Greenwood Independent School District is seeking approval from the state to form its own police department, and outfit its campuses with a police officer. Greenwood ISD Superintendent Ariel Elliott said the administrators and school board members have pursued the creation of the department for around a year. view article

Story Elementary first-grade students brushed up on their dental hygiene Thursday thanks to a visit by the Masons from Allen Lodge 1435, including Mayor Stephen Terrell and AISD Deputy Superintendent Robin Bullock.  For the past eight years, the Masons have made annual visits to first-graders in several schools in the district to talk to students about dental health and to provide them with the tools they need for proper care through the Fantastic Teeth Fan Club program. view article

The Spring ISD board of trustees approved funds on Tuesday that will be used toward improving safety and security at Wells Middle School as one of the projects on the list of the $330 million bond approved by voters in 2016. Wells will be the first campus to upgrade its doors, security cameras and control access to the building. view article

Oklahoma City school officials are reviewing security protocols following a dog attack that left 12 children injured Monday afternoon. About 12:40 p.m. Monday, a pit bull terrier ran into the school's playground during 3rd and 4th grade recess, school officials said Monday afternoon. It attacked students on the playground, then tried to go into the school building, where a teacher tackled the dog. Special education teacher Lee Hughes wrestled the dog to the floor and held it there until Oklahoma City police officers arrived and took it to a patrol car. view article

A North Carolina school with a large anti-vaccine community is at the heart of the state's largest chickenpox outbreak in decades, officials say.  On Friday 36 students at Asheville Waldorf School were diagnosed with the disease, the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper reported.The school has one of the state's highest rates of religious exemption, allowing students to skip vaccination.  US health officials say vaccinating is far safer than getting chickenpox. view article

Baby-boomers and Generation X no doubt recall the days when they had to stay home from school and away from friends when they contracted chicken pox, measles or mumps.  For many people, the vaccines for these diseases came as a relief. Now, anti-vaxxer organizations such as Texans For Vaccine Choice are not only taking advantage of Texas law to push conscientious exemptions for kids in Texas public schools, they are also arguing state-regulated day care centers should be subject to the same exemptions. view article

Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie says he will discipline staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “as early as next week” after a state investigation determined some administrators missed warning signs about the massacre. Runcie, testifying before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission on Thursday, did not say who would be disciplined or what the discipline would be. He said he would first inform the families of the 17 people who died. Those families have been among the loudest voices urging him for months to hold school officials accountable. view article

Due to a gas leak in the general vicinity of Meyer Elementary School, N.E. Woolls Intermediate School, and McDownell Middle School, Hondo ISD closed all campuses except for Hondo High School. view article

Reports of a suspicious person near Clear Lake Intermediate caused some tense moments for students, staff and parents Friday morning. But after a search by Houston police, Precinct 8 and Galveston County deputies, the all-clear was given by the Clear Creek Independent School District. view article

The Pflugerville ISD board of trustees voted Nov. 15 to rename Chief Patrick Petherbridge as the school district’s police chief as a result of ongoing negotiations regarding an interlocal agreement between Pflugerville ISD and the Pflugerville Police Department. Petherbridge was appointed district police chief in February 2017, but his contract was approved through an interlocal agreement between the school district and PPD. Under that agreement, PfISD subcontracts police officers who were employed by PPF, district spokesperson Tamra Spence said. view article

Thursday night the VISD Board of Trustees meeting had one major theme.. which Dr. Quintin Shepherd calls radical transparency. Shepherd believes his plan will design the future of Victoria ISD. "We're talking about the next ten years of the school district, there's some big decisions in front of us," says Shepherd. Through his presentation he made anonymous comments and ideas submitted by the public transparent and available online. He also highlighted his new plan to create task forces that will be formed to examine focus areas. view article

The Brownsville Independent School District has unveiled plans to further secure the safety of its students. BISD has been awarded a federal grant of $500,000 that will allow the district to partner with Cameron County for resources to increase school security. view article

Campuses in Dayton ISD participated in the National Red Ribbon Week, October 22nd-26th. The Red Ribbon serves as a catalyst to mobilize communities to educate youth and encourage participation in drug prevention activities. Each campus had various methods to spread the word about the prevention of drug use. During their daily announcements, campuses were able to share facts pertaining to the harm of using drugs. As a culminating Red Ribbon Week activity, all elementary campuses participated in a Storybook Character Parade which focuses on students showing positive character traits. view article

