CANYON, Texas (KFDA) - Canyon ISD’s luncheon today serves as a showcase for students in Career and Technology Education programs. Through partnerships with local businesses and industry experts, the event gave guests the opportunity to learn about the various programs. From programs like robotics, culinary arts, agriculture and more, the programs serve as a gateway to real-world experience in their chosen career paths. “We have our students here from all of our career and technology programs, to just showcase what they do. They interact with the adults in the businesses and industries who need there future employers,” said Darryl Flusche, Canyon ISD superintendent. view article

Houston ISD said cellphones have been at the center of fights at the school and will no longer be allowed in an effort to keep students and staff safe.  Cell phones will be prohibited at Madison High School starting Monday, according to Houston ISD.  The district said there were at least half a dozen fights on campus this week, centered around cellphones, and because of that, students will no longer be able to use them while on campus. view article

A no-exceptions policy restricting cell phone usage went into effect at Madison High School at Houston ISD on Monday. Triggering protests from students late last week and Monday, the uncompromising policy restricts them from bringing cell phones into the school. view article

Madison High School in southwest Houston was placed on lockdown Friday after recent fights and a new ban against cell phones. Several students walked out in protest that same afternoon. Houston Independent School District officials told ABC13 there have been multiple fights on campus recently. view article

Phone system issues recently affecting the Beaumont Independent School District are being blamed on a national outage with the district's phone service. The district's phone service was affected by a national outage due to a cyber attack on the district's phone service vendor according to BISD spokesperson Jackie Simien. view article

A total solar eclipse is coming to Central Texas on April 8, and many local school districts have announced they plan to be closed for the big day.  April 8, 2024, is set to be a big day in Central Texas, as a total solar eclipse passes overhead, blocking out the sun around 1:36 p.m.  With the population of some cities and counties expected to double for the event, many communities in Central Texas are already preparing.  Several local school districts are also taking precautions for the eclipse, with many having already canceled classes on the day of the astronomical event. view article

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the case. view article

A meeting for the Fort Worth ISD’s School Health Advisory council Monday took a turn when “some attendees during the online meeting displayed inappropriate content on their screens instead of identifying themselves or using a blank screen, according to the district. The district says the hacking incident, described as pornographic, that interrupted the Zoom meeting on Jan. 22 around 5:50 p.m., is being investigated. view article

Louisville father Robert Bramel began to panic. Hours after the first day of elementary school ended in August, his two sons hadn’t yet returned home, and he grew frightened for their safety. It wasn’t until after 7 p.m. that evening when the boys, 5-year-old William and 8-year-old Joseph, arrived on a school bus unharmed.Their delayed return was the result of what officials at Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools dubbed a “transportation disaster”: A tech-enabled bus routing system implemented to improve efficiency backfired and some kids didn’t make it home until nearly 10 p.m. view article

Fort Worth ISD students are a step closer to again being taught sex education in school classrooms. Yet, before the board-appointed School Health Advisory Council voted to recommend a sex education curriculum called Choosing the Best to parents and Fort Worth ISD board members, the Zoom meeting was interrupted by porn. view article

The Austin Independent School District will hold a virtual meeting Tuesday evening about a program to increase internet access for students in some neighborhoods. According to a Dec. 7 announcement, “Project Lighthouse” will involve the installation of low-footprint broadband communications towers, or “monopoles,” at nine schools over its winter break. view article

Last month, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered 800 gigabytes of files and logs linked to school software provider Raptor Technologies. The firm provides software that allows schools to track student attendance, monitor visitors, and manage emergency situations. Raptor says its software is used by more than 5,300 US school districts and 60,000 schools around the world. view article

SAN ANTONIO - Currently at Northside ISD, there is a glitch within their payroll system that has prevented some employees from receiving their paychecks. This problem affects maintenance workers. view article

Read the full story:  Gone are the “good old days” when the only emails we had to worry about were from a Nigerian prince asking for half a million dollars or an occasional threat of a computer virus. Your tech director has been faced with many new threats to school technology assets– networks, computers, and data security. You can be a big help in keeping your school district and your own personal devices secure by following a few time-honored adages from one of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin. view article

