Communities In Schools (CIS) is a dropout prevention program funded in part by the Texas Legislature and administered by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). CIS works in collaboration with school personnel to develop and provide a comprehensive Integrated Student Support (ISS) program uniquely tailored to address unmet academic and non-academic barriers to students' success. CIS staff complete a thorough campus needs assessment to identify campus needs, gaps in service, available resources, and the goals and priorities of the campus administration. CIS staff use this information to then develop a plan of service to address identified needs.  view article

Darcy Hood mailed her voter registration application to the Tarrant County elections department in July, after she turned 18.  Months later, her application still hasn’t been processed. And it’s unclear when it will be.  With the Oct. 6 deadline to register to vote in November’s constitutional amendment election approaching, tens of thousands of Texans are in the same situation, waiting in suspense for their applications to go through, a process that normally takes a few days or weeks  In interviews, private conversations, and emails, county elections officials from across the state point the finger at the state’s voter registration system, known as TEAM, which has long had functionality problems. They say that after the software was overhauled in July, the problems began proliferating: Voters’ previous addresses override their new ones, their voting precincts don’t populate correctly, and sometimes the registration information doesn’t save at all. view article

In May 2023, Miller wrote a letter urging university leaders to reconsider admitting a student whom he described as a “biracial Latina,” who was also the daughter of his political associate.   In January, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller declared “war on DEI,” directing his agency to stop working with businesses that embrace policies that give advantages to people based on “race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.”  He condemned the Biden Administration for allowing “unfair” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies “to infect all aspects of our federal government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, and institutions of higher education,” Miller said in a press release.  But in May 2023, he wrote a letter to leaders of the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin emphasizing a student’s ethnicity and socioeconomic status as he urged the schools to reconsider her enrollment. view article

President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to revive his controversial policy to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants and to visitors on short-term visas.  In petitions submitted to the high court on Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to hear arguments on the issue early next year, which would likely lead to a ruling by June. view article

Temple ISD supports first-year teachers with classroom supply shopping spree view article

A North Texas high school teacher fed an “ailing” live kitten to a snake in her classroom but did not do it in front of students, according to a message Alvord ISD sent to families in the district. view article

Dozens of books are temporarily pulled from Leander ISD classrooms to make sure they comply with a new state law. The books are now paused for review due to SB 12, which went into effect on Sept. 1. view article

The "Friday night lights" have gone out for McDade ISD. The district's athletic director announced on social media this week that this year's varsity football season is canceled. "This decision was not made lightly and come after careful consideration of various factors impacting the team's ability to safely and effectively compete this year," Athletic Director Jonathan Wells said in a statement. "We understand how disappointing this is for our players, coaches, and supporters, and we appreciate everyone's dedication and hard work leading up to this point." view article

The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies teaches these concepts in an entry-level class.  An academic department at the University of Texas at Austin pushes LGBT ideology on students. A university spokesman stated it is auditing classes and curriculum and that “courses in this area of study” will be reviewed as part of it.  The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, housed within the College of Liberal Arts, offers three distinct academic degrees. One is a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. They also offer both a minor and a certificate in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Sexualities (LGBTQ) Studies.  UT-Austin uploaded 31 syllabi for classes under the heading “women’s and gender studies” for the fall 2025 semester. view article

The state is being criticized for advising colleges to verify students’ status with immigration authorities, which could put them at risk.   Student advocates say highly anticipated state guidance on how schools should follow a recent court ruling ending in-state tuition for undocumented students still doesn’t offer meaningful clarity on how to determine who still qualifies for the benefit.  Those advocates say clear guidance from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is urgently needed at a time when schools across the state, in a scramble to comply with the court ruling, have incorrectly told some students they can no longer pay in-state tuition.  “The rules don’t help at all. They create even more confusion…You're just going to have, again, more people getting wrongly denied,” Julieta Garibay of United We Dream said. view article

Instead of a campus-wide announcement, faculty members say the restrictions have trickled down through department chairs and college meetings.  Angelo State University officials have told professors not to discuss transgender and nonbinary identities in their courses, according to interviews with faculty members and several emails a professor provided to The Texas Tribune. This move makes it the first known public Texas university to largely restrict classroom acknowledgement of such gender identities, heightening concerns about threats to academic freedom across the state. view article

Midland ISD on Thursday hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony at Abell Junior High School, celebrating the launch of the STEM+M initiative at the district. STEM+M stands for science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. The new initiative aims to spark an early interest in the medical field, and to prepare middle and high school students for future health science careers. view article

McDade High School announced the cancellation of their varsity football team's season. Students and parents learned about the cancellation of the season on Wednesday. The decision was met with disappointment by many in McDade. view article

