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Vista of Hickory Creek beats the TAKS during Vista Night
With excited pep rally shouts of “Beat TAKS” and the aroma of grilled beef and chicken being cooked on outdoor grills, “Vista Night” brought Vista Academy of Hickory Creek parents, students and friends warmth and joy to a chilly Friday evening.
Well over 500 parents, students, and community members attended the annual event featuring food, fun, and a fund-raising silent auction to benefit the free public charter school serving kindergarten through sixth grade.
Over $8,500 for books, school equipment and staff training was raised by the auction of items donated by community members, parents, staff and students.
“I loved this school the moment I walked in,” explained Teresa Selman, mother of four Vista students. “Everyone has cared so much personally about each one of my kids.
“The school is so small that brothers and sisters always see each other during the day. My children were previously home-schooled, and the staff here has made the transition so easy for them,” she continued.
Pam Womack, mother of Vista Academy students, explained that she was looking for “somebody to care about her son” when she visited Vista. “We’ve gone from previous teachers wanting to hold him back to making straight A’s here.”
“Previously it was a battle just to get him to read for 20 minutes”, Womack said. “Now I tell him to go read and he says ‘OK’ with no problem.
She states that his reading is a hundred times better than last year, his comprehension is a thousand times better, and his enjoyment a “bejillion” times better. There are not enough numbers to tell you how much he enjoys reading now,” she laughed.
Hand-made quilts, stadium seats from the previous Dallas Cowboys stadium, gift baskets, “lunches and dinners with classroom teachers”, and even “a week with no school uniform” were bid on silently in more than 50 classroom auctions.
Over 300 students attend the public charter school located at 800 Point Vista in Hickory Creek.
“Our parents are very dedicated, very community-based, very involved,” explained Andrea Benedict, campus director. “Our Parent Teacher Organization is very strong, very committed. We spent months together planning this event.”
“This is our third year of operation,” she continued. “I came to this campus because I believed in our vision, I believed in our philosophy of individualizing the child.”
When asked how they “individualize a child” in a classroom full of children, Benedict explained an extensive data gathering process which provides an individual student assessment profile.
“We diagnose their learning style. We get to know what kind of learning environment is conducive to them. Are they easily distracted? Are they that student who needs to be redirected? Do they work well with their peers, or not?”
“Here we can get to know them on both an academic and a personal level,” she continued. “We want to install values in our kids. When they go out into the community we want them to respect each other – and themselves.”
Vista Academy of Hickory Creek currently is full with a waiting list of over 50 families.
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