TALAS E-newsletter – September 10

When it comes to leading through an ongoing pandemic and amid the threat of multiple natural disasters, our guest today, Superintendent Martha Salazar-Zamora, believes in having a well-thought-out plan and communicating it clearly to all parties. When drastic, unexpected things happen, the best thing district leaders can do is to formulate a plan and to outline each required step so that everyone is on the same page, even when things are adjusted last minute. And to do this well, Martha believes that the three pillars of grace, patience, and love are key.

In this episode, our guest talks about their reentry plan, the two options they can offer families, how Hurricane Laura might be complicating matters, and what they are doing to mitigate the impacts of the crises. She discusses the lessons they have learned over the last few months, why there is yet a silver lining, and she advises district leaders and parents on the best way forward.

Martha is the Superintendent of the Tomball Independent School District (ISD) in Tomball, Texas. She is a member of the Texas Education Agency Commissioner’s Cabinet, Secretary for the Fast Growth School Coalition, and the past President of the Texas Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Martha earned her doctoral degree at Texas A&M University, 2 master’s degrees at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, and her bachelor’s degree at Texas A&I University.

The Socorro Independent School District, the first Borderland school district to announce plans to return to campus, has revised its reopening plans.

Teachers will now have the option to work from home or campus through Oct. 2, according to the announcement late Friday afternoon.

Socorro Superintendent Jose Espinoza said they revised their phased-in re-opening plans after El Paso City-County Health Authority Dr. Hector Ocaranza gave a “bleak projection, differing from the guidance we had received and followed when developing our previous plans.”

Austin ISD announced on Saturday that in addition to its distribution of free produce boxes through Oct. 7, it will extend distribution of free meals for all students through December.

For weekend meals, families can receive six meals per child under the age of 19 (breakfast and lunch for Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

Several schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will receive a number of federal grants totaling $2,872,100 to serve their Hispanic and under-represented student populations, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced.

The grant funding comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program, and it is anticipated that each grant will be sustained for a total of five years.

“In Texas, more than one in three individuals identify as Hispanic, and I am proud to support Hispanic-Serving Institutions and their contributions to our state’s growing Hispanic community,” Cornyn said. “Quality education and diverse environments benefit everyone, and especially during these tough times I applaud Dallas-Fort Worth area schools for their work to secure these grants to better serve their students.”

For decades, millions of Mexicans flocked north across the U.S. border.

With agricultural jobs plentiful in South Texas, thousands of mostly low-income Hispanics began settling on cheap, rural plots of land, parceled off by developers who assured them basic infrastructure and services such as electricity and sewage systems soon would follow.

Decades later, many are still waiting.

On a recent episode of his TED podcast WorkLife, organizational psychologist Adam Grant explores the general phenomenon of loneliness in the workplace (listen here to learn strategies that can help you create more meaningful relationships with your colleagues). Of course, that episode was produced before remote work became a feature of our lives.

So TED asked Adam to take another look at loneliness at work — but specifically at virtual meetings and how those could be reimagined as ways to connect rather than feel disconnected. In a phone call with longtime mentor Jane Dutton, a professor of business administration and psychology at the University of Michigan, he discussed how to bond virtually with coworkers, the opening question you should ask instead of “How are you doing?”, and why it’s OK — even good — to let them see the dirty dishes in your kitchen sink.

September normally marks the beginning of the Fall TV lineup with premieres of new series and the return of audience favorites. But with the ongoing pandemic many cable networks and streaming services have a hard time releasing new content. Netflix, however, continues to dominate with the release of hundreds of new shows and movies. They also continue to provide some of the most diverse Latinx related content–which is especially fitting this month with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month on the 15th.

We made our picks for the latest TV shows and movies available for streaming, starring Latinxs, for you to binge and celebrate our culture during Hispanic Heritage Month. There’s a little something for everyone in the family, from documentaries highlighting the stories of Latinx voices like in HBO Latino’s Habla Now, series for children like Disney+’s Soy Luna, and classics like the coming-of-age classic Raising Victor Vargas.