Five pigs belonging to Abilene ISD students were found dead by an apparent dog attack on Tuesday morning. AISD Ag-science teacher and Future Farmers of America (FFA) advisor, Cindy Easley told KTAB/KRBC she has been in contact with district officials, students, family and community members to figure out how to address this needless loss, and how to prevent predators from entering the AISD Ag farm in the future. view article

Qasim ibn Ali Khan is a Houston imam. He has waged a campaign against Muslim-owned businesses that sell products forbidden in Islam, like alcohol, pork and lottery tickets.  Such talk has gone viral among right-wing activists warning of “Sharia patrols” in Texas. That talk has also caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott, who recently scolded the imam over the matter. view article

very day that classes are held at the University of Texas at Austin, a procession of students enter Homer Rainey Hall, which houses the Department of French and Italian. How many of them know who Rainey was? He is certainly not a saint in the pantheon of Texas history—a diverse bunch that includes, depending on who you ask, Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, Juan Seguín, Audie Murphy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Larry McMurtry, and George W. Bush.  view article

The Lubbock Independent School District (Lubbock ISD) is excited to announce a series of town hall meetings designed to engage community members and stakeholders in meaningful discussions about proposed changes and enhancements in the district. Over the next several weeks, town halls will be hosted in each of the voting districts served by the Lubbock ISD Board of Trustees, beginning with District 5 on Tuesday (Sept. 30). These meetings will provide an opportunity for participants to share their thoughts and ask questions about the district. The town halls represent Lubbock ISD’s commitment to transparency and collaborative decision-making as the school district works to benefit the community and every child and family served by the district every day. view article

Canyon ISD hosted Agriculture Days for their fourth grade students this week. Students rotated through stations on agriculture, animals, crops and more. All the presentations were led by local agriculture leaders and CISD high school students. Many of these students have not been able to have this experience with agriculture before today. view article

Six months into his tenure as chair of the Texas Democratic Party, Kendall Scudder is moving the party’s headquarters from Austin to his hometown of Dallas, prompting an exodus of top staff and throwing the party into a state of upheaval ahead of a critical midterm election, according to interviews with over a dozen people familiar with the dynamics.  Every member of the party’s top staff, including the executive director, chief of staff and two communications staffers, is departing after Scudder required them to agree to move to Dallas by November — or else be laid off. A fifth top staffer has already quit, and more departures among the seven other staffers are expected. view article

Other smaller oil and gas producing regions in the state are better poised to help power the growing data center market, a new report found.  ODESSA — Big data centers that power the artificial intelligence industry demand an abundance of energy.  West Texas — known for producing 40% of the nation’s crude oil — also has an extraordinary amount of natural gas that could power those data centers. But the region lacks adequate infrastructure to convert the gas, a byproduct of pumping oil, into electricity and transmit it to the growing industry, experts said.  “Meeting this unprecedented demand takes more than production alone,” said Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, a trade group. “It requires a strong network of pipelines and infrastructure to move natural gas efficiently and ensure reliable power for end users. In Texas, expanding this network has never been more important to keep pace with growth.” view article

A new congressional report found that the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Houston have concerning connections with the Chinese military-industrial complex.   The U.S. Congress’ Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the Committee on Education and the Workforce published the 39-page report that found both universities have partnerships with Chinese institutions that “pose serious national security risks.”  The University of Houston partners with Dalian Maritime University to run the Houston International Institute, a joint engineering operation. view article

Christian Hardigree has a background in “diversity” and “sustainability.”  The finalist for president of Texas A&M Victoria has pervasive experience with left-wing causes such as “diversity,” “equity,” and “sustainability.”  Christian Hardigree was named the sole finalist for the presidency of Texas A&M-Victoria following a special called meeting of the Texas A&M System Board of Regents on September 18. There is a 21-day waiting period before the regents can finalize her appointment. Hardigree is the regional chancellor of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus, where she has been quoted as wanting to sustain the momentum behind USFSP’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.   view article

Shonterrich Johnson was an assistant principal at the IDEA Parmer Park charter school in Austin.  For a second time this year, an IDEA Public Schools administrator is accused of sex crimes involving a student.  Shonterrich Jeremaine Johnson, 29, was arrested and charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second-degree felony, and online solicitation of a minor, a third-degree felony.  Johnson worked as an assistant principal of instruction at the IDEA Parmer Park charter school in Austin, which serves about 1,300 K-12 students. view article

Gov. Greg Abbott called for a student to be expelled for celebrating Kirk’s death. Legal experts say the student’s speech is likely constitutionally protected.  “Hi, my name is Charlie Kirk,” he announced, before collapsing to the ground, pretending to be shot. As he walked away, someone on video can be heard saying, “you’re going to get expelled, dude.”Gov. Greg Abbott agreed, telling the university on social media to “expel this student immediately. Mocking assassination must have consequences.” Texas State President Kelly Damphouse later confirmed that the student was no longer enrolled, explaining in a statement that the university “will not tolerate behavior that mocks, trivializes, or promotes violence.”  Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert at UCLA and Stanford, read those statements skeptically. view article

