Andrea Alvarez for Huntsville City School Board Member, District 3

Thank you to our fabulous crossing guard, Kathy Drexler, at Challenger for donating 2 freezers worth of ice cream for our students!

What a fantastic treat!

A year ago today around this time, I was at Jack Brown’s with my campaign team. I was utterly exhausted and physically sick battling a cold waiting on election results. I lost by like 51 votes or something and honestly I didn’t know if I had it in me to go on for another month. At one point I told my campaign manager, “I don’t want to be here, I could have been told I’d be in a runoff at home”.

The next day, I had supporters come out from the woodwork and it gave me renewed energy to push through. There was some universal force pushing me into this role. Sometimes the right words and answers just flowed without thought. I knew I was doing this for a bigger purpose, but it took quite a toll on me and my life. Full disclosure: the school board experience started off a little rocky for me. As Dr. Sutton once told me, “It’s not what you say, it’s the ex*****on of how you say it”. Noted. Mr. Matthews and Mr. Renaud have both also offered me blunt, yet crucially successful advice along my journey. Ms. Watkins and Ms. McCarthy have both been sounding boards of logic and reason to me. Lastly, Mr. Pape has probably sacrificed the most of his time to sit and explain in excruciating detail the facets of the many laws we must comply with to me.

Today, the BOE and Superintendent are a strong and united front demanding excellence. We have clearly supported each other’s public voice and methods of communication that properly represent our respective districts. And again, it wasn’t a pretty journey to get where we are.

I say all this to say, that right now is our opportunity to soar as a system. Right now we have the energy, the teamwork and the tenacity to make HCS the best in the state. Please do not allow any story or lie from the past to bring down our momentum. Give us a year to show you our results.

Just like a year ago, I am exhausted and battling an illness. This is not easy, the whole board needs the support you showed me on August 24th last year. Let’s do this together.

Some 🐐’s right here!

Love that our GHS kids help our Elementary schools!

What is your favorite part of your child’s school (or your work school) and you can’t say “the kids” 🤣

See you there

Thank you Allison for the tour of your AMAZING facility! What a blessing for our schools!

It was such a joy to welcome several Huntsville City Schools Board members to Free 2 Teach this morning. Out of the $1.6 million in supplies that we gave away last year, $825,957.75 of that was invested directly into classrooms across Huntsville City Schools. Thank you Ryan Renaud (District 4), Holly McCarty (District 2) and Andrea Alvarez (District 3) for stopping by, and for Free 2 Teach Board member Christopher Gregory for helping us share about this work. We loved learning about your passion for serving schools! Thank you for touring the store and taking time to learn about how we support thousands of teachers and kids in our community. 🍎

I had a great coffee date with Girl Scout Troop 18002 consisting of HHS and GHS seniors discussing their Journey work on implicit bias awareness today. We had hard conversations about the relationships between teachers and students and students and their peers. We also talked about how the greatest educator and advocate for their generation is themselves.

Look out world, these girls have a passion!

Always doing big things at the Gap!

💙🤍🧁 Farley 🧁🤍💙

Submit your Farley Faculty and Staff who deserve “Nothing Bundt Praise” this quarter. Comment below or email [email protected] by midnight on Thursday.

Anyone else ever do their Clifton Leadership Strengths?

This company is so giving to our schools! Thank you Johnson Orthodontics!

Inaugural GHS Tiger Tailgate! This may be my new favorite fall tradition!

I’m sure this will be incredible!

Next monthly, Grissom Choir will present its annual Fall Concert, this year featuring the music of ABBA! Join us on September 12th @ 7:00pm in the Martha deFord Hayes Auditorium for a (short) evening of wonderful singing. We promise, you will want to say "Thank You For The Music" after this performance!

Love seeing this sharing of knowledge!

Challenger Middle School PTSA had the speaker of a lifetime this morning. 97-year-old Holocaust survivor, Mr. Bob Sawada told his story to the entire middle school. I was lucky enough to shake Mr. Sawada’s hand this morning, but I couldn’t stay for his presentation.

Thankfully, HCS eTV was there to record the whole thing! I can’t wait to watch. I will share with you all when I get the link.

A huge THANK YOU to the Lovely Dollar for donating 200 folders to Challenger Elementary School & PTA!

Nothing Bundt Praise awarded to Ms. Fudge (Not pictured), Ms. Graley and Ms. Klepin. Principal’s choice was long-term sub Ms. May!

Special thank you to Mr. Priest and his facilities team for the beautiful fresh pain throughout Chaffee. It’s a brand new school!

🔥

If you attack educators on the premise that you are their only “savior” you might need to read this.

For anyone who provides information to this type of person, or if you even like or share their hate-filled posts, you may also need to read this.

This is a formal invitation for all teachers who have “cried out” to Jason O’Brien for help to reach out to me. 256-479-7744 or [email protected]…I’ll be waiting.

