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As the presence of police in schools continues to be debated, a new analysis of police assaults by the Advancement Project, a nonprofit working toward eliminating police from public schools, adds to the mounting evidence that the presence of law enforcement negatively impacts students of color disproportionately. Looking at data from 2011 to 2021, the report looked at 285 incidents of police assaults in schools and found troubling trends about the physical safety of Black and Latinx students in districts with police officers, or school resource officers working on school campuses. More than 80% of students who have been assaulted by school police since 2011 have been Black. Eleven percent of the assaults have been directed against Latinx students, while about 3% at white students, according to the analysis. Notably, the incidents were drawn from published accounts in local, state, or national media, which means assaults not reported in the news did not make the list.

 

Education Week

A Klein ISD teacher was honored during the January 10th school board meeting for saving the life of a student who was choking. Wunderlich Intermediate School teacher Sarah Ford noticed a student who was choking and couldn’t breathe, and quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver to clear his airway. Trustees and community members in attendance stood to applaud Ms. Ford’s lifesaving actions. The board presented her with a plaque commemorating her heroic act.

 

Houston Chronicle

A new program at Flour Bluff High School will allow students to build and fly in a plane. The new aviation pathway of courses was approved last month by the Flour Bluff ISD board of trustees and this month by the Texas Education Agency. Starting next year, sophomores, juniors and seniors will be able to take two semester-long courses: introduction to unmanned aerial vehicle flight and aerospace engineering. These classes will be prerequisites for two years of practicum classes where students will work with industry mentors to learn about the profession and build a plane. Students who complete the three-year program will have the opportunity to earn drone piloting, aerospace technician and OSHA certifications. The plane class is a partnership with nonprofit Tango Flight, which is currently working with 22 schools nationwide and seven in Texas. Tango Flight will provide the tools and curriculum, as well as inspections of the aircraft's airworthiness. At the completion of the program, students will be able to go up in the plane, which will need to meet FAA standards. The aircraft students will build a two-seat metal plane.

 

Corpus Christi Caller Times

Going for several law enforcement and school safety-related grants and requests are on the agenda for the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees meeting this evening. On December 12th 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the FY 2024 Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program for the Criminal Justice Division of the Office of the Governor. “The opportunity to apply for this grant under the governor’s office will enable ECISD to develop evidence-based activities to prevent violent crimes in targeted geographic areas in order to reduce violence, crime and incarceration rates,” supplemental agenda material says. ECISD police also are requesting three emergency vehicles from Sewell Ford for a total of $132,675. ECISD police are also requesting $86,691 for soft and hard body armor from Dana Safety Supply with funds coming from a state grant, if trustees approve a request to submit a grant application to the governor’s office.

 

OA Online

The price of an elementary and secondary school meal in the Unites States spiked by 305% in 2022, according to the latest consumer price index data. Respective annual inflation rates for groceries and meals away from home hit 13.5% and 8% in August for example, their highest since 1971 and 1981, respectively. Also, the U.S. suffered its worst ever outbreak of avian influenza in 2022. Bird flu killed tens of millions of egg-laying hens, leading to an egg shortage, and egg prices spiked 59.9% largely due to those reduced stocks. Monthly milk production among major suppliers fell each month from September 2021 to June 2022 too, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

CNBC

Unfunded liabilities at K-12 pension plans topped $816bn in 2022, according to figures prepared for Education Week by the Equable Institute nonprofit, with much variation among individual states and providers. Unfunded pension liabilities arise when money in the pension bank account falls short of what the fund has committed to paying the employees who access it and Equable’s report paints a bleak picture. The $816bn figure for 2022 exceeds the annual amount America collectively spends each year on K-12 public education. Nationwide, teacher pension plans were 75.7% fully funded in 2022, marking a drop of more than 8 percentage points from the year prior. In two states and the District of Columbia, public pensions - most of which are for school employees - are funded at more than 100% of existing liabilities. In 20 more states, public pensions are 80% funded or better. In six states however - Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, and South Carolina - pensions are funded between 47% and 59%. More specifically, three pension plans that cover teachers are among the 15 lowest-funded public pension plans in the nation. Chicago Teachers Fund is 45% funded with $14bn in unfunded liabilities, the New Jersey Teachers Pension Annuity is 37% funded with $47bn in unfunded liabilities, while the Indiana Teachers Pre-96 Plan is just 28% funded with $10bn in unfunded liabilities. Anthony Randazzo, executive director of Equable, warns that a potential recession and the oncoming expiration of the federal COVID relief funds that have helped keep many districts afloat during the pandemic could create even steeper financial pressures on K-12 pensions in the coming years.

