HOUSTON (November 14, 2019) – More than 200 educators from across the state of Texas will convene at Prairie View A&M University’s Northwest Houston Center Nov. 8-9 for the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) Community Partnerships/Student Success Initiative (SSI) Conference. The two-day event will focus on content training in literacy, mathematics, and mindfulness.

“I have 12 school districts that participate in our SSI grant program,” said Harold Wright, director of the TEA’s Community and University Partnerships. “They’re going to send central staff and campus personnel who support instruction to the NWHC to make sure we have the most effective and instructional practices in all of the schools that my grant supports.”

Those districts stretch from North Texas to Southeast Texas to as far south as the Rio Grande Valley. Educators are expected from 77 schools from within those areas.

“A majority of the districts received a ‘C’ or lower on the state’s accountability rating system,” Wright said. “My grant is similar to the Harlem Children’s Zone in that

[it] is designed to create partnerships that provide wraparound services at underachieving schools and impoverished communities throughout the state. The overall vision is to create great schools in supportive communities. We also want to improve how students perform in the classroom and on mandated state testing days.”

Dr. Tyrone Tanner, executive director of PVAMU’s Northwest Houston Center, was added to a state tri-agency initiative led by State Senator Royce West (D-Dallas) to develop strategies to close the achievement gap for African American and Latino males. He was instrumental in bringing the conference to PVAMU.

“It’s part of my role as executive director and a faculty member to develop educational leaders,” said Tanner, who hopes to recruit at 30 potential graduate students as a result of the TEA conference. “We have educational administration, counseling, nursing, community development, and business administration, to name a few programs, all right here in this northwest Houston corridor.”

Wright said, “I want to build awareness that, ‘Oh! Prairie View is OK!’ And then I’m hoping these educators will tell their students that PVAMU is a great opportunity and an exceptional school to attend.”

For more information about the TEA’s upcoming conference, contact Dr. Tyrone Tanner, Executive Director of the Northwest Houston Center, at (713) 790-7213.

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By Michael Douglas