational videos, and students are encouraged to interact with those that interest them.
However, our proudest achievement is the partnership TIBS established with the student-founded non-profit organization, Simple Bare Necessities. This non-profit, founded as a CAS project by Longview High school student, Arya Germanwala, aims to provide basic care commodities to Longview Independent School District students. In the past six months, TIBS has partnered with Simple Bare Necessities and connected Arya with Trevor Bergman from We Help Two to help get schools outside the Longview community involved in making hygiene kits for students in Texas who need access to basic toiletries.
TIBS is proud to support Simple Bare Necessities and a caring student like Arya Germanwala as she illustrates what one determined person can do to make the world a better place for other people. What a great CAS project! Check out the website https://www.simplebarenecessities.org/. Those outside of Texas are encouraged to participate!
(Pictures from International School of Texas, Dual Language Magnet Academy, and Foster Middle School, preparing kits for Simple Bare Necessities.)
Submitted by Karen Phillips, Executive Director, Texas IB Schools
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UPCOMING EVENTS:
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Registration for the TIBS Austin workshops (Session 1 and 2) is here. Remember: the IB organization and Kent State University have partnered to offer graduate credit for PYP, MYP, and DP training. Click here to find out more!
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We'd love to hear from you with any questions or concerns.
If you have feedback on the newsletter, please contact Judy Chapman.
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