House Committee on Public Education Meets

• Tuesday, March 3- Public Education -(2:00 PM or upon final adjourn./recess) The House Committee on Public Education will meet to consider pending business.- The Educator Quality Subcommittee will also meet after the full committee. -  Hearing Notice 
• Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick 7:30 AMhold a 10:30 a.m. press conference on education at the Capitol.

Fort Worth superintendent finalist withdraws from consideration

FORT WORTH Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel D. Boyd has withdrawn as finalist for the job of Fort Worth school district superintendent. In an email to trustees at 7 p.m. Saturday that was provided to the Star-Telegram, Boyd wrote: “ ... the Santa Fe community has helped me to realize that the timing is not right and that we need to continue forward and not lose momentum for the sake of our children. “While it was a difficult decision, I respectfully withdraw my candidacy for the position of Superintendent of the Fort Worth Independent School District.” view article

School Board Candidate Webinar Offers Information and Insight

Area school board candidates and interested citizens can learn more about the demands and rewards of school board service by participating in a free webinar offered by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). This online workshop will take place February 23, March 26, and July 28 from noon to 1 p.m. and 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. (all CST).

Bond or TRE coming up?  We’d love to know!

TexasISD.com tracks bond and TRE elections to gather data to be analysed and used in various research projects.  If your district is holding an election, please let us know view article

New From TEA

• One-Time Extension of Current Fiscal Year 2015 Indirect Cost Rates for up to Four Years
• Accreditation Status
• Texas' grad rate exceeds national rate
• Uniform Guidance Training Schedule
• 2014-2015 Data Validation Monitoring Discipline Records Staging
• Deadline Approaching for Public School Network Capabilities Survey
• Assignment of District Accreditation Statuses 2015
• Deadline Extended for ISDs to Request 2015–2016 Federal Indirect Cost Rates
• To The Administrator Addressed Correspondence​

May 9 Election Calendar

Secretary of State Election Calendar

Free Webinar Opportunity: “How to NOT Get Fired Over Facebook (Or Create a Liability for Your District)”

• 65% of online adults have a Facebook page.  And every year, teachers and administrators are getting fired because of photos or comments they put on their personal page. They are also losing their identities because of the personal information that is on their page (even simple things like your birthday and hometown).  Your staff need to know the potential pitfalls of using social media and how to navigate safely.  Senate Bill 407 requires schools to educate staff and students on the tough topics of Sexting and Cyberbullying.  - 29% of students claim to have been or currently are involved in Sexting.  - Almost 50% of students have experienced Cyberbullying webmaster@texasisd.com 
• Register now, its FREE!
  • Thu, Mar 5, 2015 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CST

Texas Lone Star Magazine

With the 84th Texas legislative session under way, lawmakers are turning their attention to several education issues, including funding student enrollment growth, increasing support for student transportation, and requiring training to support school counselors. Read about this and more in this issue.  The following will take you to the February/March 2015 Texas Lone Star Magazine.

Republican senator rains on state lawmakers’ tax-cut parade

READ!  AUSTIN -As state lawmakers clamber aboard the tax-cut bandwagon, one Republican is raining on the parade that has been so enthusiastically arranged by his party's leaders.  Sen. Kevin Eltife points out repeatedly, publicly and with rhetorical flair that the state has a list of long-neglected problems whose solutions would mean more to Texans than even a couple of hundred more dollars in their pockets from tax relief. view article

Analysis: A Desire for Tax Cuts and a Call for Restraint

Cutting taxes is a lot more satisfying than catching up on deferred maintenance and pension liabilities, which is why the state Senate is working on property tax reductions this week. So what’s with Kevin Eltife? view article

TEA: Three SA charter schools ‘acc­redited warned’

Three local charter schools have been labeled “accredited warned” after the Texas Education Agency reported the schools failed to meet the state’s accountability standards.DeEtta Culbertson, a TEA spokeswoman, said the schools are the George Gervin Academy, which received its charter in 1995; the Radiance Academy of Learning, which received its charter in in 1998; and the Shekinah Radiance Academy, which received its charter in in 1999. view article

Abilene ISD responds to search warrants executed for former superintendent, legal superintendent

ABILENE, Texas -Ex-Abilene Independent School District Superintendent Heath Burns and Mark Neal, AISD's associate superintendent of legal and human resources, had to give up their cell phones to police on Wednesday, February 25. view article

Rudolph Bush: Next DISD board election could reshape our schools

Come May, Dallas voters have a real opportunity to reshape the Dallas ISD board for the better, and we need to seize it. The board should improve no matter what happens, however. That's because District 1 Trustee Elizabeth Jones won't be running again. view article

