El Paso's biggest school district is looking at the possibility of eliminating homework at all of its elementary schools. view article

The school district here and its attorney were vague this week when asked about the future of Daniel J. Garcia’s position on the school board following his temporary removal from the governing body by a state district judge. Visiting Judge David Stith decided to temporarily remove Garcia from the board last month after removal proceedings stemming from a petition filed in May alleged Garcia orchestrated a bribery attempt and requested bribes from school district employees in exchange for pay raises or promotions. view article

Frisco ISD will get an earlier start to summer break in 2021 due to the longer school day approved by the FISD board of trustees in November. The 2020-21 calendar adds 10 minutes to the end of each school day, shortens the school year by three days and lets students out before Memorial Day. The last day of school will be Friday, May 21, 2021. District leaders said the 2020-21 calendar is a result of community feedback and will offer more opportunities for student instruction and enrichment. view article

Some Fort Worth parents are worried about plans to redraw school district boundaries. Will students be moved in or out? The district hasn't made a change in 20 years. view article

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD trustee Candace Valenzuela is stepping down from her role in the district to run for Congress in 2020. Valenzuela, who was elected in 2017, announced her resignation in a letter to the board of trustees that will be presented at a Dec. 5 meeting. "It has been a true privilege to serve alongside each member of the board, and it has been amongst the greatest honors of my life to serve the children of Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District,” Valenzuela wrote in the letter. view article

It’s a perfectly reasonable question, posed recently in the Chron op-ed pages by two of those new Trustees-to-be, Judith Cruz and Dani Hernandez. As former Houston Independent School District educators, a product of HISD, and a parent in HISD, we are personally familiar with the inequity and mediocrity that plagues large portions of the seventh largest school district in the United States. view article

Tomball ISD officials released new rezoning maps in early December showing the recommended boundaries the board of trustees is anticipated to consider during a workshop meeting Dec. 9 and a regular meeting Dec. 10. The board of trustees meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. The new maps, which were posted on the district's website in early December, show additional neighborhoods located north of the Grand Parkway and east of Telge Road moving to the new elementary and junior high campuses under construction near Cypress Rosehill Road and the Grand Parkway. Additionally, the Lakes at Northpointe is recommended to be split between elementary schools but regroup to attend Willow Wood Junior High School, a change from the previously proposed attendance boundaries. view article

Many McKinney-area public school students will start summer 2021 sooner as school districts shift to longer school days. The longer days will allow an entire week to be trimmed off of the end of the school year, meaning a longer summer break for students. McKinney ISD was not the only district to do this. MISD and Frisco ISD will both have extended days next year. MISD approved a seven-minute extension and FISD approved a 10-minute extension during November school board meetings. view article

Pickett, Carver and Mitchell elementary schools, as well as Wagner Middle School students may see attendance rezoning in the 2020-21 school year. Georgetown ISD has published proposed rezoning for the schools as it plans for the opening of two new elementary schools on the south east and south west portion of the district.   view article

During the process of determining how there was an 820-vote discrepancy in the Midland ISD $569 million bond election, a ballot was discovered in the bottom bin of one of the DS200s, Elections Administrator Deborah Land said Tuesday in a press release. The DS200 is the “equipment where the voters placed their voted ballots before leaving the vote center,” she said in a previous release. view article

Allen ISD Trustee David Noll joined 35 other school board members from across Texas Nov. 7-9 at the second session of the Leadership TASB class of 2020. Selected by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), the group is participating in a yearlong education leadership study program. These trustees represent school districts of all sizes, with student populations of 161 to 189,681, and reflect a similar range of property wealth. view article

The Austin Independent School District has opened voting on the calendar for the 2020-21 school year. AISD has three calendar options to vote on. The survey closes at midnight on Friday, December 13. view article

Round Rock ISD board of trustees member Nikki Gonzales, a Republican, has officially filed to run against incumbent WilCo commissioner Terry Cook in the November 2020 election, according to a report in The Austin-American Statesman. Gonzalez has been the vice president of the Round Rock ISD school board since 2017, according to her bio. She is also the director of operations of governmental relations at Texas State Technical College. Prior to that, she served as chief of staff for a Republican State Representative for 9 years, according to her campaign literature. view article

Leander ISD has published its draft calendar for the 2020-21 school year. In addition to the first and last days of schools, the proposed calendar includes holidays, staff development days, holidays and STAAR testing dates, according to a document posted on the LISD website at www.leanderisd.org/calendar. view article

Amarillo ISD has released the names of the applicants for the open school board position. In total there are seven candidates. view article

Morgan Mill ISD will transition to a four-day school week in the fall of 2020. The decision was made after some discussion at the October school board meeting and was finalized on Nov. 18. “We have had some declining enrollment numbers and we really are needing to get our numbers back up so we started brainstorming. What are some ways that we can do that? What are some ways that we can make ourselves more marketable? So, we thought we would try it and see how it goes,” Morgan Mill ISD Superintendent Wendy Sanders told the E-T. view article

“I believe it is one of the most important things our district can do we know that early intervention is the key,” says the Principal of Lamar Early Education Center, Mary Jane Hutchins. All day Pre K, the District says ever since they did away with it more students are falling through the cracks. view article

Raymondville school board member Janie Cruz is facing a charge after leaving her 7-year-old girl home alone. Earlier this week, Municipal Judge Felicita Gutierrez charged Cruz with abandoning and endangering a child with intent to return, a state jail felony, Jacob Rodriguez, the Raymondville Police Department’s crime victims’ advocate, said Wednesday. view article

