Normally this is a Saturday event, but this week we’ve had to delay to Sunday evening.
- Texas Monthly: “We Might Have a Mutiny on Our Hands”: Why One Texas District Won’t Abandon the Four-Day School Week. An interview with the superintendent of Athens ISD, which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Dallas in East Texas. They’ve been running a four-day school week for six years. Since a lot of rural districts are now looking at moving to four-day weeks for retention reasons, this is a preview of the rural future.
- Texas Tribune: Texas schools have leaned on uncertified teachers to fill vacancies. Lawmakers want to put a stop to it. Almost 40% of new teachers in Texas are uncertified this year. The state will pay to help them get certified, but there will still be a shortage, and according to the article, teacher salaries in Texas are about $9,000 less than the national average. All this explains why rural districts are willing to go to four-day weeks to retain the good teachers they have and attract new ones.
- Fort Worth Report: Fact brief: Can Texas school districts use voter-approved bonds for budget deficits?. Answer: NO.
- Texas Observer: ‘We’re Not Just Some Bureaucrats’: DOE Employees on How Their Work Helps Texas Students. Former employees from the Dallas office of the Department of Education talk about what they did until their office was shut down by the current administration.
- Dallas Observer: North Texas School Districts Among The Wealthiest in Texas. Our area took seven of the top ten spots, including Highland Park and Southlake-Carroll, which are tied for first place.
- Moving into local districts, we have news from Coppell ISD (which is one of those top ten districts). From KERA: Texas AG sues Coppell ISD in response to undercover ‘critical race theory’ video. This is Accuracy in Media, and “edited” may be doing a lot of work there along with “critical race theory”, which often means any accurate history of how badly America has treated her Black citizens, during and after slavery. Also in the Texas Tribune: Texas AG Ken Paxton accuses Coppell ISD of violating Texas’ “critical race theory” ban.
- We have two stories from the Fort Worth Report about Eagle-Saginaw ISD. First, Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD looks to lower student-to-teacher ratios despite $10M deficit. Even if they lower the ratios to 24:1, they’ll still be above the state requirement of 22:1 and need to get a waiver. Second: Why Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD’s new superintendent is hopeful about public education. A bit of a puff piece but note, as a piece of the larger pie, that the new superintendent calls out the Lege’s refusal to increase the per-pupil allocation for schools since 2019.
- KERA: To cut costs, Euless charter school to lose middle, high school grades. They’re also going to a four-day school week next year to keep their teachers.
- There’s a lot of news about Fort Worth ISD and its new superintendent, mostly but not all from the Fort Worth Report.
- Fort Worth Report: How much will Fort Worth ISD’s new superintendent earn? Here are the details from her contract? $360,000 annually for the next three years, without the bonus structure that the previous superintendent got.
- Fort Worth Report: Q&A: Superintendent Karen Molinar outlines Fort Worth ISD’s turnaround efforts. Also: Transcript: Newsmaker Q&A with Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Karen Molinar.
- Fort Worth Report: Educators vie to represent southwest Fort Worth ISD on school board. This is for the District 7 election.
- We have two stories on literacy efforts in FWISD. First, from the Star-Telegram: Fort Worth ISD wants to redirect $22.7 million toward reading, which will mean job cuts. And, related, from the Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD looks to spur reading renaissance through literacy-infused budget. There are a lot of statistics and charts about FWISD’s performance in this one.
- Last, but not least, a follow-up to a story from last year in the Fort Worth Report: Fort Worth ISD apologizes to North Side cheerleaders following fall racist incident. Last year, during the previous superintendent’s tenure, North Side high cheerleaders were insulted with (anti-Latino) racial slurs by Arlington Heights students. The district can’t pin down exactly who said what so nobody’s getting punished and the cheerleaders are unsurprisingly unsatisfied.
- We also have a lot of fallout from the Keller ISD situation even after the board made the decision not to split the district. Most of the news is from the Star-Telegram.
- Star-Telegram: ‘It’s not over’: Opponents of squashed Keller ISD split rejoice, but demand transparency.
- Star-Telegram: Keller ISD’s pursuit of a split district is over, but the school board’s legal woes aren’t.
- Star-Telegram: Keller school board may have violated open meetings act with decision to kill split. Unsurprising, since they’ve been violating it all along.
- Star-Telegram editorial: Effort to divide Keller schools was sneaky to the end. How do we prevent a repeat? | Opinion. The answer seems to be “throw the current board out”, which is probably a good idea. I’ve heard but haven’t seen proof that the board members behind the plan were Patriot Mobile candidates, so they need to go if that’s the case regardless of their position on the split.
- Star-Telegram: Keller trustees who were ‘blindsided’ by split plan surprised again when plan is called off. This is my lack of surprise face.
- Fort Worth Report: Council approves new zoning for planned Cultural District hotel, Keller ISD properties. This is about the properties in the Fort Worth city limits that it really looks like the district-splitters wanted to sell off to make a bunch of money.
- Two on the same move by the Heritage HOA, one of the groups opposed to the Keller split. First, from the Fort Worth Report: Heritage HOA demands removal of Keller ISD trustees over alleged open meetings violations. Also in the Star-Telegram: Keller school board member calls latest legal move a ‘publicity stunt,’ waste of money. I hope all the board members involved end up out on their ears in May and that part of the lawsuit is rendered moot.
- Fort Worth Report: Mansfield ISD trustees approve library books every month. Now, the policy might go statewide. This is about SB 13. You’d have to have a small district and the number of library books you add each month would have to be small for the policy of taking individual book choices to the trustee level to make sense.
- Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD is spending $3 billion on new schools, stadiums. Here’s where projects stand. Mansfield currently has 33,000 students and is expecting another 18,000 by 2033, so they need more facilities.
- Dallas Morning News: Plano arts center: $67.5M building offers new amenities in Dallas suburb. I attended a couple of events in a Plano ISD auditorium when my niblings were in high school there, so I’m glad to see them building something nice(r) for the kids. I’m interested in this venue for non-school shows, too; I’ve been to shows at the Eisemann, which is one of their comparison halls, and I’m happy to see some competition for shows. I hope it means we’ll get more acts in suburban venues.