One of the possible solutions for solving issues with school finance is consolidating school districts; HB 2542 would study possible Bexar County school district consolidation. Even though Gov. Perry is not swaying on Medicaid expansion, there is still hope that Texas will do something to get people care and the federal money that goes with it.
The Pre-K 4 SA board members are regularly seen gathering together around City Hall to work out hiring procedures, student enrollment and how the education centers will be managed.
On Tuesday the board voted to keep the language in its job description for the professional development director as "preferred" master’s degree. Board member Bob Bevard suggested the word "preferred" diminishes the applicant pool.
Chair Elaine Mendoza said the board can assess what kind of candidates apply before deciding to amend the description to "required."
San Antonio Representative Mike Villarreal has filed a bill to bring transparency to licensing procedures for school teachers.
Right now teachers take a composite exam with several different parts – including all the core subjects – but as long as their overall score is passing, the teachers don’t have to pass all of those subjects to be certified to teach them.
School safety may be at the heart of nearly every project District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal advocates, but he said the rules for how the city spends money delay improvement projects.
Now he’s on a mission to change that.
"We can all agree that pedestrian safety around schools is a priority. No one's going to argue with that," he said.
As a subcommittee of the Pre-K 4 SA board prepares to receive recommendations from city staffers on how kids will enroll for the program, the board has been busy adjusting the job descriptions of some key positions.
Deputy City Manager Peter Zanoni said the board wanted to include as many qualified candidates as possible, without ruling anyone out because they didn’t have the right credentials.
State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio wants the 17 public school districts in Bexar County like Northside, Northeast, SAISD, and Edgewood re-evaluated to see if consolidation would help make the adminstrative side more efficient.
"I’m not an expert in this field, but I would imagine that there are some inefficiencies when you have 17 different police departments, 17 cafeteria departments, 17 different IT departments, 17 sets of superintendents and executives," Gutierrez said.
8-year-old Miranda Garcia is playing a guessing game with her classmates. She’s a normal 3rd grader, except that when schools in session, she’s at home due to a chronic illness.
Like most kids with her kind of condition, she can’t attend school, and has a teacher visit several times a week, but the robot allows her to view into the classroom, see the teacher and interact with her class.
Her classmates see her through a video screen in the vertical robot on wheels and Garcia controls the robot from laptop at home using the Wi-Fi in the school to connect to the device.
Education funding took a massive hit during the 2011 legislative session as law makers tried to balance the budget. About 5.4 billion dollars was cut, but many lawmakers in this session are hopeful that the full amount can be restored.
A little under a third of the funding restoration has been approved by the Texas Senate, which unanimously approved 1.7 billion additional dollars be allocated to Texas Schools. The Austin-American Statesman reports an additional 4.5 million dollars was allocated to Medicaid and healthcare for children.