Nothing Bundt Praise for:

🧡🤍 🦅Chaffee 🦅🤍🧡

Comment your deserving Chaffee teachers & staff below or email [email protected] by midnight on Thursday.

All of you complaining about school starting early need to join me in my plight to move “Fall” football out of August 🤣

Y’all know it’s too hot if I can’t even bear to wear a Tigers T-shirt….and Mason, well he took the first opportunity to join the shirtless brothers. I see “GHS” body paint in his future 🤣

100 students receiving free college English courses. What an investment! Thank you A&M!!

Love this!

Gov. Ivey kicks off Alabama’s statewide expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program Governor Kay Ivey kicked off the statewide expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library on Wednesday.

If you are able, please support the HHS band!

Huntsville High School’s band seeks help from the community If you would like to make a donation, there are a couple ways you can send it to the band.

First “Nothing Bundt Praise” awards have been delivered! Congratulations to Ms. Watson, Ms. Cottingham and Ms. Freeman at Challenger Elementary.

This year we have a new category of “Principal’s Choice” awarded to Ms. Spinoso.

A huge thank you to these local businesses that have provided over $21,000 to Challenger Elementary and Middle School!

5 short years ago, our sponsorships totaled $1,000. That’s the power of a strong fundraising PTA and businesses that love local schools!

𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗞 𝗬❤️𝗨 to our 2023 CES & CMS Sponsors! Community support is what helps make Challenger Elementary a great school! Thank you for all you donate and do to help the students and staff at CES! ❤️🦅❤️

Be sure to stop by these businesses and say THANK YOU! ❤️

𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗠 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗢𝗥𝗦:
- Housing Huntsville
- Johnson Orthodontics
- Mathnasium of Huntsville
- Bailey Cove Eye Care, PC
- Tiger-Rock Martial Arts of South Huntsville
- AeroVironment
- Limbaugh Orthodontics
- Whataburger
- Lee Company
- Anytime Heating and Cooling, LLC
- TactWare
- Silver Linings Neurodevelopment
- SoCo Roofing & Restoration
- Family Jewelry & Loan
- World Conspiracy
- Blue Accounting, Tax & Consulting Firm

𝗚𝗢𝗟𝗗 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗢𝗥𝗦:
- Daylight Donuts SW Memorial Pkwy
- Andy Cole, an advisor with Fiduciary Financial Advisors
- Learning Express Toys of Huntsville Alabama
- Terry's Pizza
- NTA, Inc.
- Monte Sano Research
- Kelley's Optical & Boutique
- Laura Jossey Realtor

𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗢𝗥𝗦:
- Merino Trampoline Gymnastics Academy
- Redstone Federal Credit Union
- Dunagan, Yates and Alison Plastic Surgery and Skin Health & Laser Center
- Shepard Signs
- Soles Dance Center
- Bragg's of Huntsville
- Southeastern Skin Cancer & Dermatology
- Sabghi Jewelers
- ApproXie Urgent Care Huntsville - Children & Adults
- South Huntsville Veterinary Hospital
- SportsMED Orthopaedic Surgery and Spine Center
- Lil' Nail Shop in S. Huntsville
- Budget Blinds of Huntsville East

If you know of any company that would like to become a sponsor just message us for more information! New this year... all sponsorships go to benefit both the elementary and middle school!

🤎🧡🐅 Tiger Excellence! 🐅🧡🤎

Hiley Mazda Key Athlete of the Week: Grissom’s Jalin Edwards Now, Edwards is lacing up his cleats for his senior season in a Tiger’s uniform, and he is challenging himself to step up as a leader.

Thank you Toyota for investing $6.7M into HCS STEM and teachers!

Any teachers or parents interested in attending a lunch and speaking on the importance of broadband or their struggle without having internet access for students or kids?

For those of you with Elementary and Middle Schoolers:

Just remember that after every 24 days of school you can say you “spent another day of your life in carline”.

Why did carpooling stop being a thing? 😒

❗️HCS Releasing Early❗️

You can’t beat these Fall Break Camp prices!

I talked about this very thing yesterday with a teacher. I think this BOE has made it very clear how high our standards are.

Ok guys…is this alligator really 15ft? Is this a GHS student safety concern? Weigh in below.

In south Huntsville, one man is accusing the city of caring more about protecting an alligator than his family or neighborhood’s safety. He says his dog was attacked and killed by the alligator. https://www.waff.com/2023/06/30/huntsville-father-calls-out-citys-inaction-after-alligator-kills-family-dog/

This is a great opportunity to students who may find our large high schools uncomfortable. Students can still participate in sports and other extracurriculars and will be a graduate of their zoned school.

Late Huntsville Virtual Academy (HVA) registration for rising 9th through 12th grade students who are in good academic standing will be open through July 14 for the 2023-2024 school year.

🔗 huntsvillecityschools.org/hva