A teenager riding his bike near an elementary school was struck and killed in a car accident Thursday morning in Fort Bend County. The driver has been arrested and charged. Fort Bend Sheriff's deputies arrested Devin Devalle on the scene at Mason Road. Devalle is being held at the Fort Bend County jail. He is being charged with motor vehicle collision involving pedestrian or other vulnerable road user within area of crosswalk, authorities said in a news release. The 14-year-old victim lived in the neighborhood and was heading to school when the accident happened near the Betty Sue Creech Elementary School, KHOU-TV reported. Two people with medical training performed CPR on the teenager before he was pronounced dead.  Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton said this is the second time in two weeks that a Fort Bend County pedestrian has been struck and killed. view article

Officials said Sunday night's storms "damaged our campuses and vehicles as they did to others in our community."  The Blooming Grove Independent School District is canceling classes for the rest of the week after getting storm damage Sunday night.  Officials posted on the district's Facebook page Monday about the closure. Classes are expected to resume Monday, Oct. 2. The Blooming Grove district is located in Navarro County, west of Corsicana.  Officials said Sunday night's storms "damaged our campuses and vehicles as they did to others in our community."  "It will take the rest of the week for the restoration company to make our schools ready for students," officials said.   Sunday's storms brought heavy lightning, and some hail as they moved through North Texas, impacting counties in the southern area of the region the most. view article

The illegal alien settlement in Liberty County is straining local resources. As the border crisis intensifies, Texans are turning attention to an illegal alien housing development called Colony Ridge, which is situated just north of Houston in Liberty County. By a vote of 61-0, the Texas GOP passed a resolution calling for action on Colony Ridge:  Colony Ridge Communities is the land development company responsible for providing loans for the construction of one of the largest illegal alien settlements in America. Notably, it is funded by one of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s major donors. view article

fter hearing presentations from five finalists, Brownsville Independent School District trustees named United Healthcare as the third-party administrator for the district’s $54 million self-funded health insurance plan and authorized the administration to negotiate a contract. The decision at a specially called board of trustees meeting Friday means United Healthcare will administer BISD’s healthcare plan for a three-year term, with two one-year renewals also possible. The vote was 7-0. The other finalists were Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, Frontier Direct Care and Texas Health Benefits Pool. Each gave a 10-minute presentation, with five minutes for questions from the board. The TPA administers BISD’s major medical healthcare plan, insurance consultant Roger Garza explained at the beginning of the meeting. The TPA basically administers claims on the district’s behalf under guidelines of the Affordable Care Act. view article

An officer with the Northside Independent School District Police Department is recovering after he was hit by a car while trying to catch a trio of teen trespassers. The incident happened just before 10 p.m. Sunday outside the Northside Sports Gym off North Loop 1604 West near Hausman Road on the Northwest Side. view article

Trustees listened to a presentation from a TASB representative and then debated amongst themselves before choosing to not join the TASB-alternative group, Texans for Excellence in Education (TEE), and keep their current membership with TASB. Trustees Kyle Hafner and Archer Archer voted in favor of joining TEE. The vote came after a lengthy public comment period in which 15 people spoke, a large majority of them presenting the same requests: drop TASB, hire TEE and bring in a local superintendent. TASB Executive Director Dan Troxell discussed the organization’s representation process and how each region across the state has board members who represent their area’s schools and carry equal weight during the annual membership meeting/delegate assembly. He also mentioned that over 80 percent of TASB school districts have an average daily attendance that matches or is less than Brenham ISD. view article

TYLER, Texas — Bullard ISD was recently recognized as a registered First Responder Organization after the district earned a Texas Association of School Boards Risk Management Fund 2023 Excellence Award. The FRO is a group association of certified medical services personnel that works in partnership with a licensed emergency medical provider to respond to medical emergencies until the ambulances arrive. view article

An apparent road rage incident devolved into a fight in front of an elementary school Thursday morning in Cibolo and landed a St. Hedwig man in jail, police said. Police were alerted to a man who was assaulted in the Watts Elementary School parking lot on Thursday morning, Cibolo Police Department spokesman Officer Matt Schima said. The suspect drove away before authorities arrived, Schmia said. The men reportedly fought in front of their children, he said. The suspect’s child was in the suspect’s truck and the victim’s child was nearby outside their vehicle, Schima said. “We believe both observed,” he said. view article

