IS HISD'S APOLLO PROGRAM A SUCCESS IN THE FIRST 8 MONTHS?

Press Release: Eight months into the Apollo 20 program to turn around struggling HISD schools, 93 percent of the Apollo seniors at Jones, Kashmere, Lee, and Sharpstown high schools have been accepted by a two or four year college. That’s a total of 759 students, 308 of which were accepted by four-year institutions.

When the Apollo program was launched last August, it was founded on five tenets. One of the tenets is high expectations, which includes all students graduating and going on to college.  

Last year, only 35 percent or 256 students who graduated from the same four high schools enrolled in college the following fall. Apollo school personnel are working with the current seniors to help them transition successfully from high school graduation this summer to college enrollment this fall. Here’s the school-by-school breakdown for the Apollo Class of 2011.

Apollo Seniors Accepted to College (2 year or 4 year) as of April 1, 2011
Jones	94%	121 students accepted
Kashmere	89%	99 students accepted
Lee	97%	330 students accepted
Sharpstown	94%	209 students accepted
Total	93%	759 students accepted

There are also encouraging signs that next year’s class of Apollo seniors will be ready to tackle higher education. So far, 94.5 percent of Apollo 11^th graders have registered to take the SAT college entrance examination to be administered on April 13.

This year for the first time, HISD is offering the SAT free of charge on each campus during the school day. In the past, students signed up to take the exam at an off-campus facility and took the exam over the weekend at a cost of $47 dollars. So far, 90 percent of HISD juniors district wide have signed up for the exam.