For Monica Villarreal, sometimes it appears unreal that she finished high school in 2002 and that she is now an accomplished professional serving in the U.S. Army.

A graduate of Premier High School of Del Rio, Villarreal enrolled during her junior year at the age of 17.  She left her home at the towards the end of her sophomore year at Del Rio High School.

“I had an altercation with my mother and I left home to live with my friend,” she recalled.

She began her junior year at the age of 16 at PHS Del Rio. She said she was surprised to find the school staff motivated her much more than anyone had ever done at her traditional school.

“Once I realized that this was a self-paced school, I knew that I had made the right decision. I had always been a go-getter and the self-paced system allowed me to enhance my potential,” Villarreal said, “It allowed me to quickly finish work on subjects that I was familiar with, and allowed me to more time to work on subjects I wasn’t as strong at. And at the times where I felt stuck, there was always someone nearby to guide me in the right direction.”

Villarreal completed her junior and senior year in one and graduated as her class salutatorian.

“I was beat out of the valedictorian spot by only tenths of our GPA,” she said.

After graduation from the charter school, Villarreal took part of the Bridge to Success program at Texas A&M International University in the summer of 2002.  After completing the program, she attended the local junior college.
After spending a year at home, Villarreal decided to join the Army.

“This August I will have been enlisted for eight years now as an intelligence professional,” she said.

She has done a tour in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 and is presently serving in Afghanistan. She also spent time stationed in Hawaii and Miami and have traveled to Korea and Germany.

“As a staff sergeant and am able to use the leadership skills I learned at Premier High School with my soldiers. I inspire and motivate them to always strive for their goals,” she said, “Premier High School helped shape and mold me into a model student and a leader… I have made my mother, my hometown, and my country proud, and it was all thanks to the school staff believing in me and my potential.”

Below are a few photos:

Third grader, Nelson Rodriguez, dressed up as Shan, a character from the book, “The Sword in the Tree.”

Left to right: Second graders Joyceline Rangel, Valerie Rodriguez, Danielle Wyrick, and Lily Hernandez with their teacher: Ms. Amanda Puett.

Left to right: Mrs. Jessica Huffman (2nd grade teacher) as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, Ms. Amanda Puett (2nd grade teacher) as Pippi Longstockings, Ms. Megan Theissen (3rd grade teacher) as Bella Swan from Twilight, Mrs. Yvette Iglinsky (director) as Junie B. Jones from Junie B. Jones book series, Mrs. Erika Jamison (kindergarten teacher) as old mother hubbard, and Ms. Elizabeth Sabas (4th grade teacher) as Francine from the Arthur series.

Left to right: Fourth graders: Semaj’a Johnson, Miguel Zavala, Rodgret Turner, Citlalli Arias, and Jasmin Espinoza display their books.

Fourth Graders at Vista Academy of Jasper investigated the history and symbolism of the Great Seal of the United States located on the back of a dollar bill – something seen and often overlooked each day of our lives. After exploring those details, they then created their own Family Seal, which included locating the meaning/origin of their family name, creating a picture to symbolize their family, and creating a family motto.

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Originally published August 18, 2011 at 5:51 p.m.
updated August 18, 2011 at 11:05 p.m.

Representatives from the largest charter school district in Texas left town Thursday vowing to return in January with a new charter school.

Alan Wimberley, chief systems officer for Responsive Education Solutions, said he intends to present the company’s executive team with the proposal to open Vista Academy of Victoria in the middle of the upcoming school year.

“I really had a very clear sense that the community would be very open, very responsive to a high-quality, high-expectation charter school,” he said on his way back to Lewisville.

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LEWISVILLE, Texas – July 29, 2011 – Responsive Education Solutions (ResponsiveEd), Texas’ largest public charter school holder, today announced that 100 percent of Premier High School campuses earned the highest rating possible from the Texas Education Agency for the fifth year in a row, since 2007. And, 75 percent of Standard Accountability campuses received Exemplary or Recognized ratings. No school was rated Unacceptable.

ResponsiveEd has delivered outstanding results in a year with higher state accountability standards and lower ratings for the majority of districts across Texas. ResponsiveEd’s ratings demonstrate the system is one of the most successful charter school districts in Texas and among the most successful of any public school district.

Across the district, four campuses earned Exemplary ratings and five earned Recognized ratings. The district’s total TAKS met standard measure was 85 percent for all students.

