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Dallas ISD’s Chief of School Leadership Stephanie Elizalde is named Austin superintendent
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Dallas ISD will soon be looking to replace yet another leader from Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s Cabinet.
As first reported by the Austin American-Statesman’s Melissa Taboada, Stephanie Elizalde, Dallas’ chief of school leadership, was selected from 64 applicants and six semifinalists to become Austin ISD’s next superintendent.
Outgoing Austin Superintendent Paul Cruz announced his plans to resign in February, leaving the post to serve as the co-director of the Cooperative Superintendency Program at the University of Texas at Austin.
State law requires any board of trustees to give public notice of a superintendent finalist for at least 21 days before voting to offering a contract. Cruz earned a base salary of $329,617, according to The Statesman.
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Reentry Plans for 2020-21
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Tomball ISD teams up with Axiom Medical to offer health care assistance districtwide through new app
Tomball Independent School District announced in a press release Monday, July 20, its new partnership with Axiom Medical by providing district staff across all facilities health care support amid the COVID-19 pandemic to guide and encourage employees at schools.
On top of safety protocols and guidelines ready in preparation for the 2020-21 school year, Tomball ISD employees will have an extra layer of care when school starts August 18 by using Axiom’s CheckIn2Work application. Axiom Medical is an occupational health services and incident case management provider for employers based out The Woodlands.
The app is intended to help stop the spread of the virus by delivering a self-service health confirmation by prescreening staff for COVID-19-like symptoms prior to entering school.
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CCISD will pay bus drivers, attendants, safety monitors their guaranteed hours for the 2020-2021 school year
With the school year approaching and districts preparing to start remote learning, many bus drivers are wondering what’s going to happen with their jobs.
The economic impact from the coronavirus has been a continuous struggle for many businesses across the Coastal Bend. With the uncertainty of schools reopening for in-person learning, bus drivers are worried about their jobs.
“In a way, it would be worth it for some of us because we have to make ends meet and get the bills paid, but at the same time we have to worry about getting sick because maybe one of the kids might have it,” local bus driver Cecilia Zamora said.
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San Marcos CISD releases plan for 2020-21 school year, delays in-person classes until at least Oct. 5
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San Marcos CISD board of trustees were presented with a tentative reopening plan for the 2020-21 school year at a July 20 meeting.
The tentative plan revealed SMCISD students will begin the semester Sept. 8 100% virtually for the first four weeks.
In-person classroom instruction will start Oct. 5 for students whose parents chose to do so following the four weeks of remote learning. However, the district may extend remote learning by up to four additional weeks until Oct. 30, depending on the increase of COVID-19 cases in Hays County.
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Garland ISD: Remote learning extended through Sept. 7
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Following an order issued by the Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS) Department on July 16, Garland ISD announced that the district’s remote start of school would be extended through Sept. 7. From Aug. 10 to Sept. 7, all students will attend school remotely with no option for face-to-face instruction.
Families who have chosen face-to-face learning will begin attending class on campus on Sept. 8. Additionally, all extracurricular activities, including athletics and fine arts, are canceled by this order and will resume Sept. 8, the district stated.
According to the order, Dallas County is reporting record-high numbers of COVID-19 cases as well as record-high numbers of COVID-19 related hospitalization. As a result of this, DCHHS deemed it necessary that public and private schools from prekindergarten through grade 12 shall not reopen for on-campus, face-to-face instruction until after Sept. 7.
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Preparing with PPE: Protective equipment from TEA lands in Brownsville
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The Brownsville Independent School District took delivery Tuesday on two truckloads of Personal Protective Equipment from the Texas Education Agency as the district prepares for the day students are able to return to physical classrooms.
In all, the shipment totaled 43 pallets of PPE including disposable and reusable masks, gloves, contact-free thermometers and more than 4,000 gallons of hand sanitizer. District officials said the shipment adds to PPE that BISD was already stockpiling.
“Even though we’re starting the year 100% online, we’re thankful TEA has given us these additional supplies so we’ll have plenty of PPE in our inventory when the day comes that students can return to actual classrooms,” Superintendent Rene Gutierrez said. “We’ve already invested lots of money in PPE.”
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Canutillo ISD to donate laptops to help support distance learning in El Paso region
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At a special meeting, the Canutillo Independent School District Board of Trustees approved the donation of 1,500 plus laptop computers to other school districts.
District officials say the move was to “help ensure every child in the region has equal access to an education.”
“When a child succeeds, our community succeeds because we are responsible for all of them,” said Superintendent Dr. Pedro Galaviz. “The superintendents in the region have always created partnerships and collaborate rather than compete. And during this unprecedented time, we will all come together to make sure every student has access needed for a quality education.”
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Insights to advance your career
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The 10 questions candidates always forget to ask in job interviews
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It’s easy to forget in the moment, but a job interview goes both ways. You’re both judging whether you’re a good fit for the position and the company. Too many job seekers act like they’re on the witness stand in court, but a good job interview is actually a two-way conversation.
Ask some of these commonly glazed over questions at your next interview. You’ll look interested and curious to your interviewer while gaining a better understanding of how you’d fit into the position.
1. What does a typical day look like in this role?
A job description doesn’t necessarily tell you how you’ll be spending most of your days, hour by hour. When you’re considering a job, it’s important to be able to visualize yourself in this role on an average day to see if this is a good fit. Is this a 9 to 5? A 9 to 6? A whenever to whenever? A job you’re expected to check in with during off-hours? How often will you be in meetings? How much of your day will be scheduled for you and how much of it will be independent?
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‘No One Else Is Going to Step Up’: In a Time of Racial Reckoning, Teachers of Color Feel the Pressure
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Many teachers of color are used to being in a room full of white coworkers. They’re used to being looked at in staff meetings when issues of race are brought up. And they’re used to feeling like it’s their responsibility to lead schools toward anti-racist education.
It can all be exhausting, teachers of color say. And these responsibilities might be amplified in the fall as schools resume, in some capacity, amidst a national reckoning on race spurred by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black men and women.
Grassroot groups have emphasized the importance of self-care for teachers of color. To do the sometimes-grueling work of leading on racial justice, experts say, minority teachers need to take time for themselves to recharge and refuel. And a big part of that is finding a community with others from similar backgrounds—whether that’s within teachers’ own schools or on a national level.
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Learn more about a
personalized learning platform
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IXL is a K-12 personalized learning platform used by 10 million students in the US, including nearly 800,000 in Texas. It combines a TEKS-aligned K-12 curriculum, a Real-Time Diagnostic, personalized guidance, and actionable analytics to give teachers and schools everything they need to personalize instruction and help students progress faster. ICL is an approved blended learning program for the Math Innovation Zones initiative and Blended Learning Grant Program.
IXL is easily accessible from school and at home and can be used to support any learning formate for this unique back-to-school season. Teachers can get students caught up quickly this fall with the Real-Time Diagnostic, which pinpoints knowledge levels in 45 minutes and generates personalized action plans to help each learner close gaps. And, with custom-built
skill plans for the TEKS, MWEA MAP assessments, and popular textbooks such as Texas GO Math! and Lucy Caulkins Units of Study, IXL takes the guesswork out of finding the perfect IXL content to support teachers’ daily instruction.
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Please support them. Click on the logo to learn more!
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