Parents at Lamar High in Houston's River Oaks area want security enhanced on campus. Their concerns follow the brutal murder of 18-year-old Delindsey Mack just a block away from the school two days ago. On Thursday they met with administrators and the school principal. They demanded more armed officers on campus. view article

The mysterious, polio-like disease that has struck 414 people — mostly young children — across the United States since 2014 comes at a time when the public health system already is overstretched.  Reported in 39 states and Washington, D.C., acute flaccid myelitis, known as AFM, causes muscle weakness and in some cases paralysis in the arms or legs, terrifying parents and puzzling medical researchers. view article

HOUSTON - Several parents of Lamar High School students organized a stand-in Thursday morning after a student, 18-year-old Delindsey Mack, was gunned down Tuesday while walking near the campus.  The school has lost three students due to gun violence in a matter of days, and now parents are demanding answers.  Delindsey Mack identified as Lamar High School student gunned down near campus Some Lamar HS students say they don't feel safe after deaths of 3 classmates  'We're better than this': Reaction to Lamar HS student's deadly shooting  Parents of students at the school have growing concerns that security measures taken to keep their kids safe are not enough, despite the visibly heightened security at the school in the days since the shooting. view article

For months, members of the panel investigating Florida's high school massacre have called the sheriff's deputy assigned to guard the campus "a coward" for hiding and not rushing inside in an attempt to stop the shooter. Given an opportunity to confront his critics Thursday, now-retired Broward Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson sent his attorney instead before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission. Attorney Joseph DiRuzzo III told the 14-member panel he had filed a lawsuit hours earlier attempting to block their subpoena. DiRuzzo dropped a copy on the lectern and then walked away. view article

A Houston mom is urging HISD to hire more bus drivers after a late bus caused her 14-year-old daughter to miss critical medication and end up in the hospital. Alyssa Quiroz, an 8th grader at The Rice School, suffers from Dysautonomia, which sometimes causes her to feel dizzy if she stands too quickly. She's also more susceptible to dehydration, her mother said. On Monday, her student had been riding the bus for more than three hours when she passed out, leading to a trip to Memorial Hermann. view article

For months, members of the panel investigating Florida’s high school massacre have called the sheriff’s deputy assigned to guard the campus “a coward” for hiding and not rushing inside in an attempt to stop the shooter. Given an opportunity to confront his critics Thursday, now-retired Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson sent his attorney instead before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission. Attorney Joseph DiRuzzo III told the 14-member panel he had filed a lawsuit hours earlier attempting to block their subpoena. DiRuzzo dropped a copy on the lectern and then walked away. Fred Guttenberg, whose child Jaime died along with 16 others, said to DiRuzzo as he passed: “He didn’t do his job. My daughter should be alive.” view article

Texas often touts its record of economic growth, low unemployment rates and its success as a magnet for workers, but who's thinking about the kids in tow and how well-fed or educated they are? Many people are surprised to find that about one in five kids in Texas lives in poverty.  Today, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a group that advocates for low- to mid-income families and children, is releasing its 2018 State of Texas Children report. The report sheds quite a bit of light on why Texas ranks in the bottom-10 states for child well-being, as one recent survey discovered. So where's the data and how can Texas improve? view article

A North Texas school district that required students to use clear backpacks after recent school shootings is now ending that policy. Ennis ISD said the backpacks did improve safety, but they also had a pretty serious flaw – they fell apart rapidly with regular usage by kids. Beginning the Monday after Thanksgiving, students will once again be able to carry traditional backpacks. Ennis ISD created the clear backpack policy after the Parkland, Fla. school shooting in February and an earlier school shooting in nearby Italy ISD. It took effect in august, but the interim superintendent says the policy simply isn't practical. view article

Jim Shead is a lawyer in Austin and the father of twin boys in pre-K. Even though his kids can barely read, he’s already thinking about how he’ll teach them about puberty and sex. Right now, he’s using his own experience as a guide for what he doesn’t want to happen. “When I was in first grade, my brother – who was 6 years older – told me the facts of life wrong,” Shead said. “He made stuff up. And so when it was seventh grade when I got the talk, I knew nothing about female anatomy, did not know what was going on down there, and I had my mouth dropped.” view article

Every 40 seconds, someone dies by suicide in the United States, according to the World Health Organization. Prosper ISD is dealing with the reality of that tragic statistic this school year as one of its students took their own life. It's also now Mary Kirby's reality. "My husband passed away by suicide on April 4 of this year," Kirby said. view article

