Border wall expansion, national park preservation and TSA tips, in readers’ eyes. view article

Lubbock ISD will host a series of town halls throughout April and early May as the school district implements its newly adopted district optimization plan for school closures.  According to the district, it will host a series of spring town hall meetings designed to provide updates to community members, families, staff and stakeholders related to district optimization. view article

Several Republicans who thought they were delegates to the Texas GOP convention in Houston this summer discovered that they were kicked off of the list. Barbara Brewer, who repeatedly spoke out against an attempt to split the Keller school district last year, and Zee Wilcox, who sued Tarrant GOP chair Tim Davis after she was removed from the House District 98 primary ballot, were among those whose names were taken off of the list by the Tarrant County Republican Party.   view article

Lubbock Independent School District (Lubbock ISD) will hold a series of spring town hall meetings designed to provide updates to community members, families, staff and stakeholders related to district optimization. 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 1 this Wednesday (April 1). A virtual town hall will conclude the series on May 5. view article

The contract change is being funded by the district's 2022 bond. The contract would add $641,000 to the project, bringing the total cost to $81.21 million. The contract will expire once all work is completed, according to board documents. The original project cost was $80.32 million, but in June 2025, trustees approved an additional $250,000 for contingency costs, increasing the total at the time to $80.57 million, according to board documents. view article

Austin ISD is set to close Tuesday in honor of United Farm Workers Association co-founder Dolores Huerta. view article

TEXAS — Many public schools across Texas are expected to be closed in observance of Good Friday in 2026, though practices vary widely by district.  Good Friday, which falls on April 3, 2026, is considered an optional holiday in Texas, meaning school districts are not required to close but may choose to observe it.  A review of multiple district calendars shows that many Texas school systems will not hold classes that day. For example, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District lists Good Friday as a student and staff holiday, with no classes scheduled.  Similarly, North East Independent School District in the San Antonio area identifies April 3 as a “no school” day for students and staff. Texas City Independent School District also lists April 3 among its days with no classes for students. view article

The saga of the Public Utility Commission’s power grab continues.    view article

This is only day two for Peter Licata, the new superintendent of the Fort Worth ISD, but he brought in a chief of staff from Florida and a new deputy superintendent to his team. Some Fort Worth ISD Central Office staff have been told they no longer need to come in. Licata hit the ground running, implementing change in Fort Worth ISD with his staff. view article

Bill Elliott, the former athletic director and head football coach of Celina ISD, surrendered his teaching license amid a state investigation into a misconduct claim from the 1990s. view article

Presidential memoirs, “The Three Musketeers,” and even Guinness World Records books have been pulled from New Braunfels ISD library shelves in the face of a new state law, according to records obtained by a Texas nonprofit. The apparent cuts and other restrictions appear much deeper than the school district has previously conveyed. After Texas adopted Senate Bill 13, which prohibits school library materials with “profane” and “indecent” content, New Braunfels ISD has been reviewing its library collection to align with state guidelines. view article

Who says you can't mix two passions together? For Dallas Independent School District softball Coach Mark Stout, he's done it weekly this season. Stout warms up his team at W.T. White High School every home game and then, for a brief moment, plays the national anthem on the trumpet to get to that exciting umpire line: play ball! He started doing it before games last season. view article

In some voting locations where a party’s appointed polling judge didn’t show up, election officials allowed the other party’s judge to operate both parties’ voting machines in an effort to keep the polling place running. view article

The Lewisville ISD board of trustees approved the district's 2022-23 academic calendar, which includes 177 instructional days. The 2022-23 calendar, which was approved during a Jan. 10 board meeting, will have an Aug. 10 start date with exams for the first semester to be completed before winter break, which runs Dec. 19-Jan. 4, 2023, according to the calendar. view article

Fort Worth ISD is moving forward with plans to establish four early learning centers across the district in areas where affordable, high quality child care is hard to come by after voters narrowly approved a November bond to fund the project along with other improvements. Three other bond measures were defeated in the same election after opposition groups lobbied against them, pointing to the district’s lackluster academic performance and what they called limited information about the bonds in the weeks leading up to the election. view article

An online petition created by the 'Students of KATYISD' group is demanding change to allow access to LGBTQ+ resources and websites, including a suicide prevention hotline. Katy ISD student, 17-year-old Cameron Samuels, spoke out at a school board meeting last week and told ABC13 that students cannot access LGBTQ+ youth resources and websites while on the district's internet server. view article

The Northwest ISD Education Foundation last week held a grand opening event for its new free store and library for teachers to get resources and educational materials for their classrooms. Teachers can “shop” for school and classroom supplies, snack packs, clothing items and books. All items are free to district educators, who will use them in their classrooms to support students, according to a news release from Northwest ISD. view article

When you were in school, did you ever wonder to yourself, "what if I were principal for a day?" On Wednesday, WFAA's Cynthia Izaguirre and our station general manager, Brad Ramsey, got that chance thanks to the Principal for a Day Program (PFAD) with the Dallas Independent School District. The program is meant to help people who don't work in education understand the strengths and challenges Dallas ISD schools face. view article