Eanes Deputy Superintendent Jeff Arnett previewed new calendars for the next two school years during the Nov. 19 board meeting. “The calendar is probably the one document or piece of communication that is on virtually every refrigerator ... with school age children in the community,” he said. “So while we may not be able to please everyone, we want to do everything we can to make the calendar as close to perfect as possible. And I would like to commend a number of groups that contributed to the drafts. ”Arnett gave particular thanks to the District Leadership Team, which approved the calendars. view article

Administrators in the College Station school district are planning for growth with a review of programs at its 10 elementary school campuses. College Station schools Superintendent Clark Ealy said during a school board meeting last week that exploring options for which programs are offered at which campuses will ensure the programs are distributed equally throughout the district. view article

A handful of parents spoke up at Thursday's Round Rock school board meeting about overcrowding at their children's school. The parents, whose children attend Caraway Elementary School in Northwest Austin, told trustees about physical education periods and recesses getting shifted from the gym to the hallways, or even to the parking lot. They brought up community events getting canceled due to lack of space, noisy cafeterias during lunchtime, and how students were being crammed into portables. Those comments came as the board begins a months-long process to realign attendance zones for several schools. The board also discussed a series of meetings and workshops scheduled through early spring 2020 that will focus on that effort. view article

A new policy for public comment periods during Pflugerville school district board meetings is raising concerns among a teachers group that says it significantly limits citizen participation. In response to House Bill 2840, which became law on Sept. 1, the school district is only allowing citizens to comment on agenda items during regular board meetings. The new protocol also allows the public to comment on agenda items during board workshops and special meetings. view article

San Antonio-area teachers and staff will soon see a bump in their paychecks. All full-time employees in the district will receive a pay raise of $2.95 per day, or 37 cents per hour, starting in the new year, according to a news release. Staff will also receive a one-time retroactive payment, or back pay, for each day worked between the first day of employment this school year and the end of December. view article

Dallas ISD Trustee Edwin Flores will hold a community meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, in the library at W.T. White High School. view article

The Pflugerville ISD Board of Trustees has a new rule that only allows public comment on items posted on the meeting's agenda. The policy has the Pflugerville Educators Association concerned and calling the rule change a message of censorship rather than openness. The next PfISD Board of Trustees meeting is scheduled for Thursday night. view article

Amidst a room full of CTE supporters, the Mineola ISD board of trustees approved a resolution Monday to move forward with planning a regional hub for Career and Technical Education (CTE). A week ago, the Mineola High School CTE program held an open house where visitors could tour the labs and shops. Hundreds of community citizens and political leaders came to see the growth of the programs. Many of them came to the school board meeting to show their support and encourage the expansion of the CTE program as a regional hub. view article

Midland ISD board president Rick Davis has provided a finalized plan for the school-bond recount, which is set for 8 a.m. Friday at the Commissioner’s Court located across the hall from the Elections Administrator’s Office at the Midland County Annex, 2110 N. “A” St. There will be nine three-person counting teams; each team will tally about 2,627 ballots each. One person will read the ballot votes aloud, while the other two tally the votes. And after every 10 votes, the team members will ensure their tallies match, according Davis’ statement. view article

The cost of last week’s ransomware attack at Port Neches-Groves ISD was about $2,000 for the school district but more than $30,000 for its insurance company. “The original amount that we noticed on the computer was around $55,000,” Superintendent Mike Gonzales told The Enterprise on Tuesday. “Once (the insurance company) initiated contact, they negotiated the price. From what we understand, they only paid between $30,000 and $35,000.” view article

House Bill 3, which passed in June, provided Eanes ISD with less financial assistance than neighboring school districts in Central Texas, and consequently, according to EISD, the district needs to evaluate current and future budget deficits. EISD said the 2019-20 $2.3 million budget deficit was in part due to the 4.5% compensation increase allocated to all staff members June 19. The possibility of adding to the district’s golden penny fund to make up for the lack of funds and immediate financial assistance from HB 3 was discussed during a Nov. 19 regular board meeting in a presentation by EISD Chief Financial Officer Chris Scott. view article

A Wylie ISD school official is one of eight educators appointed to the Texas School Safety Center Board. This week, Governor Greg Abbott named Assistant Superintendent Craig Bessent and seven others to serve on the board. view article

Plano ISD trustees discussed three calendar options for the 2020-21 school year Nov. 19 at a regular work session, each with extended class days for elementary and middle school students. The drafts show school start times for elementary and middles schools beginning five minutes earlier in the day. Elementary schools would start at 7:40 a.m., while middle schools would begin the day at 8:25 a.m. The additional five minutes each day will mean two days less in class for students while still meeting total minutes requirements for the year, according to PISD Chief Operating Officer Theresa Williams. view article

The beginning of Tuesday night’s College Station school board meeting was the swearing in of new board members Joshua Benn, Jeffrey Horak, and Kimberly McAdams. view article

South San Antonio Independent School District trustees chose Veronica Barba on Wednesday to fill a school board seat left vacant since Sept. 3. The vote to appoint Barba was 4-2. An administrative assistant with Harlandale Independent School District’s Kingsbrough Middle School, she will serve until the board’s next general election in November 2020. view article

South San Antonio Independent School District trustees on Wednesday filled the last remaining empty seat on the board in the wake of the resignations of three trustees. The South San ISD seat had been vacant for more than two months. Veronica Barba, 55, an administrative assistant, was sworn into the District 1 seat Wednesday evening after trustees voted 4-2 to confirm her appointment by application. The vote took place at the district’s monthly regular meeting. view article

After a contentious and long public comment, Conroe ISD heard reports and presentations on its plans for full-day pre-K and modifying attendance zones in The Woodlands and College Park high school feeder zones. view article