TALAS – It’s an investment in your future!
Tell us what’s happening – send your stories to talasnews@gmail.com
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YISD Superintendent Xavier De La Torre
to receive $30,000 in July as longevity bonus
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Trustees for the Ysleta Independent School District unanimously approved a $30,000 bonus for their superintendent to reward achievements made during his tenure.
Beginning next fiscal year, which begins July 1, YISD Superintendent Xavier De La Torre will receive a one-time lump payment each fiscal year “equal to Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000) multiplied by the whole number of consecutive years of tenure,” according to a contract amendment posted online Tuesday.
De La Torre was hired in March 2014 and will be in his sixth year come July. Trustees also extended his contract by an additional year through June 30, 2025.
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Mil Gracias to our Sponsors
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TALAS extends its appreciation to our sponsors of the Meet and Greet that took place at the Four Seasons during TASA’s Midwinter Conference: Renaissance Learning, Naviance, Paxton Patterson, and Insight. Your support makes it possible for our members to connect, make new friends and to enjoy an evening of relaxation. We couldn’t do it without you!
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Is there a new job in your future?
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- Chief Executive Director Employee Services
- Chief Executive Director Student Support Services
- Chief Executive Director Learning and Teaching
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New STEAM Center offers career programs for San Marcos High School
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San Marcos CISD opened its new science, technology, engineering, arts and math, or STEAM, center to San Marcos High School students Jan. 21.
The center will aim to advance students in various career programs, including health science, law and public safety, arts, audio-visual technology, communications, architecture and construction, manufacturing, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, transportation, distribution and logistics.
The programs, which will be available to all students in San Marcos High School without a GPA requirement, will be integrated into students’ schedules.
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Brownsville ISD students creating inventions to help solve problems
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Brownsville ISD is encouraging their students to start thinking outside the box at their Brainsville Inventions Competition. Students are creating one of a kind inventions to solve problems affecting people all over the world.
Corina Caballero, CCRL teacher, “We asked the students to go out and find a problem within their community, within their school, with their household, with their pets. We asked them to find, identify the problem and solve it.”
The next generation of inventors are here and ready to make a difference in the world. Elementary and middle school students from across Brownsville ISD are showcasing their critical thinking and problem solving skills. The Brainsville Inventions competition gives students a platform to express their creativity and share their ideas.
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Austin ISD to screen some students, staff for coronavirus
Last week the district began screening students or staff who have traveled to China within the past 14 days or who report to the health room with fever.
The screening involves determining if the student or staff member has had any contact in the past 14 days with a person who may have coronavirus or who has a confirmed case of 2019-nCoV.
AISD says to date, there have been no cases or suspected cases of coronavirus on any of their campuses or at any of our facilities.
There have also been no confirmed cases in Texas.
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Explore Career Opportunities Today
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What should a resume look like in 2020
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Jobs have changed so much in recent years. If you’re not up on the latest programs/apps/skills in your field (SEO ability, anyone?), you might not get where you want to go.
Have resumes, too, taken on a new identity? We spoke with two hiring experts to find out what yours should look like now, what not to include, and what traditional advice is still relevant and effective today.
“I have strong feelings about resumes,” says Sandra McCall, operations director at Casamigos Tequila, in White Plains, NY. “I’ve heard that the average resume gets three seconds of attention from an HR person who’s looking at it. I would say I give them at least five seconds. But they are all very different, and the faster I can zoom in on the information I need, the more time I will probably devote to reading.”
What’s she looking for?
“Practical experience is almost always the most important thing,” McCall says. “All the feel-good ‘core competency’ lists and objective statements are really more appropriate in the interview process.”
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Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s halftime show was deeper than you thought
You lost some money if you bet that Jennifer Lopez and Shakira wouldn’t tear it up during the Super Bowl LIV Pepsi halftime show.
There were energetic dance moves, surprise performers, some crowd surfing, pole dancing and plenty of hits as the pair co-headlined. But it also had some moments that many believe were the Latina superstars making statements.