As the state’s wildfire season continues, rural fire departments and their volunteers are strained to keep up with hundreds of fires.  The first thing Wil Kitchenges saw when he reached Huntsville was a plume of smoke drifting across Interstate 45.  The 46-year-old field operations chief was part of a team of first responders from the Florida Forest Service, called upon to help manage a rapidly spreading forest fire in Walker County, about 75 miles north of Houston.  Kitchenges, who has 25 years of disaster management experience in Florida, knew immediately that this wildfire was major.  “Your brain starts to gather that, OK, the fire activity is obviously extreme,” Kitchenges said. view article

No injuries were reported in a crash involving a train and a United ISD school bus, according to Union Pacific.  The incident occurred at about 6:50 a.m. Monday near the intersection of West Calton Road and Santa Maria Avenue.  Two school-aged children were sitting at the front of the bus near the driver when the collision occurred, a Union Pacific spokesman said in a statement.  “Neither the train crew nor the three people on the school bus were injured,” the statement reads. view article

This summer, industrial scale batteries have helped boost the energy supply during critical evening hours. Battery storage represents a small fraction of Texas’ energy mix now, but it’s expected to rise sharply in coming years.  On Wednesday night, minutes before the state’s grid operator went into emergency mode to make sure it would have enough power to meet high demand during another triple-digit day, batteries provided more electricity to Texas homes and businesses than ever before. A small but growing number of batteries sent 2,172 megawatts to the grid on that critical evening — just under 3% of the overall supply. One megawatt can power about 200 homes when demand is high, so batteries dispatched enough electricity to power roughly 434,000 homes at that moment. “Energy storage is increasingly a part of making ends meet from a supply point of view,” said Andy Bowman, CEO of Jupiter Power, a company that operates more than 400 megawatts worth of batteries in West Texas. Some batteries are built to charge directly from wind or solar farms, but increasingly, stand-alone storage is being built to charge from any power source on the grid. The rows of utility-scale batteries vary from about the size of schoolhouse lockers to as large as shipping containers. Most batteries charge up when electricity is cheapest, such as early in the morning, and typically discharge for one to two hours in the evening before they need to recharge again. view article

A contractor died after he fell through the roof of the Seguin ISD administrative offices building Wednesday afternoon. The incident was reported about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday at district offices, 1221 E. Kingsbury St. in Seguin, Seguin Battalion Chief Tom Teboe said. view article

The Van Police Department said that on Saturday they arrested two people who are accused of vandalism and theft at Van ISD property. Van PD said officers were responding to a report of theft and vandalism at a Van ISD property when they said they saw two suspects leaving the area in a reportedly stolen UTV. According to Van PD, the two suspects left the UTV and went into the woods north of Virginia Street and west of the Van Memorial Stadium. view article

A fifth grade Lumberton Independent School District student reported "vulgar" language in the STAAR reading test last month, according to information from LISD.  view article

Vidor ISD superintendent Jay Killgo estimates the district has $12-13 million in damages from Harvey. Both Oak Forest Elementary and Vidor Middle School are unusable right now. Those students are going elsewhere, which is overcrowding some schools. view article

Burnet school district officials were probably expecting to get more than two years from the synthetic turf installed at Bulldog Field in 2015, but that didn’t happen and it’s now set the district back $150,000. Burnet Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Keith McBurnett, however, said the district is looking to get $105,000 back from one manufacturer. Last year, officials noticed some turf fibers sticking up higher than others, so they took a closer look, McBurnett said. “To most people, it probably wasn’t noticeable,” he said. “We had all the experts look at the field, and they looked at the backside. It needed to be replaced.” view article

North American Solutions (NAS), a leading provider of insurance and risk management services for public entities, is excited to announce that Michelle Faust, currently Director, Safety & Risk Management at Round Rock ISD, will be joining the NAS team in January. view article

A teen who was severely bruised in a "brutal and excessive" nightstick attack by a Pasadena ISD school resource officer has settled his federal lawsuit for $60,000. Cesar Suquet Jr. was 16 in May 2014 when he went to the principal's office at South Houston High School to retrieve his cell phone, which had been confiscated earlier that day. His request was declined and he was told to leave. view article

Garland ISD was one of just 10 districts statewide recently honored by The Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). The district’s Risk Management Department earned a 2015 TASB Risk Management Fund Innovation Award for its creative safety video campaign. view article

Abilene ISD board approved the bid on Monday evening at its agenda review meeting. Construction coordinator for the district, Joe Humphrey, says Martinez Elementary took the brunt of the storm. view article

Three students from Stehlik Intermediate School in the Aldine Independent School District were taken to an area hospital Tuesday morning after a minor collision with a cement mixer. The wreck happened about 8 a.m. on West Road at Deer Trail Drive as the bus was transporting students to the school at 400 West Road, a school district spokeswoman said. The school is just west of Interstate 45. view article