Wylie ISD Community News

Please join us to learn about the fears, dangers and concerns of “Fentanyl, Vaping & Social Media.” All of our Wylie ISD families are invited to attend this informational meeting Wednesday, March 6 at 6:30 p.m. in the BJHS gym. The event will feature experts on these topics.

Please register at https://bit.ly/WISDfentanyl

We appreciate Burnett Junior High and the Burnett PTA for hosting and organizing this informational program.

Last Thursday, Bush Elementary students and staff donned purple for International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day in support of kindergartener, Finley Miller. Staff and many students wore special “Friends of Finley” shirts that were created by an Eagle parent. Finley lost her brave fight with cancer last week. She will always be remembered by her friends, classmates, teachers and school.

Thanks to a nomination by one of his students, Cooper Junior High STEM teacher Micah Rice was recently recognized for his leadership. The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Dallas Chapter review board selected Rice as a recipient of the 2024 ICNA Award for Teacher Leadership.

He was nominated for the honor by his student, eighth-grader Misbah Syed. “He is an amazing teacher and friend,” Syed said.

Read more about this fantastic recognition and the relationship that got it all started on our website.

Members of Wylie East’s Robotics Team 8858 wrote and published a children’s book as part of their community service for the FIRST Robotics competition.

“We thought writing a children’s book would be a unique way to do outreach to set us apart from other teams,” senior Arle Casillas said.

Casillas wrote the story for the children’s book titled My FIRST Robotics Competition.

“It took about a whole year to process from start to finish,” she said. “I revised and rewrote it several times, but a big group of people helped make the book possible.”

Learn more about these Raiders and their work by visiting our website.

Virtual reality allowed students in AFJROTC and Law Enforcement classes to conduct various rescue missions at Wylie East High School. Texas Army National Guard hosted a Mission Day, taking students through four simulated/VR experiences: Field Hospital, Night Vision Rescue, HAZMAT Cleanup and Virtual Firefighter. The primary mission of the day was to teach students how to communicate while working as a team through natural disaster scenarios. Participating students also learned about the benefits that the military has to offer.

With the help of VR goggles and a CPR dummy, students experienced performing CPR on virtual soldiers in the field clinic.

“It looked so real,” sophomore Isabella Troncoso said. “You could see the whole body through the goggles. It felt like I was pumping a real person.”

You can read more and see more photos from this great learning experience by reading the full story on our website.

CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air & Space Forces Association to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future.

​At the core of the program is the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, the nation's largest cyber defense competition that puts high school and middle school students in charge of securing virtual networks.

"These students have worked extremely hard to become subject matter experts and the first WHS students to participate in this competition. I’m so excited to see where this goes in the upcoming years!" said Michelle Bellamy, the CyberPatriot team sponsor.

This year’s team is: Jax Alemu, Austin Ou Yang (pictured), Tiana Oyugi (pictured), Morgan Vaughan and Riley Wong.

To learn more about CyberPatriot, you can visit https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/.

Wylie ISD Career and Technical Education students in various programs of study competed in the SkillsUSA District 5 competition on Jan. 15-17! SkillsUSA is a student career and technical organization whose mission is to empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members!

These students came home with some hardware and a lot of success! Wylie High School is sending 71 students and Wylie East High School is sending 44 students to the State Leadership Competition on April 4-6 in Corpus Christi, Texas. That is an amazing total of 115 students in Wylie ISD who are advancing to State!

Wylie ISD had several first place winners and many other accolades! Congratulations to all these students and the advisors for their hard work and dedication!

A big thank you to the SkillsUSA Advisors, WHS (Steve Embry, Richard Ferguson, Morris Goldade, Emily Guynes, Phillip Hardin,Tyler Hudgins, Shannon Kramer, Sherry Olivares, Wade Ross, Toni Sloane, Melissa Thurman, Paula Wallace, Michael Whitfield) and WEHS (Vernon Gibson, Jennifer Carlin, Ann Smock, James Rodgers, Matt Karlsen, Kirk MacLean, George Matthews).

Good luck at SkillsUSA State Leadership Conference in April!

View the students’ impressive artwork in the PDF documents below.