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Texas News
Dr. Nate Carman named Socorro Independent School District superintendent sole finalist
After a 9-month-long search, the Socorro Independent School District has named Dr. Nate Carman as its superintendent sole finalist.

“I’m both excited and humbled at the opportunity,” Carman said.

Carman is a longtime educator. He started as a maths and physics teacher that also doubled as a wrestling coach, before working his way up to a principal.
UISD selects next principal of Salvador Garcia Middle School
The United Independent School District Board of Trustees and Superintendent David H. Gonzalez announced Dr. Jonathan E. Martinez as the new principal of Salvador Garcia Middle School for the 2022-23 school year.

Martinez earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Master of Education degree in educational leadership from The University of Texas at Tyler and a Doctor of Education degree in educational leadership from Texas Tech University.
Farias Elementary introduces the first ever Mariachi Los Halcónes del Oeste, receives grant
Farias Elementary School students are exploring the world of traditional Mexican folk music as Laredo Independent School District’s first ever mariachi group, Mariachi Los Halcónes del Oeste.

The mariachi group is composed of 23 fourth and fifth graders. With an invitation from the director, their parent’s permission and their will to learn, students are able to start their musical journey. The program would like to extend their invitation to third graders in the near future.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposes ending university tenure to combat critical race theory teachings
Patrick’s declarations come days after the UT-Austin Faculty Council approved a measure reaffirming instructors’ right to teach about racial justice and critical race theory in the classroom.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday that he will push to end professor tenure for all new hires at Texas public universities and colleges in an effort to combat faculty members who he says “indoctrinate” students with teachings about critical race theory.
‘Like a dumping ground’: Latina moms in Texas border city are fighting air pollution
El Paso is among the worst places for ozone pollution. Hispanic residents who successfully sued for more regulation want to know why the state is fighting them.

Nayelly Melendez still gets emotional when telling stories of her son’s hospital visits as an infant.

“He started going to the hospital every two to three weeks,” she told NBC News.

The 34-year-old mother of three said her youngest was 6 months old when he started having trouble breathing. “At the beginning, they didn’t even know what he had,” she said. “They couldn’t explain it, because I didn’t smoke.”
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National News
New Tennessee Teacher Apprenticeship Program Hailed as ‘Game Changer’ in Effort to Reduce Classroom Shortages
Nahil Andujar was working for a health care company and just two courses away from a bachelor’s degree in microbiology when her husband joined the Army — a decision that uprooted the family of five from Puerto Rico and brought them to Clarksville, Tennessee in 2000.

When her husband recently retired after 22 years, Andujar began to rethink her own career path and recalled her years volunteering in her children’s schools. She became an educational assistant in a Spanish dual-immersion program in the Clarksville-Montgomery schools, northwest of Nashville.
COVID-19 relief plans don’t reflect needs of English learners — it’s not too late to change that
How states and districts should spend their share of the $190 billion in COVID-19 funds targeted for K-12 education has dominated the education world at every level since the first distribution was announced in March 2020.

Nearly two years later, various spending trackers have been created — including the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Stabilization Fund tracker, the Children’s Funding Project tracker, and the National Conference of State Legislatures’ state-by-state tracker. But many of these trackers have a blind spot for how these funds are being used at the local level.
“A Wake-Up Call”: Student Parents of Color Endure High Basic Needs Insecurity
Nearly a quarter of today’s college students are parenting, yet advocates, experts, and student parents themselves say that this population is often overlooked with grave consequences.

Among student parents of color in particular, especially Black fathers, the pandemic has brought higher rates of basic needs insecurity, according to a new brief from The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice.
How to better engage families of English learners and special ed students
Parents need some training on how they can participate in their child’s education.

Empowering your staff to connect with parents should only be the first step in your district’s goals for deeper family engagement.

The parents, themselves, also need some guidance, particularly when they have children with disabilities or English learners, said Carmen Sanchez, a program specialist in the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs.
Largely unseen and unsupported, huge numbers of student fathers are quitting college
Their high dropout rates are contributing to a big decline in the number of men who get degrees

While his wife was in labor in the hospital with their third child, Joshua Castillo was in the waiting room completing a computer science final and two quizzes.

By then he was accustomed to juggling the demands of fatherhood with the unyielding deadlines and expectations of college, where he is studying computer science while working full time and helping raise his kids — a responsibility for which he said he doesn’t get much sympathy from faculty.
Las Tienditas
This Week’s Featured Sponsor
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Founded in 1998 and based in Dallas, Texas, Istation (Imagination Station) has become one of the nation’s leading providers of richly animated, game-like educational technology. Winner of several national educational technology awards, the Istation program puts more instructional time in the classroom through small-group and collaborative instruction. Istation’s innovative reading, math and Spanish programs immerse students in an engaging and interactive environment and inspire them to learn. Additionally, administrators and educators can use Istation to easily track the progress of their students, schools and classrooms. Istation now serves over 4 million students throughout the United States and in several other countries.