Here’s what we mean: Shakira and that rope
“Hola, Miami,” Shakira said as she kicked off the performance.
She then launched into a musical medley of her songs and her impressive guitar playing on, “Empire.” But it was a her “rope dance” which really got folks buzzing, as she wrapped it around her wrists and body during an impressive belly dance. Was she symbolically saying something about captivity and people of color or merely just bringing the sexy as she is known to?
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Bilingual caucus locations historic first for Latino voters in Iowa
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Iowa is small. Iowa is 90 percent white. It has no professional sports team, only four major college teams, and supplies seven percent of our nation’s food. And yet, the land of the Rolling Prairie plays an outsized role when it comes to national politics—in particular, the race for president every four years.
Iowa represents the heartland of America. A place where time, for the most part, seems to have slowed down. It’s a place where you’d go for a taste of midwestern kindness, cold cheap beer, and to experience the now questionable old-timey social and political values.
It’s our parents’ memory of what America was when they were young, and blissfully ignorant of the underlying racism and prejudice in their parents’, our grandparents’, ever so polite nature.
Of course, time waits for no one, and the face of Iowa is changing rapidly.
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Democrat attacks Trump’s rhetoric, policies in Spanish-language State of the Union response
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) framed President Trump’s rhetoric and policies as harmful to Hispanics and working-class Americans in her Spanish-language Democratic response to the State of the Union address, according to prepared remarks.
Escobar was set to deliver the speech from her hometown of El Paso, where in August a gunman killed 22 people and injured 24 others in a spree targeting Mexicans and immigrants.
“Just before [the shooter] began his killing spree, he posted his views online and used hateful language like the very words used by President Trump to describe immigrants and Latinos,” said Escobar in her rebuttal.
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Film explores student activism and the national immigration debate
The new feature length documentary “Change the Subject”, which explores labels, libraries, and activism, and how language can be weaponized to divide and dehumanize people, will be shown at the Highwood Public Library on Saturday, February 29 at 1:30pm.
It tells the story of a Dartmouth College student who kept encountering the term “Illegal aliens” as a library subject heading. As a person who had grown up undocumented in Georgia, she was disturbed by this institutionalized form of a racial slur. And so she did something about it: she and other students joined librarians in petitioning the Library of Congress to change its terminology.
This film tells the story of these students, whose singular effort at confronting an instance of anti-immigrant sentiment in their library catalog took them all the way from Baker-Berry Library to the halls of Congress. This film shows how an instance of campus activism entered the national spotlight, and how a cataloging term became a flashpoint in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.
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Let’s dance & celebrate: MASBA has been closing gaps for Latinx students & English Language Learners for 50 years! Join us for ¡MASBAilemos!—our golden jubilee conference at the Wyndham San Antonio Riverwalk on February 20-23, 2020! Register today!
Special guests include Latino legend Gary Hobbs, motivational speakers Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch & Roy Juarez, keynote Jose Angel Gutierrez of UT Arlington, and we’ll be welcoming back all our MASBA Past Presidents! Because MASBA played a special role in securing UIL recognition of mariachi, we’ll have a special exhibit on MASBA’s hosting of the Texas High School Mariachi Competition from 2010 to 2015! And, in honor of our 50th anniversary, all attendees will receive our new 250-page work on the achievements & struggles of MASBA’s first 50 years!
Our conference kicks off on Thursday evening with our La Bienvenida reception. Come early & join us for our annual Tour of Best Practices on February 20, 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.! Register for our Tour of Best Practices today! This year, we’ll be visiting school sites in the Edgewood, Southside & Southwest ISDs!
Coming from outside of San Antonio? Reserve your room today at our conference hotel for only $132/night!
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Mil gracias to our sponsors
for their on-going support of TALAS!
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Texas teachers trust Renaissance® to spark tremendous math and reading growth
Renaissance is the leader in pre-K—12 assessment and practice software. Renaissance helps educators like you ensure that all students reach their full potential. When using Renaissance, you will understand where your students are currently at in the Texas learning progression, what they need to learn next, and have access to instruction and practice tools to get them to the next level.
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