Austin ISD, Leander ISD and Round Rock ISD are among about a dozen Central Texas schools districts that have canceled classes and extracurricular activities for Monday, Jan. 26, citing continued freezing temperatures and icy roads.  As of 11:30 a.m., Liberty Hill ISD had not announced a decision on canceling classes. view article

Ice quickly formed on Houston freeways this morning so I encourage y'all to do the same and stay home today and tomorrow. All Houston-area school districts have canceled classes tomorrow. If it's essential to go to the grocery store, we’ve compiled a list of store operating hours for today and tomorrow.  Some areas experienced power outages this morning. If you were impacted, you can track power outages across the state in real time in our tracker.   Local utility CenterPoint Energy, which maintains power lines in the city of Houston and much of the metro area, reported approximately 1,400 customers experiencing power outages as of noon. Company officials said they expect power to be restored to these customers today.  view article

Georgetown ISD is among about a dozen Central Texas school districts that have canceled classes and extracurricular activities for Monday, Jan. 26, citing continued freezing temperatures and icy roads.  view article

Many Texans are having flashbacks to the deadly winter freeze that crippled the state’s isolated power grid nearly five years ago. view article

State and local officials say they’re better prepared than they were five years ago when Winter Storm Uri blanketed the state, killing hundreds and leaving scores without power and water.  Nearly five years after Winter Storm Uri sparked widespread power outages and killed hundreds of Texans, officials and residents are once more girding for a round of severe winter weather that will blanket large parts of the state.  Dangerously cold temperatures from an arctic blast will descend upon the state beginning Friday morning, and with the cold come chances of wintry precipitation in the form of snow, sleet and freezing rain. That winter blast is expected to grip the state from Friday evening to early next week. view article

Cold front day has arrived in Texas, and the forecast is becoming clearer as models come into better agreement on the timing of the arctic air and expected precipitation.  One key change in the latest outlook is a slightly slower-moving arctic front, delaying the onset of wintry weather. Despite the slower timing, significant hazards are still expected across the region, prompting the National Weather Service to upgrade the area to a winter storm warning beginning Saturday morning.  A strong cold front will push into North Texas on Friday before slowly sliding south, reaching Central Texas by Friday night. Ahead of the front, temperatures will briefly climb from the 50s at daybreak to the mid-60s by the afternoon under overcast skies. Light morning showers will give way to more widespread rain, with scattered showers and thunderstorms developing late in the afternoon and evening as the cold front moves in.  Cold front day has arrived in Texas, and the forecast is becoming clearer as models come into better agreement on the timing of the arctic air and expected precipitation. view article

Cold front day has arrived in Texas, and the forecast is becoming clearer as models come into better agreement on the timing of the arctic air and expected precipitation.  One key change in the latest outlook is a slightly slower-moving arctic front, delaying the onset of wintry weather. Despite the slower timing, significant hazards are still expected across the region, prompting the National Weather Service to upgrade the area to a winter storm warning beginning Saturday morning.  A strong cold front will push into North Texas on Friday before slowly sliding south, reaching Central Texas by Friday night. Ahead of the front, temperatures will briefly climb from the 50s at daybreak to the mid-60s by the afternoon under overcast skies. Light morning showers will give way to more widespread rain, with scattered showers and thunderstorms developing late in the afternoon and evening as the cold front moves in.  view article

Nearly five years after Winter Storm Uri sparked widespread power outages and killed hundreds of Texans, officials and residents are once more girding for a round of severe winter weather that will blanket large parts of the state.  Dangerously cold temperatures from an arctic blast will descend upon the state beginning Friday morning, and with the cold come chances of wintry precipitation in the form of snow, sleet and freezing rain. That winter blast is expected to grip the state from Friday evening to early next week.  Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference Thursday morning that he was issuing a disaster declaration for 134 counties. Abbott’s office didn’t immediately release the names of those counties, though the governor said the northern two-thirds of the state — from the Panhandle to potentially as far south as the San Antonio region — was expected to be hit the hardest. view article

A winter storm watch has been issued by the National Weather Service for Dallas-Fort Worth, with impacts coming late this week and into the weekend.  The alert warns of hazardous winter weather, including snow, ice and freezing temperatures, in all of North and much of Central Texas. Freezing precipitation is expected to start Friday afternoon and continue through Saturday night. view article

Forecasters are warning that a new storm could bring ice and power outages across the South this weekend  — With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South.  The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. view article

A construction worker died Wednesday on the Converse Elementary School campus, according to the Judson Independent School District. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the worker on Wednesday as Baltazar Rubio-Olvera, 63. A Judson ISD spokesperson said Rubio-Olvera was employed with a third-party construction company contracted for the project. 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