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Hello and welcome to our Vanguard Academy! My name is Amanda Vasquez and I am proud to be the Vanguard Coordinator at Burbank Middle School.
This is my secretary, Mrs. Rodarte. We both work very hard to make sure all our Vanguard teachers, students, and parents are well taken care of.
Our students enjoy the benefits of the best education in this great State of Texas. Follow me as I give you a short tour.Burbank Middle School was originally founded in 1927, but was rebuilt to its current configuration in 1949. We had one of the first four Magnet Vanguard Programs in HISD, being designated in 1975. Much has happened since then!
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Burbank currently has a population of over 1,400 students. TEA has designated our school as a "Met Standards with Distinctions" Campus. Our students achieved seven of the seven Academic Distinctions that the State of Texas awards schools for the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022! Read all about it on the Distinctions Designations page!Our three Vanguard Academies, offer core classes at the academically advanced level. All Vanguard students are required to produce an annual TPSP research project in an area of their choice. In addition, our students enjoy the benefits of the 21st Century Classroom, where technology is used to its best advantage. Tech classes at Burbank range from basic Tech Apps and Media Team classes, to robotics, to Principles of Information Technology for high school credit. We have begun our school year as a Verizon Innovative Learning School, where each student has his or her own Chromebook and internet access. We also have ten fully equipped science labs which allow us to provide the best hands-on experiences for our students.
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Our Dual Language Program is our pride and joy. We have been designated an International Spanish Academy (ISA) by the Spanish Consulate and we are the only school in Texas to earn the Second Place Award at the prestigious "Colegio del Año" Award (School of the Year) for 2006, 2011 and again in 2017, an honor that was awarded to us by the Univeristy of Salamanca in collaboration with the United States Department of Education. Burbank Middle School is the only Texas school to earn this distinction!
We have the only Dual Language Vanguard Program in the district where students can receive their dual language instruction within the framework of advanced academics. Students in the Dual Language Academies take Spanish for High School credit in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, with most students taking AP Spanish in eighth grade.Over the past twelve years, we have given the AP Spanish test to more than 1,300 students averaging more than 100 students per year. Our students' passing rate has always been outstanding. For instance, during last year's AP Spanish test administration, the passing rate for all the Texas students who participated (27,619) was 75.9% and the passing rate for all 154,651 students who tested globally was 81.9%. The passing rate for the 96 students at Burbank was 85.3%!This year, we are also enjoying the additional resource of a visiting Spanish teacher, Carmen Campos Lorite, who has been engaged by the Education Department of Spain to collaborate with HISD's schools which have been designated as an International Spanish Academy..
