News

Yesterday your Cougar Band had a great day at UIL, securing an Excellent rating on stage and a Superior Rating in the Sight reading room! I am so proud of our students and all of the hard work they put into a beautiful performance yesterday. We were blessed with a pretty sizable crowd to support us too, which was amazing at 10:30 on a dreary Wednesday morning. I want to send a huge bouquet of thanks to Allison Whiddon for all of her help yesterday and every day for this program! Many of you don't see her often because she also teaches several classes at the middle school, but she is a wonderful teacher and human, and we couldn't have done it without her! 

 

On behalf of the Cougar Band, I just wanted to reach out and say thank you so much for your support and the celebration of our students on Monday! Representatives from Texas Health and the Mayor's Office brought the big check and announced to the kids that they had won the Wellness Grant. Many of you came by or emailed your support and the students, Ms. Whiddon, and I greatly appreciate it. Even though it was Monday morning after the break, our kids were so proud of themselves! Go Cougars!

This morning, four members of the Cougar Band represented our school in a presentation for the Texas Health Wellness Innovation Grant. In December, our Band Leadership Team brainstormed an idea for our school and put together a grant proposal. They found out they were finalists a couple of weeks ago. 

After becoming finalists, the leadership team started working on putting together a Shark Tank style presentation to pitch in front of judges, as well as prepare for questions from the panel. They wrote a script, did some arts and crafts for props, put together sound effects, and practiced their presentation. This morning, in front of a six-person judging panel, Emily Kirkpatrick, Elaina Montalvo, Erik Serrato, and Nicholas Sanford performed their presentation and did a fantastic job! The panel included community leaders, leadership members of Texas Health, and a representative from the Mayor's office. 

We should find out next week if we earned the grant, but regardless of the outcome, we are really proud of our students! This was a completely student-led process, and they knocked it out of the park. Other students who helped plan and prepare the grant were Zeke Daniels, Jack Magness, Edith Cuarenta, Avery Klundt, and Kai Madison. We will let you know how it goes - Go Cougars!

We just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who attended our band's concert last night; the students and staff really appreciate your support! We had a lovely concert and were so proud of our students. We encourage everyone to attend the choir concert next week too!

At the concert last night, 3 of our students showed off their original compositions, so I thought I would share them with you all! Kert Roberts, Erik Serrato, and Nicholas Sanford composed their own music and premiered it last night. The only help I gave them was their prompt; they did everything else on their own.

Visit the Original Band Composition page in the Photo Gallery to read about their thought process and see and hear their work! They were all so creative and did a great job with the project. 

 

 

This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to chaperone eight of our Western Hills students to go see Six! The Musical at Bass Hall! As part of the Broadway at the Bass series, the Education Department of Bass Hall sponsored over 150 students from across the district to have dinner and see the performance. We also got a chance to meet the entire cast and crew after the performance and have a question-and-answer session with them. This was a wonderful opportunity for our students, and we had a great time! 

Nicholas Henry
Itzel Lopez
Issac Street
Adrian Rubio
Vianet Garcia
Geronimo Torres
Dai Juan Williams
Rebecca Richardson

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