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Texas News
South Texas ISD’s top admin named regional superintendent of the year
South Texas ISD Superintendent Marco Antonio Lara Jr. was named regional Superintendent of the Year and will represent Region One in the statewide awards program, Region One ESC said in a news release Monday.

That program recognizes Texas superintendents for excellence and achievement in educational leadership.
Chapel Hill ISD elementary students publish bilingual children’s book
Inside the library at Chapel Hill’s Wise Elementary School sits a new bilingual book, ‘Up in the North Pole, the Artic,’ written by a group of students.

Proudly telling their friends and parents “we are published authors,” the 17 students who were formerly in Claudia Fuentes’ first grade dual language class at Wise Elementary can now add that title to their bucket list.

Joseph Bautista, student at Wise Elementary, proudly held the book in his hand.

“I did this, and I wrote this,” he pointed out while scanning through the published book.
Experts Question Why Uvalde Chief Not Placed on Leave Amid Multiple Probes
School Police Chief Pete Arredondo remains on the job as three different agencies investigate his actions surrounding Uvalde mass school shooting

Police and school security experts are questioning why the Uvalde, Texas, school police chief remains on the job nearly a month after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at the local elementary school.

While Chief Pete Arrendondo’s fiercest critics have demanded he be fired following reports that officers under his command waited more than an hour before confronting the shooter, school safety and police accountability experts criticized education leaders for failing to remove him as head of the six-member school police force, even temporarily.
Fourth group of students slated to join Tomball ISD’s growing dual language program in 2022-23
The Two Way Dual Language Academy program at Tomball ISD has 304 students spanning across 17 classrooms, Chief Academic Officer Michael Webb said during the presentation to the TISD board of trustees at the June 13 workshop meeting.

The dual language program has 152 English-speaking students and 152 Spanish-speaking students who learn in English and Spanish at the same time, Webb said.

Students receive math, social studies and reading language arts in English, while science and reading language arts is taught in Spanish, according to Multilingual Programs Director Brenda Arteaga.
Before the school shooting, Uvalde was known for a 1970 Hispanic student walkout. Its aging participants fear its spirit and memory are fading.
When a popular Hispanic teacher didn’t get his contract renewed at Robb Elementary School in 1970, hundreds of students decided to boycott school for weeks in what they called a stand against pervasive discrimination.

On April 14, 1970, 16-year-old Rebecca Ciprian sat at her desk at Uvalde High School, half paying attention to her English teacher and anxiously awaiting a knock on the classroom door.

Around 9 a.m., student Alfredo Santos knocked, opened the door and nodded his head to the roughly 30 students inside. Nearly all of them stood and walked out, Ciprian, who now goes by Ciprian-Moreno, remembers, as their teacher repeatedly yelled, “If you all walk out, you’re all going to fail.”
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National News
New Education Data Show Nearly 1 in 10 Florida Students Considered ‘English Learners’
Over the past decade, the U.S. education system has seen a growing number of students whose native language is something other than English and may need help to keep up with the English-based school system nationwide.

In Florida, for example, 10 percent of public school students were identified as “English learners” in the fall of 2019, according to new federal education data in a document called the Condition of Education 2022. That number is similar to the national average of 10.4 percent.
Why parents could be the new swing voters
The state of American education is a growing concern for voting parents this year, and that offers a potential edge to candidates hoping to appeal across partisan lines in November.

New polling released today by a top national charter school booster says education is now a more important political issue to parents and guardians of school-age children than it was in the past.
Juneteenth: How and Why It Should Be Taught in K-12 Schools
Juneteenth, a holiday long recognized within the Black community that commemorates the end of slavery became a national holiday just last year.

And while it’s observed at a time when most K-12 schools are out on summer break, there is a value in teaching about the holiday and its legacy year-round, says Sonya Douglass, a professor of education leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Teachers Leaving Jobs During Pandemic Find ‘Fertile’ Ground in New School Models
Microschools and online programs are attracting educators who valued the flexibility they gained during remote learning      
School closures in Vermont didn’t drag on as long as those in other parts of the country, but that didn’t lessen the strain.

Social distancing, masks and confining students to their classrooms caused an “explosive amount of mental health needs,” from lack of focus to outright aggression, said Heather Long, a former counselor in the Orange East Supervisory Union district.
How can middle school leaders ease the transition to high school?
To better prepare students for the more demanding work they’ll face in high school, districts and schools should focus on building a transition action team and developing a statement of need, Gene Bottoms, former director of the High Schools That Work Initiative for the Southern Regional Education Board, writes for ASCD. These efforts can help leaders monitor student readiness and ensure that all students receive access to challenging curricula.

A transition action team made up of educators and leaders from both the middle and high schools should work to identify rising 9th-graders who can handle accelerated classes and those who need scaffolding, Bottoms writes. He also suggests that schools offer accelerated math and literacy classes to all students while allowing for extra school time for academic support.
Las Tienditas
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Sheryl Colaur – 708-565-3545