ABS Spotlight Veterans Memorial Early College High School

AMERICA'S BEST SCHOOLS SPOTLIGHT

Veterans Memorial Early College High School

Brownsville Independent School District

Brownsville. TX
Grades 9-10
Principal: Norma Jean Canales

WEBSITE

ENROLLMENT: 2,172

Latino/Hispanic

98%

White

Other

Students Meeting Low-income Criteria

67%

Students With Disabilities

10%

English Language Learners

18%

At Veterans Memorial Early College High School, the staff believes that for students to be successful, everyone must be in sync with day-to-day routines and support to ensure students feel appreciated and cared for. The school’s numerous accomplishments span academics, fine arts, athletics, and Career and Technology Education (CTE). Veterans adhere to the district’s curricula and state standards to ensure that all students, including those along the learning spectrum and special populations, are taught rigorous and relevant lessons that promote increased academic achievement. The goal at the campus is to create student-centered, hands-on lessons that offer opportunities for students to engage in active learning, demonstrating more engagement than traditional teacher-led instruction. They achieve this through structures such as:

small group interventions to help students learn and interact with each other while using content and academic vocabulary
one-on-one instruction to address the root cause of a particular student’s weak area(s)
intentional grouping
after-school tutorials for immediate re-teach, practice, and enrichment of regular content courses to AP and Dual
peer tutoring of subject concepts and language acquisition
implementing the use of research-based software programs.

AWARDS

100 AP Scholars for 2022-2023

30% increase in EB students showing progress in learning the English language

Two 9th-grade students placed third at the National History Day Competition in DC

98 students graduated with 30 or more college credits and 51 students graduated with an Associates

Out of 15 team sports, 12 teams had post-season appearances and 7 had appearances at state The total number of participants in boys and girls sports is 1000.

Band participation is 150 students with accolades such as UIL Region Marching Contest Sweepstakes Award, First division rating, 40 TMEA District Members, 29 TMEA Region Members, 4 TMEA All-State Members, and Texas Educational Color Guard Association Championship – Fan Favorite Award

Dance program has 218 participants, 42 members of our Chargerettes (Dance Team), 78 are in Ballroom and 103 are enrolled in the dance class

Mariachi has 20 members and Estudiantina has 60 members (Hispanic heritage bands)

The Theatre Arts program has 150 participants, and the One-Act play group places at District yearly

Destination Imagination (DI) is a project-based, kid-driven program that teaches kids to be innovative problem solvers. DI team won at Regionals, and State and earned an invitation to Globals. One of the two teams earned a 1st place finish.

The chess team has qualified for Nationals for the last 9 years and the girl’s chess team has won state 6 years in a row.