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The pandemic accelerated how much we all depend on internet access to carry out daily activities. The latest data shows more than 2 million Texas households do not have high speed internet, disproportionately affecting those in rural areas. “What has been revealed by COVID is the fact that many of our students in the city do not have equal access to broadband,” said Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson. However, this is not something that can be fixed overnight. view article

Ahead of the spring semester, Spring ISD officials have announced that changes will be implemented in hopes of improving remote and in-person instruction for teachers and students. In a presentation at the Dec. 8 board meeting, Lupita Hinojosa, chief officer of school leadership and student support services, announced that not all teachers will have to teach online and in-person students concurrently in the spring semester, as is currently the case. view article

Cleveland and Liberty ISDs became the latest school districts on the outskirts of the greater Houston area to cancel their online learning options this week, joining Barbers Hill and Navasota ISDs in requiring the majority of their students to return to campuses. Liberty ISD, which educates 2,266 students about 50 minutes northeast of downtown Houston, told parents at the end of October that remote learning would be offered only to medically fragile students, students who have tested positive for COVID-19, students who are quarantining due to COVID-19 exposure and students whose schools temporarily were closed due to positive tests. view article

The deadline has been extended for Fort Bend Independent School District parents deciding if they want their children to continue virtual learning or head back to the classroom. This comes as a special board meeting scheduled for today was canceled. Ft. Bend ISD Superintendent Charles Dupre said board members wanted to give more parents time to decide. view article

The Waco Independent School District and its charter school partner, Transformation Waco, could see more than half of their students start the school year Sept. 8 via remote instruction, according to registration numbers provided by both entities. view article

Alief Independent School District Superintendent HD Chambers says school officials have decided to begin the school year online. Chambers said he doesn’t want any student to lose out on their education because of the pandemic but the thought of how to bring students and teachers back to the classroom safely keeps him up at night. view article

Children with severe disabilities often don’t have the ability to speak up when they are hurt at school, so determining what happened can be difficult. That’s why one Dallas ISD trustee wants to require each special education classroom in the district to have video cameras. Texas public schools are already required to place one in a special education setting if a parent requests it. view article

Robert Bostic, a self-described evangelist for science, technology, engineering and math, really started something when he became the superintendent of the Stafford Municipal School District in 2014. The Stafford High Robotics Program, which began two years ago, competed May 19-20 in Austin as one of 32 teams from the state invited to the 2017 University Interscholastic League Robotics FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Division State Championship based on the points it earned at earlier competitions. view article

A threat was made against Seven Lakes Junior High School via social media Thursday, officials said. view article

On March 11, 2016, the Texas Education Agency Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General on the implementation of SB 507. This new law requires video surveillance of certain special education settings upon request beginning in the 2016-2017 school year. In an earlier blog post, I outlined the provisions of SB 507. view article

Schoolhouse bullying is nothing new. It has been going on for decades wherever someone bigger, tougher or meaner believed they could get away with abusing another child. And wherever it's happened, it has been harmful to the person being bullied in degrees ranging from intimidation and fear to causing children to commit suicide, or even murder. view article

School districts have been caught flat-footed in the last two years, facing an onslaught of digital textbook providers who follow no standard data file creation process. This problem is called "user provisioning," (a.k.a. account provisioning) a fancy way of saying that you have to create usernames and passwords in EVERY online system students and staff will need to use. view article

The Beaumont ISD Board of Managers appointed Fred Shafer as executive director of the district's special education department during a special meeting Monday, according to social media reports. view article

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New Braunfels ISD Superintendent Randy Moczygemba is in Washington DC today, joining President Barack Obama for the "ConnectED to the Future" Event, a special conference including superintendents and other educators from across the country, who will lead their schools and districts in the transition to digital learning.  view article

While the staff at TexasISD.com preferrs Google Chrome as our browser of choice, we often use Mozilla Firefox as well.  We aren't huge fans of Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) but the site works on it as well...as long as you are current in your versions, otherwise, well...it's just a mess. Most browsers have an update function and may even notify you that there are updates availible.  In some districts I have been to, the attitude is what I have works, why update. Well, what you have probably doesn't work that well and you just don't realize it. Take a second to check your browser version or look for updates if you haven't in a while. view article