“ResponsiveEd has experienced tremendous academic success during the 2010-11 school year,” said Charles Cook, CEO of ResponsiveEd. “The hard work of our students and staff over the past year has produced outstanding results for our schools.”

ResponsiveEd’s standard accountability schools—Vista Academy, Quest Middle School and iSchool High—provide students a challenging college preparatory education with student-centered curriculum and programs.

Exemplary campuses include Vista Academy of Carrollton, Vista Academy of Coppell, Vista Academy of Willis – The Woodlands and Quest Middle School. Recognized campuses include Vista Academy of Amarillo, Vista Academy of Garland, Vista Academy of Hickory Creek – Lewisville, Vista Academy of Jasper and iSchool High of Lewisville.

“Our charter schools provide a real option for students currently in traditional public schools,” said Cook. “ResponsiveEd offers small classes and a supportive learning environment that enables children to achieve a higher level of academic confidence and success. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated by exceptional student performance and top academic ratings.”

Premier High Schools, a highly successful dropout recovery program, had a TAKS met standard average of 80 percent for all students. In addition, all Premier campuses achieved the state’s highest rating under the Alternative Education Accountability system, Academically Acceptable.

AEA Schools TAKS Met Standard Measure
Top 5 Campuses

Abilene – 94 percent
Brownsville – 91 percent
Austin – South – 89 percent
Granbury – 88 percent
Pharr – 86 percent

“Premier High Schools have achieved tremendous success in raising the standards and expectations for students that have dropped out of local high schools,” said Cook. “I am proud of the Premier staff and administration that continue to change lives and provide hope to thousands of students across the state.”

About Responsive Education Solutions

Responsive Education Solutions (ResponsiveEd), Texas’ largest public charter school holder, operates 50 public school campuses located throughout the state of Texas, including Premier High Schools, Vista Academies, Quest Middle School, iSchool High, and Texas Virtual Academy. ResponsiveEd schools are high quality, free public charter schools that serve at-risk students in grades 6-12, and students on college preparatory tracks in grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. To learn more, visit http://ResponsiveEd.com.

School bells will soon be ringing at a new public charter school in Beaumont.

Construction continues at Triumph Church, where Vista Academy of Beaumont will be located.

The charter school offers a free education to students in Kindergarten through the 4th grade.

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Story also featured at KIITV and CBS 19.

Matthew Powell had a big decision to make before he finished high school.

Would he stay in Texas to start as a freshman at Southern Methodist University (SMU) or go to Notre Dame in Indiana?

Powell, 17, a student at Lewisville’s iSchool High recently received scholarship offers from seven universities including Baylor University, Drexel University, Georgia Tech and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. The scholarships amounts totaled $650,000 between all the schools.

“I am going to be attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I am planning to study engineering,” he said.

Born in Dallas and raised in the Lewisville area, Powell is one of 27 students selected to receive the four-year Hunt Leadership Scholarship from SMU.  Rose Torres, administrative coordinator of the scholars program said 489 students applied for the coveted scholarship this year.

“We are very excited to have Matthew join us this year,” Torres said in an e-mail, “Mrs. Hunt, our sponsor, interviewed him and was very impressed.”

According to its scholarship’s website, the scholarship is granted to students based on their extraordinary leadership and community work their academic achievement.

Jacqueline Powell, Matt’s mother said she was thrilled with her son’s scholarship and school acceptance.

“We went to a lot of schools and he wrote tons of essays and it paid off,” she said, “It was such a hard decision to make, and they are two amazing schools.”

Even before coming to iSchool High, Mrs. Powell said her son had always been a hard worker.

“He was a great student before, but it elevated once he got to iSchool High,” Mrs. Powell commented.

Powell came to iSchool High in 2009 to begin his junior year. His previous school, American Heritage Academy, a private school in Carrollton had closed due to budget concerns, Mrs. Powell said.

In trying to find a new location, Mrs. Powell said she wanted a school that would allow her son to reach his full potential.

“One of the things I love about the high school is that students can grasp what they are learning and how they are going to apply that in the real world,” she said.

The small classes, the individual learning and having a good relationship with his teachers, Powell said, were essential to his educational advancement.

“The setup was not much different from my previous school,” Powell said. “It was the same size as my other school. I was already used to a small environment. Mainly, the difference [at iSchool High] is the teachers.”

Powell believes teachers at iSchool High were more accessible and had a greater interest in seeing him succeed.

“I felt I could come to them whenever I needed help. They could be my mentor, my friend and also my teacher all at the same time. They did not have to be some teacher who was standoffish from her student and not have a relationship with them,” Powell said.