 

Education Week

More than 60% of school HVAC systems are powered by burning fossil fuels, according to a new report by sustainability nonprofits Rocky Mountain Institute and Undaunted K-12. Energy use for HVAC systems in schools each year roughly equals that of five million gas-powered cars and imposes at least $2bn in costs on society. At present, only roughly a quarter of schools use electricity for heating, and roughly one in 10 schools currently use heat pumps for heating and cooling. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of schools use gas for heat, while 6% use fuel oil for heat. The research synthesizes federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other sources to highlight K-12 schools’ substantial carbon footprint, and outlines how schools can reduce that impact by prioritizing energy efficiency. One way to do that, the report suggests, may be to take advantage of funding opportunities available now to install HVAC systems powered by electric heat pumps. New federal grant and tax credit programs established through last year’s landmark climate change spending package could pave the way for more widespread upgrades in years to come. Schools in St. Paul, Minn., Montezuma, Colo., and Arlington, Va., are among those that have installed heat pumps in recent years. The state of Maine last year even invested $8m to help schools switch to heat pumps. Washington state last spring became the first state to require newly constructed residential and commercial buildings more than four stories tall to have heat pumps.

 

Education Week News

San Benito Consolidated ISD has reported that a cybersecurity breach leading to more than 21,000 current and former employees’ and students’ stolen confidential information occurred in April, officials said. Meanwhile, “sophisticated cybercriminals” breached the data system “intermittently” from April 6th to October 10th, Leonila Pena, the district’s executive director of student support services, told the school board. Amid an investigation, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz has confirmed the Karakurt cyber data extortion group breached the district’s technology network. Ms. Pena said officials have taken steps to bolster security. “Security measures taken include but are not limited to enhancing authentication methods, deploying an end-point detection and response tool in addition to our existing anti-virus protection, decommissioning involved servers, streamlining user permissions and continuing to train our employees on recognizing and preventing cybersecurity threats,” she told board members.

 

My RGV

Vaccination rates among kindergarten children fell in the 2021-2022 school year, a U.S. government study showed on Thursday, extending the previous year's slide from pre-pandemic levels. The fall in rates for the four most-commonly required childhood vaccines reflects the disruption caused by COVID-19 on healthcare and the need to restore vaccination coverage to pre-pandemic levels, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said of its data. Overall, those receiving state-required vaccinations declined to about 93% last year, down from 94% in the previous school year and 95% in the 2019-2020 school year, according to the CDC report. All U.S. states require the vaccine against measles and rubella and all but Iowa require a shots against mumps. All states also require the combined diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis shot and the vaccine against poliovirus, while 49 states require inoculations against varicella, or chickenpox. Exemptions for vaccinations, which may be granted by states in cases where parents request them for their children remained low, at 2.6%.

 

Fox News

Young Texas Artists (YTA), a nonprofit arts organization best known for the Young Texas Artists Music Competition, has named Aurel Garza-Tucker its Director of Program and Operations. Before joining the organization, Ms. Garza-Tucker served as the Assistant Director of Education and Production at the Austin Chamber Music Center (ACMC). She is also a bassoonist/contrabassoonist with a Master of Music in Bassoon Performance, a bassoon instructor and Vice President of the Austin Civic Orchestra’s Board of Directors.

 

Houston Chronicle