Tag Archives: Cielo Vista

Creative thinkers at Burges and Coronado high schools earned top honors in their respective categories in the regional Destination Imagination competition, earning them a spot at state April 7-8 in Lubbock.

Burges and Coronado were among a dozen EPISD schools competing at the regional Destination Imagination competition last week at Eastlake High School. Burnet, Cielo Vista, Coldwell, Cooley, Douglass, Mesita, Polk, Whitaker, Zavala elementary schools and Magoffin Middle School also competed.

For Burges, going to state has become a tradition. They have been at least 13 times. The Mustang team won for Challenge B: Scientific Challenge Top Secret.

“Destination Imagination is a creative problem solving competition,” said coach James Towle. “Students act, sing, and dance, design and create costumes, design and build sets, write scripts, practice improve skills, learn and incorporate mechanical, technological, and chemical engineering, learn how to budget, and build their teamwork skills.”

A student of Towle’s once described the competition as “all of the elective classes on your campus built into one.”

Coronado’s Nadine Rivas calls DI an “international creative thinking group.”

“We do a lot of creative problem solving in DI,” Rivas said. “Our team had to write and act out a short skit which showed the repercussions of the color ‘pink’ disappearing.”

This is Coronado’s first venture to state, where they are competing in the fine arts challenge “Vanished.”

Finishing second in their respective challenges were teams from Cielo Vista and Douglas elementary schools. Mesita’s engineering team took third place in their challenge.

Coldwell received the Spirit of Discovery and Imagination Award for outstanding spirit, teamwork, volunteerism and sportsmanship.

“The recipients of this award are the ones who go out of their way to help others, making sacrifices not for themselves, but to give something to someone else,” said Julie Witte, a Guillen Middle School teacher who coordinates DI.

Burges High School also received the Renaissance Award for outstanding design, engineering, execution and performance.

According to DI organizers, “the Renaissance Award recognizes those who demonstrate extraordinary amounts of effort and preparation in their solutions or outstanding skill in engineering, design or performance. While the destination is creativity, these fellow travelers make the journey itself memorable.”

The El Paso Independent School District this upcoming school year will offer four different options for families interested in enrolling their children in prekindergarten classes.

“Early childhood education is how we provide the foundation for children to become successful throughout the rest of their educational career,” said prekindergarten facilitator Mindy Caldwell.

One of the biggest initiatives to boost early childhood education is Universal Pre-kindergarten, which gives 4-year-olds the opportunity to enroll at one of the eight sites throughout the District regardless of income or language status.

“It is going to provide more opportunities for students to become school-ready by the time they enter kindergarten,” Caldwell said.

Barron, Bond, Cielo Vista, Crockett, Kohlberg, Fannin, Travis, Schuster and MacArthur elementary schools will offer the program. Students must be four by Sept. 1 to qualify.

Thanks to a two-year state grant the District will also open an additional 250 pre-K slots for qualifying students at Burleson, Collins, Guerrero, Hart, Park and Travis elementary schools.

In addition, the grant will allow EPISD to offer prekindergarten classes at five YWCA daycare centers throughout the city. More than 200 half-day slots will be available. The partnership allows parents to drop off students at YWCA where they can stay before and after class.

“This program is going to allow working parents to drop off their kids in the morning and pick them up after work, relieving some of the stress that came with enrolling in students in traditional half-day programs,” said EPISD Deputy Superintendent for Academics and School Leadership Ivonne Durant.

Families must meet federal qualifications to enroll in the YWCA program. Non-qualifying students may enroll if there is space available.

The participating YWCA sites are Angela Guevara, Patricia Rogers, Carlisle, Kastrin and El Paso Community College Transmountain.

The District is also piloting a program aimed at providing early education to general education to 3-year-olds.

“This is something brand new,” Caldwell said. “We’ve had special education students who are three but now general education students can attend pre-K. It’s the same eligibility as the four-year-olds. They need to meet eligibility requirements and be three by Sept. 1.”

For information on how to enroll parents are encouraged to contact the specific campus where they would like to enroll their child.

“We are excited about all these new initiatives,” Caldwell said. “We are looking forward to seeing how this is going to impact our earliest learners.”

To enroll, click on the link below or call Student and Parent Services at 230-2080. Click here to enroll your child!

Eight campuses in the El Paso Independent School District next year will offer free dual-language pre-kindergarten to families who may not meet federal EPISD plans to open 16 new pre-kindergarten units – eight in the morning and eight in the afternoon – at the selected sites, which cover the geographic area of the District.

The selected sites are Barron, Bond, Cielo Vista, Crockett, Fannin, Kohlberg, MacArthur and Schuster elementary schools.

“This expansion of our pre-kinder classes allows us to bring our high-quality programs to even more students,” said Superintendent Juan Cabrera. “EPISD is seen as a leader in dual-language education, and this expansion will give more families the opportunity to participate and reap the benefits of dual language, as well as science, technology, engineering, the arts

EPISD currently offers free pre-kinder to students who are English language learners or come from low-income, military or homeless families. Parents who don’t meet these requirements may pay tuition at schools that have space available.

The 16 new pre-kinder units will be available to all families on a first-come-first-served basis regardless of their socio-economic standing. EPISD is an open enrollment District that takes students free of charge from throughout El Paso County.

Registration information will be released later this spring. Ivonne Durant, EPISD’s deputy superintendent of academics, said the district expects to have a strong interest in the pre-k programs, especially because of the added academic rigor that will be placed on those classes.

On top of the dual-language component, the pre-kinder classes at these eight campuses will have a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) focus.

“It is never too early to start and we want to make sure our students are very well prepared to tackle these important subjects right from the start,” Durant said. “We want our students to have the language, technical and artistic skills they need and deserve to be successful in life.”