At iSchool High, not only was Powell able to maintain an impressive grade-point average, but also take part in the school activities. Last fall he joined two classmates as part of their school’s engineering team led by their engineering teacher Jerry Price. Powell described his experienced as unique and stressful, but he said working on their robot until 1 a.m. days before the completion was worth it.

iSchool High’s Innovations team earned first place in the regional competition of the Texas Computer Education Association’s (TCEA) Robotics Competition. The win granted the team a spot in the 2011 TCEA State Competition in the April.

“We ended up getting fourth in state,” Powell said about the statewide competition results, “It was a big accomplishment, and it is our first year ever entering the competition.”

When he was not in the classroom, Powell participated as a juror in Lewisville/Flower Mound’s Teen Court two times per month for about two hours. According to its website, Teen Court is an alternative, voluntary program which offers teen offenders an opportunity to make restitution for most of their offenses through community service.

“When a teen is convicted for a Class “C” misdemeanor, they are tried by a jury of their peers. Their sentences would count a certain amount of jury term and certain amount of community service hours,” Powell said about the program.

Before trying teen Court, Powell has spent three years volunteering on the Carrollton Youth Task Force, an organization that helps teens learn about municipal government and provides them community volunteer opportunities.

Last month, Powell returned from Germany where he had spent two weeks as part of his school’s foreign exchange program. In October, Powell and his family hosted two German students at their home, they became friends and from then to June, they kept in touch.

“From October to June I spoke to them a lot,” he said about keeping in touch with Fabian Kulawik, one of the students from Germany, “I spoke to his mom and his brother and I plan to keep in touch with them and all the kids I met on the trip.”

Powell graduated from iSchool High with a 4.57 grade-point-average while participating in special programs and conducting community service. He was his class’ student council president, organized the school’s first junior/senior prom and was the assistant coach to Quest Middle School boys basketball and track teams.

The summer before he completed his senior year, Powell took part in the U.S. Navy Seabees Engineering and Construction Camp in California. His mother said it was that program that solidified what her son wanted to do for his future.

Now Powell, the youngest of two, is well on his way to becoming the family’s first mechanical or aerospace engineer. His sisters’ 22-year-old Candace is studying pre-med at Baylor and Ebony, 23, is studying psychology and business at a university in Oklahoma.

Powell said his mother, Jacqueline and his father, Victor, owners of NeoGenesis Consulting, Inc., an oil and gas company, have always stressed the importance of education. Mrs. Powell will be starting a resource website to help parents and students get all the information they need in order to prepare for college.

“Education is not a destination, it is a journey and you are always learning,” Mrs. Powell said, “I told Matthew to be always be open to learning, because education never stops.”

By Karina Ramirez
Contributor
neighborsgo/ Garland| Mesquite

Vista Academy of Garland held its end-of-the-year Field Day June 3.  Second-grade teacher Audrah Webb led a team of 20 teachers andstaff  to coordinate the event, and more than 15 family volunteers assisted with the day’s activities.

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Audrah Webb, a second-grade teacher, led a team of 20 teachers and staff in coordinating a very successful and fun event, said Campbell Gillis, campus director of the school. He went on to say that more than 15 parent/family volunteers showed up to assist with the days’ activities.

Fourth-grader Lauren participates in the egg race

Kindergartner Angel enjoys eating a watermelon

Earlier in the week, students created tie-dye t-shirts to wear during their activity day. With the help of teachers, the students created individual class t-shirts ranging from yellow, blue, pink, purple and green for each grade level.

Mrs. Webb with her second-grade class

“Nearly 200 students, many with families who came to participate, rotated with their class among 10 different stations. Each stop featured different games and activities including relays and races and even a watermelon seed spitting contest,” Gillis said.

Six- and seventh-grade students volunteered during the event. They encouraged the younger kids and acted as referees at each of the 10 stations set-up during the activity.

First-grader Jarius with six-grader, Sarah

Taking a break from the sweltering 97-degree temperature, students were excited to eat CiCi’s pizza for lunch. Afterwards, they finished their games and participated in an end of year raffle in the school gym.

During the year, student’s earned raffle tickets for good behavior and attendance, which they used to compete for more than 70 prizes that were handed out. Some of those prizes included iPod shuffles, handheld games, water-squirters and various balls and games.

First-graders Hunter and Shaula

Vista was thrilled to close out another great year in Garland with a fun (albeit exhausting) celebration honoring their wonderful students and families.