Indiana: Half of Voucher Students Never Attended Public School

Learn from other states - js- Forget all that rhetoric about “choice” to “save poor kids from failing public schools.” It is a rightwing ruse to siphon public money for private and religious schools. Proof: in Indiana, voucher enrollments expanded by 50% this year. Fully half the voucher students never attended any public school. These are not children who were “trapped in a failing school.” They are children whose parents want the state to pay their tuition at a nonpublic school. view article

What’s the future of Louisiana rating public schools with letter grades? Many think it’s senseless

Learn from other states - js- The future of letter grades for public schools is unclear less than five years after the Louisiana Legislature ordered them to begin. The annual marks, which have sparked bitter arguments, were already partly on hold for the past two years, and Louisiana’s top school board will be asked next week to extend that another year. Two of four contenders for governor — Democrat John Bel Edwards and Republican Scott Angelle — said last week that the grade law was a mistake or should be shelved for an overhaul. Even the leader of the third-rated school district in the state, which carries an A rating, questioned whether the grades make sense, especially amid repeated revisions in how they are calculated. “When is it going to be stabilized so you know where you stand?” asked Michael Faulk, superintendent of the Central School District. view article

What to Watch: Pre-K, tax cuts, road funding, tuition repeal

Gov. Greg Abbott made expanding pre-kindergarten programs an “emergency item,” fast-tracking bills on the topic through the Legislature. Lawmakers have wasted little time filing major bills to expand early education, but there’s disagreement on how best to do so. view article

Superintendent confirms Gilmer student has meningitis; no public health risk

A Gilmer ISD student has contracted meningitis, but there is no public health risk from the case, Superintendent Rick Albritton said Monday. Albritton confirmed that a student enrolled at Gilmer Intermediate School contracted a type of meningitis, a relatively uncommon illness that affects the spinal cord and brain. The student has been hospitalized. Because the student does not have the bacterial strain of meningitis, Albritton said, the school district is not required to take any additional safety precautions. view article

School lunches part of nutrition conference discussion

Parents, what your child eats at school will be part of a discussion Tuesday in Washington. Nutritionists from around the country are meeting for their annual conference on school nutrition. They are calling for a change in the controversial new standards. view article

Fabens ISD feels impact as migrant families flee Guadalupe violence

EL PASO, Texas -- As more families seek asylum in the Borderland, the Fabens Independent School District said they are seeing a rise in more students within the district seeking asylum. According to immigration attorneys in El Paso, migrant families from Guadalupe are seeking asylum in the Fabens are as they flee the drug cartel violence in the Valley of Juarez. Poncho Garcia, superintendent of Fabens ISD, said that the district began seeing more migrant students declaring asylum in the last couple months of 2014. "They come in, maybe four or five, as a family they are claiming asylum," Garcia said. view article

Tennessee lawmakers should not approve school vouchers

Learn from other states - js- Yet again, Tennessee lawmakers are pushing school vouchers, a failed idea that's proven to take money out of already cash-strapped public schools and unproven to boost student achievement.  After several years of infighting within the Republican Party over competing plans, the Senate Education Committee recently voted to approve the most extreme version yet. view article

Senator proposes legislation to make cameras mandatory in all special education classrooms – w/video

Austin, TX - Senator Eddie Lucio has recently proposed new legislation in an effort to have cameras installed in all classrooms utilized by special education students throughout the state. The legislation stipulates that the visual and audio data garnered from the recordings will be strictly confidential and will be deleted after one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 507 requires that all schools inform parents of the cameras and lawmakers state that they will not be placed in any classrooms where a parent has provided written notification objecting to the use of them. Many who are in support of the bill believe that the cameras will provide documented proof of incidents that could transpire in classrooms, benefiting both teachers and students alike. view article

Education “reformers’” new big lie: Charter schools become even more disastrous

Rather than directly address what ails struggling public schools, policy leaders increasingly claim that giving parents more choice about where they send their children to school – and letting that parent choice determine the funding of schools – will create a market mechanism that leaves the most competent schools remaining “in business” while incompetent schools eventually close.  Coupled with more “choice” are demands to increase the numbers of unregulated charter schools, especially those operated by private management firms that now have come to dominate roughly half the charter sector. view article

EDITORIAL: Last BISD finalists should not be least

Even though the outfit looking for a new Beaumont school superintendent has never before revealed true finalists in a search and even though we haven't heard anything from the board except defense of such secrecy, we're going to take board president Jimmy Simmons at his word that the managers have not decided whether they will be open and transparent about the last stage of the process. view article