Alief ISD is welcoming its newest members of the school district police department: four-legged crime fighters with very special training to keep students all over the district safe. "We're both young. We want to move. We want to work," said Alief ISD Police Officer William Moncier, holding tight to his partner, K-9 officer Fax, a four-legged 2-and-a-half-year-old Malinois-German Shepherd mix. view article

Brock ISD officials are planning to install a traffic light at the intersection of Farm-to-Market Road 1189 and Eagle Spirit Lane, near Brock Elementary School. District officials requested the light, identical to the one by Brock Intermediate School, to relieve congestion caused by school pick-up and drop-off in the mornings and afternoons, BISD Superintendent Cade Smith said. The light is also expected to improve traffic safety. view article

Students at Lamar High School say a recent lock-down, put in place after an 18-year-old student was shot and killed a block away, caused chaos and confusion among students.  “I was very scared,” said student Claire Romero. “I didn’t know was going on.” “It was scary, you didn’t even know was going on,” said another student, Cortland James. Haley Carter, Chair for Mayor Turner’s Commission Against Gun Violence, says community members have been reaching out to her in response to the lock-down. view article

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Some Broward sheriff’s deputies couldn’t remember the last time they attended mass-shooter training. Others couldn’t recall what they’d learned when they did attend, investigators reviewing the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting found.A report prepared for a fact-finding commission tasked with uncovering systemic problems in the police response found fault with BSO’s preparedness for the Feb. 14 massacre.  By comparison, the Coral Springs officers who rushed into the high school consistently praised their training and “had no difficulty in explaining the proper response to an active shooter.”  Training was but one of the issues that compromised the performance of the Broward Sheriff’s Office that day, the report found. view article

The eastern McLennan County towns of Mart and Riesel are adversaries on the football field, but they plan to be partners in school security. The Mart City Council and Riesel Independent School District board approved an agreement Tuesday allowing a Mart police officer to serve as a school resource officer in Riesel schools. Although Mart police do not normally patrol in the city limits of Riesel, Mart City Council members changed a city ordinance to allow the selected officer to provide security around Riesel campuses. view article

The then-sheriff’s deputy on campus during the Florida high school massacre is scheduled to testify before a state commission investigating the shooting. Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson is subpoenaed to appear Thursday before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission. view article

Austin ISD officials will hold the last of three outreach meetings tonight (Thursday, Nov. 14) to get feedback on potential changes to the district's Human Sexuality and Responsibility curriculum, taught to students in kindergarten through 8th grade. (The meeting is 6-7:30pm at Eastside Memorial Early College H.S.) District parents were also sent a survey on Nov. 7 that presents concepts that could be taught to students and asks for which grade parents think each concept is appropriate. Survey submissions will be accepted until Nov. 30. According to district officials, AISD instruction about reproduction, puberty, and relationships has not been updated in 12 years, as opposed to the three- to six-year revision of content in other subjects. view article

Multiple schools in Austin ISD dealt with boiler issues this week, with students at Bowie High School being left temporarily without their normal supply of central heating. According to the school district, a total of 18 portable heaters were delivered to the school after a water line break feeding into its boiler system. AISD said maintenance crews were notified about the issue around 6 a.m. and repairs were finished by 12:30 p.m. AISD maintenance crews have been adding water to the loop and restarted the boilers just before 2 p.m. view article

Two Georgetown ISD students were facing charges Wednesday after police said they posted a social media threat against East View High School. One of the students attended East View High School, while the other attended Georgetown High School. The schools are about three miles apart. view article

An East Central Independent School District board meeting ran late into the night Tuesday as school board members went back and forth on the issue of arming some teachers and staff with guns. After lengthy discussions and input from parents, the issue was tabled for further discussion. view article

An Angleton High School student is under arrest after officials found a weapon on campus. According to Angleton ISD, the student was arrested Wednesday evening for unlawfully carrying a weapon on the grounds of AHS. The weapon was not brought into the building. view article

Alyssa Quiroz thought it was September when she regained consciousness on a Houston ISD school bus that had been traveling for more than three hours on Monday, said her mother Alice Quiroz. Alyssa, an 8th grader at The Rice School, suffers from Dysautonomia, which sometimes causes her to feel dizzy if she stands too quickly. She's also more susceptible to dehydration, her mother said. view article