As a part of his ongoing spat with Austin over homelessness, Gov. Greg Abbott held Dallas up last week as an example of how cities should tackle the problem. But Dallas has problems of its own. As the number of people who spend their nights on city streets and under…
At a little after 9 a.m. Wednesday, Kristen Dale was walking the halls of Thomas Edison Middle Learning Center in West Dallas, stopping groups of kids as they passed. Where are you headed? Do you know where you’re going? she asked. Some of them, being teenagers, tried to blow her…
Most, if not all, of the students at Dallas ISD schools that were shut down after Sunday’s tornadoes can expect to be back in school this week. But exactly where they’ll be in school is another matter. School officials canceled classes Monday at 20 campuses where the storm had knocked…
North Texas residents and officials are assessing damage Monday morning from a tornado that ripped through Dallas late Sunday evening. The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in Dallas around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. Tornadoes were also reported elsewhere in Dallas County, as well as Rockwall County. The tornado…
While he called statements made by Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and interim police Chief Ed Kraus “positive,” the lawyer for the family of a woman shot and killed by a Fort Worth police officer said responsibility for the killing lies with the entire department, not just a single officer…
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and reliable Donald Trump toady, made a bit of news over the weekend when he predicted on Fox & Friends that the impeachment process could plunge the United States into civil war. Responding to a question about evangelical Christians’ response to impeachment efforts…
The Dallas ISD board of trustees voted Thursday night to close a struggling alternative high school and replace it with satellite programs at three campuses. Patton Academic Center, in Oak Cliff, is an alternative school for students who either are over-age or behind in class credits needed to graduate. It’s…
A group of photojournalists is challenging a Texas state law that restricts how they can use drones, arguing the law represents a violation of the First Amendment. The law imposes fines and possible jail time for photographers caught using drones to shoot photos of people or private property, regardless of…
Nearly everyone involved, including Dallas ISD officials, trustees, parents and students, agrees that something needs to be done about John Leslie Patton Jr. Academic Center. Exactly what should be done is another matter. District officials want to shutter the school and move its students and the services it offers them…
Parts of north and east Texas are expected to see thunderstorms, heavy rainfall and possible flooding Friday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda make their way into the area. The tropical storm battered Houston and Galveston on Thursday, flooding homes, swamping roadways and knocking out power to thousands of…
A former Baylor University economics professor is suing the university, accusing officials there of mishandling sexual misconduct claims against him. The professor, who is identified in court documents as John Doe, resigned from the university last year amid an investigation into the professor’s relationship with a student. In the lawsuit,…
For the last eight years, a group of Baylor University students has been trying to persuade the school to allow them to form an LGBTQ student group. Earlier this month, the group got an official answer from the university. It wasn’t the one they’d hoped for. Baylor officials notified members…
For a second consecutive year, more people in Texas were without health insurance in 2018 than any other state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents, both in terms of raw numbers and as a percentage of the population, according to the…
Among dozens of changes included in a school finance reform bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed earlier this year, lawmakers included a provision that sends new money to school districts across the state and requires them to use it to expand their half-day prekindergarten classes to full-day. But weeks into the…
In 2017, Texas lawmakers passed a bill barring school districts across the state from placing their youngest students in out-of-school suspension. But the following year, a handful of North Texas schools continued suspending those students, according to a new report from Texans Care for Children, a nonpartisan policy organization. Fort…
While the state has made improvements in the area of school safety, Texas could still do more to head off campus threats before they arise, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a report released Tuesday. In the report, Abbott pointed to new school safety legislation, teacher training and campus security upgrades…
Two years ago, when Texas lawmakers reworked the way the state’s colleges and universities handle remedial courses, they hoped to find a solution that would help students who weren’t college-ready get up to speed in a way that wouldn’t derail their academic careers. One year after the new model went…
Dallas school leaders are confident they know how to pull the district’s lowest-performing schools up in next year’s school assessments, they told members of the school board Thursday afternoon. The Dallas ISD board discussed the district’s performance on the Texas Education Agency’s A-F ratings at a board workshop Thursday. Dallas…
Dallas ISD continued to perform above average in a new round of state A-F district ratings released Thursday. The district scored a B rating for the 2018-2019 school year, the same grade it received the year before. But twice as many schools in the district received failing marks in this…
Beginning this fall, Texas students will learn a fact that’s as true today as it was in 1861: Texas and the 10 other states that made up the Confederacy seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery. New state social studies standards for fifth and seventh grades require students…
Five years after it began, Dallas ISD’s revamping of its early learning strategy appears to be paying dividends, according to a report given Thursday to the district’s board of trustees. Derek Little, the district’s assistant superintendent of early learning, told the board that Dallas students who enroll in pre-K programs are…
Beginning next year, Texas will require nearly all high school seniors to apply for federal financial aid before they graduate, whether they plan on going to college or not. One state to the east, education officials in Louisiana created a similar requirement three years ago. Nearly all high school students…