Secretary of State Jane Nelson said voter registration data-sharing provides “a critical tool to detect and prevent potential voter fraud.” view article

Thousands gathered for the Texas Youth Summit, where speaker after speaker memorialized Kirk and encouraged young attendees to rise in his place.   James Swank Jr. traces his interest in politics to the COVID-19 pandemic. As he left middle school for high school, a mask meant to stop the spread of the virus was always on his face, except for brief moments between bites at lunch. Meanwhile, his social life — whether in the classroom or on Friday nights — was suspended with no end in sight.  “There wasn’t much for me to do at the time. It was really a difficult time,” Swank, who grew up outside of Houston, said of social distancing precautions and business restrictions aimed at preventing infections that could overwhelm hospitals. “I wouldn’t say it radicalized me but it definitely opened my eyes to what government overreach could be.” view article

DALLAS — Last year, Fort Worth gained a new distinction as Texas’ fourth city with more than 1 million people.  While other major Texas cities grew at a slower clip or struggled to regain residents it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fort Worth boomed. The city added more than 100,000 new residents between 2019 and 2024, outpacing any other Texas city — including its neighbor, Dallas. view article

COLLEGE STATION — It was the third week of Texas A&M’s summer semester and students in the ENGL 360: Literature for Children class were reading “Jude Saves the World,” a novel that features a 12-year-old protagonist who navigates coming out as nonbinary.  On the projector screen, Professor Melissa McCoul shared a graphic of a purple “gender unicorn,” often used to teach the differences between gender identity, expression and sexuality.  As the discussion began, one student angled a phone in her lap, pressed record on a video and then raised her hand.  “I just have a question, because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching,” said the student, who went on to accuse the professor of violating President Donald Trump’s executive order, which recognizes only two biological sexes.  McCoul told the student she disagreed with her assessment, and after a short back-and-forth, captured on video, McCoul asked the student to leave. view article

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced that his office will investigate whether any laws were broken after a private Facebook group urged members to pressure teachers at a Spring Branch high school into refusing sponsorship of a Club America chapter.Moms for Liberty Harris County exposed the post in the “Be the Change SBISD” group, which was written by Nathalie Herpin. She mentioned Stratford High School teachers by name and called on group members to “please send an email and remind them of the following.” view article

ALLAS — Last year, Fort Worth gained a new distinction as Texas’ fourth city with more than 1 million people.  While other major Texas cities grew at a slower clip or struggled to regain residents it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fort Worth boomed. The city added more than 100,000 new residents between 2019 and 2024, outpacing any other Texas city — including its neighbor, Dallas. view article

Texas now gives the largest number of school paddlings, surpassing Mississippi, a new study reports. During the past six years, 65 Texas high schools in non-urban areas have brought back paddling. Many Texas high schools are now using “opt-in” consent provisions to obtain parental support for the introduction or continued use of corporal punishment. Often these forms are also signed by the student. There is a growing use of swats in voluntary extracurricular activities, particularly high school athletics, the study notes. A district's decision to implement corporal punishment at the high-school level has often been accompanied by ending or reducing spanking in the lower grades. In districts that paddle, a high school student has a significantly higher chance of receiving swats than an elementary student. Between 2017/18 and 2021/22, 431 Texas schools ceased using corporal punishment. The overall number of corporal punishment incidents has continued to decline, the study reports. view article

Elementary school boundaries in College Station ISD will see some changes when the 2026-27 school year rolls around. Tuesday night, the CSISD school board voted to approve an updated elementary plan 7. The updated version was made with feedback from parents. The difference involved moving a boundary line up to George Bush Street. view article

In the Spring, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 10, which requires the Ten Commandments be displayed on a donated poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches come September, when most new state laws go into effect. The backstory: The bill was made by Republican Sen. Phil King of Weatherford and signed into law in late June by Governor Greg Abbott, just one day after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found a similar law in Louisiana was "plainly unconstitutional." view article

A US district court judge on Monday rejected a suit by conservation groups challenging the Federal Aviation Administration approval in 2022 of expanded rocket launch operations by Elon Musk’s SpaceX next to a national wildlife refuge in south Texas.  The groups said noise, light pollution, construction and road traffic also degrade the area, home to endangered ocelots and jaguarundis, as well as nesting sites for endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles and for threatened shorebirds.  US district judge Carl Nichols in Washington said the FAA had satisfied its obligation “to take a hard look at the effects of light on nearby wildlife”. view article

Alleged comments made by a teacher regarding the death of Charlie Kirk are being looked into, according to the Texarkana Independent School District. view article