It’s 4 p.m. at S.S. Conner Elementary School’s district-run afterschool program, and cheerleaders are pumping up a group of 70 students as they enjoy a healthy snack. Now with full bellies and high spirits, the students go into classrooms and center themselves with deep breathing exercises and social and emotional learning practices. Then it’s on to fun, hands-on learning and, at last, an epic game of kickball in the gym. view article

The McAllen Independent School District (McAllen ISD) is considering closing Bonham Elementary School due to low student enrollment. Since 2010, McAllen ISD has closed down three schools: David Crockett Elementary in 2011, Jose Antonio Navarro Elementary, after the 2017-18 school year, and Abraham Lincoln Middle School the same year. view article

Calallen ISD's superintendent apologized for a video that surfaced on social media of a high school pep rally during which students portrayed former President Donald Trump and Jesus Christ while making racist remarks. The video, captioned "i'm so scared #saveme," has garnered close to 34,000 views and has been shared over 550 times since being posted. It is a screen recording from someone's Snapchat account. That person recorded the pep rally, which took place at Calallen High School's gymnasium. view article

The national outcry over efforts to foster diversity and inclusion initiatives in schools has added fuel to a heated Grapevine-Colleyville ISD runoff election. The incumbent, Mindy McClure, said she is fighting a campaign of “misinformation” from her opponent, community volunteer Shannon Braun. view article

For Granger ISD officials, they have been working since the spring of last year, planning on getting kids back to campus for the start of school. School for the Lions has been fully on campus since the start of the school year. The district says this is due to the COVID-19 safety protocols that are in place, as well as teachers who have gone above and beyond. view article

Austin ISD hosted its Operation Reconnect block walk door-to-door event to ‘reconnect’ with existing district families and help recruit new ones to its schools. The event specifically aimed at attracting families to schools in its northeast corridor, including (among others) Andrews and Harris elementary schools, Garcia’s Young Men’s and Sadler Means Young Women’s middle school leadership academies, and Northeast High School. view article

ABILENE – The Abilene ISD is opening baseball and softball contests at both high schools to 50 percent capacity at all four fields for the 2021 season. Fans will be allowed to enter this weekend’s baseball tournament games at Blackburn Field (Abilene High) and Cougar Field (Cooper) at no charge, but beginning with next week’s home games, all games for baseball and softball will be $4 for adults and $2 for students. Full-time AISD employees will be allowed to enter for free, but only with a district-issued ID, and that ID only gains entry for the employee. view article

This week, Westex Federal Credit Union stopped by Lubbock ISD’s Wolffarth Elementary School to surprise one of its teachers. Melissa Catano nominated her daughter, Vanessa for this Week’s Pay It Forward. “She is so devoted to her students and she sincerely cares about each one of her students and goes above and beyond to fill that need,” said Melissa. “Vanessa believes in her students and she has high expectations for each and every student to succeed in her classroom and outside of her classroom. She does everything power to help her students.” view article

After months of online learning, most students who go to schools at Poth ISD will be required to return to the classroom starting Monday, except for those with certain medical issues or those who have high-risk family members in their home. School officials said productivity was low with virtual learning. Their decision to bring students back to campus was made with consideration of research in collaboration with health officials and a low number of coronavirus cases in Wilson county. view article

She's a first-year educator and the leading instructor of the Principles of Architecture course at the new Career Institute East. After earning a masters in Architecture at Texas A&M University in 2004, Toffer began working for Corgan – a leading architecture and design firm based in Dallas. She was ultimately promoted to senior project manager, where she fully supervised projects from first sketches to construction. view article

Ector County ISD is sharing its revised academic calendar for 2020-21 to clear confusion for parents. According to ECISD, the original calendar that was adopted in February included two student holidays on September 25 and 28. Changes made over the summer eliminated those holidays and both days are now normal class days for students. You can view the updated calendar below. view article

Hundreds of parents chimed in Tuesday night as Fort Worth ISD took another stab at deciding when to send kids back to the classroom. This comes after voting just last week on a date for in-person learning. In a meeting that went until 4 a.m., the board took a series of votes on everything from upholding last week's vote to open school October 5, to pushing it back to the end of October with different outcomes with each vote. view article

Fort Worth ISD's superintendent recommended that students who choose to can return to in-class instruction starting Oct. 5. The district's school board was presented plans for the return to in-person learning on Tuesday afternoon. Parents also got to weigh in. One week after Fort Worth ISD students started back-to-school learning virtually, the school board is already talking about what to do next. view article

Here in Central Texas some public schools are just now beginning to welcome students back to the classroom for in-person learning. And they're taking every precaution to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Austin ISD just started class 100% online last week, but Pflugerville ISD students started back on August 13 and they're already four weeks into the school year. 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

First-grade teacher Karen Preston is all about meeting her students. "I love it because I love getting to know the kids," Preston said. While excited for the first day of school, Preston said teaching online does have its challenges. view article

The Dublin ISD in Erath County was one of the first districts in Texas to go back to school. The year started back on Aug. 4 with the majority of students in the classroom and a small group opting to learn at home. Now a month later, the superintendent tells NBC 5, it's been a smooth start. view article