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Texas News
Congratulations to Dr. Jeannie Meza-Chavez, Region 19 Superintendent of the Year
San Elizario ISD superintendent Dr. Jeannie Meza-Chavez has been named Region 19 Superintendent of the Year, an honor she also won in 2017.

Dr. Meza-Chavez will go on to represent Region 19 at the statewide Superintendent of the Year competition at the Texas Association of School Administrators/Texas Association of School Boards convention later this year.
Tomball ISD superintendent named Distinguished Alumni by Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Tomball ISD Superintendent Martha Salazar-Zamora was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award by Texas A&M University-Kingsville, the district announced in a July news release.

Retired Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Sarah R. Saldaña and professor of Bilingual Education at the University of Texas at El Paso and Josefina Villamil Tinajero joined Salazar-Zamora as 2022 honorees.
Texas safety officials will begin “random intruder detection audits” of schools in September
Texas School Safety Center officials said they will alert districts and local law enforcement of the audits, where trained staff will try to find access points into school buildings. But school campuses will not be informed ahead of time.

This fall, Texas public schools will be subjected to random inspections to detect weak access points in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting — but a state school safety leader says these reviews will not resemble potentially traumatizing intruder simulations.
Leaked video shows Texas law enforcement’s long wait to confront Uvalde school shooter
Elected officials and law enforcement leaders criticized the leak of the video that was supposed to first be shown to victims’ families.

On the same day that a Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting announced plans to release footage of law enforcement response to the incident, a video showing police waiting for more than an hour in the school hallway before confronting the shooter was published by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV.
Yearning for a home: The shocking prominence of student homelessness in Texas
Shortly after turning 18, Annabelle Alberts was kicked out of her adopted family’s Wisconsin home in 2019. With no car, phone or bank account to her name, Alberts had the clothes on her back, a bag and nowhere to go. With the help of a co-worker, Alberts was able to maintain her job and a temporary living situation until her aunt and uncle, whom she had never met before, took her in and let her move in with them in Dallas.​

While Alberts was lucky to have someone there to find her, not everyone has the chance to be found. Homelessness has been overlooked by the average person. The unfortunate part is that those who overlook others on the streets typically don’t think about the student population that struggles with homelessness.
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National News
After a Decade of Gains, Latino Students Suffer Outsized Losses Amid Pandemic
Remote learning tougher for these children, who are more likely to attend an underfunded school, cope with a language barrier, have limited internet

After a decade of gains in academics and a marked boost in high school graduation rates and college attendance, Latino students suffered significant setbacks during the pandemic as many attended underfunded schools and had limited internet access at home, a new report shows. 
Nation’s largest teacher union adopts equity policy as ‘north star’
During the NEA Representative Assembly, delegates approved a new policy statement to ensure “safe, just, and equitable schools for all students.”

In the wake of concern over school safety and political battles involving education policy, almost 6,000 delegates to the National Education Association Representative Assembly approved a new policy statement “to ensure safe, just, and equitable schools for all students,” the NEA announced Monday. 
Most Texas, Florida voters say transgender youth should have access to gender-affirming care
About 45 percent of Texas voters and 54 percent of Florida voters said gender-affirming health care should be accessible to minors if it is recommended by their doctors or supported by their parents.

Most Texas and Florida voters believe transgender youth should have access to gender-affirming health care and are less likely to support political candidates who try to make such treatment illegal, according to new research from the LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group The Trevor Project and Morning Consult.
Pandemic effect: More fights and class disruptions, new data show
About 1 in 3 school leaders noticed an uptick in student fights or physical attacks this past school year that they believed were brought on by the pandemic and its lingering effects, new federal data show.

In addition, more than half of school leaders reported an increase in classroom disruptions from student misconduct for the same reason.

The data, gathered in May from surveys of nearly 850 public school leaders, mostly principals, is evidence that many schools did see tensions rise this past year as students nationwide returned to fully in-person learning. For many educators, the behavior challenges were a defining feature of the school year — and complicated efforts to rebuild school communities and get students back on track academically.
One School District’s Unusual Recruitment Tactic
Faced with widespread staff shortages that appear to be here to stay, school districts have raised wages, expanded health insurance and other benefits, and dangled bonuses and incentives.

The Schoharie Central school district in upstate New York tried some of those things, but they haven’t totally worked, and they’re expensive. Now the district has another trick up its sleeve that it’s hoping will set it apart from competitors: on-site electric vehicle charging.
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