Amarillo: AISD to stress internal candidates for top post

Amarillo Independent School District’s board of trustees will initially seek internal candidates to succeed outgoing Superintendent Rod Schroder. “If you look at objective standards, including efficiency and student performance, we outperform all of our peers, so we don’t want to change our culture or views that led to that success,” Board President John Ben Blanchard said. view article

Florence:  FISD tables decision on naming interim chief

FLORENCE — Board members convened in three executive sessions at a called meeting Monday night, but did not appoint an interim superintendent. The Florence Independent School District board unanimously accepted current Superintendent Sam Atwood’s resignation at a called meeting Feb. 9 after a 2½-hour executive session, according to the approved minutes. His last day is March 20. view article

Highland Park ISD superintendent to leave for SMU

Highland Park ISD Superintendent Dawson Orr — who has led the district through enrollment growth and state funding troubles — announced Monday that he is leaving to work at Southern Methodist University.  Orr, 61, will serve as a professor and department chairman of educational policy and leadership at SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. view article

Dallas ISD Trustee Joyce Foreman Got in a Weird and Heated Facebook Fight, then Deleted It

Even among the staunchest critics of Dallas ISD superintendent Mike Miles, trustee Joyce Foreman stands out in her relentless pursuit of his head. And lately, her anti-Miles advocacy has targeted the basic needs of schools and schoolchildren: She's voted against things as mundane and necessary approving monthly financial statements and buying new lawnmower blades. She's voted against accepting grant funds and an early childhood home visitation program done in cooperation with the United Way. view article

Texas GOP looks to cut influence of heavily Democratic Travis County’s judges

AUSTIN — Texas Republicans are moving to stamp out Democratic challenges to their policies, particularly in the legal realm. Some GOP leaders want to strip heavily Democratic Travis County of an anti-corruption unit that has pursued high-profile Republicans such as Tom DeLay and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Gov. Greg Abbott and freshman Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas seek to rein in big-city local governments that they say are imposing “nanny state” rules. And two GOP lawmakers have introduced measures that would deny Travis County judges their usual first crack at deciding multibillion-dollar lawsuits over school finance and politically fraught battles over redistricting. view article

What teachers can learn from a Texas teacher who gave her student a kidney

Six-year-old Matthew Parker needed a new kidney. His elementary school teacher, Lindsey Painter, gave him one. According to KSAT-12, a local ABC affiliate in New Braunfels, Texas, doctors tested more than 70 people to see if their kidney was a good match for the boy's body. Painter's kidney was the only one that fit the first grader's needs. view article

Harlingen:  School trustees given hall pass

HARLINGEN — No candidates stepped up to challenge three incumbents on the Harlingen school board, giving the incumbents another three-year term in office.  The deadline to run in the election passed Friday at 5 p.m. with no one filing to run against incumbents Nolan Perez, George McShan or Bobby Muñiz. That means the school board election scheduled for May 9 has been canceled. McShan has been a school board trustee for 27 years and he says he’s proud of all the construction resulting from the $98 million bond issue of 2010.  “It gave us the capacity to give rise to choice,” he said. “That choice is that of a ninth grade academy, a choice of Memorial Middle School.” view article

Supreme Court rules Accountability Act does not violate constitution

The Alabama Supreme Court on Monday determined that the passage of the Alabama Accountability Act did not violate the state constitution or break any laws. The court handed down a 222-page ruling in connection with a lawsuit filed challenging that act, according to a report from Fox 6. The act allows parents to apply for private school scholarships if the family lives in a failing school district. view article

10 students hurt after utility truck crashes into bus near San Marcos

The crash happened about 5:15 p.m. on State Highway 21 near Bogie Drive, south of the San Marcos Municipal Airport. School district officials say the utility truck rear-ended the San Marcos CISD bus when it stopped to unload children. “We thought some children were dead,” said Lydia Sanchez, who lives nearby. She said her house shook when the two vehicles collided. “The kids were standing up … the three children that get off at this bus stop, they were standing up. Thank God they did not get ejected or thrown out that windshield.” view article

Search warrants executed for ex-Abilene ISD superintendent, legal superintendent

Ex-Abilene Independent School District Superintendent Heath Burns and Mark Neal, AISD's associate superintendent of legal and human resources, had to give up their cell phones to police on Wednesday. view article

Should this test block a high school student’s future?

The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board was the first editorial board in the nation to use a blog to openly discuss hot topics and issues among its members and with readers. Our intent is to pull back the curtain on the daily process of producing the unsigned editorials that reflect the opinion of the newspaper, and to share analysis and opinion on issues of interest to board members and invited guest bloggers. view article