Quality Counts
Texas got a “C” grade, ranking it 41st nationally, on the first of three Education Week Quality Counts indicators to be released this year.
The indicator examined: 1) education levels of parents, 2) share of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in PK, 3) whether K-12 students are proficient in reading and math, 4) high school graduation rates and 5) percentages of adults who have steady employment.
Future Quality Counts reports will address school finance (in June) and K-12 Achievement (in September, when an overall rating for the three indexes is released for each state and nationally).
Student Attrition
The San Antonio-based Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) recently released its annual Texas student attrition study, now in its 34th year. The study compares the numbers of Texas public school students who entered ninth grade with the numbers of students who did, and did not, graduate four years later.
The latest study concluded that 21 percent of the freshman class of 2015-16 left school prior to graduating in 2018-19, resulting in Texas public schools “losing” 88,000 students over that four-year period.
Across racial and ethnic groups, attrition rates are lower than they were over three decades ago when IDRA conducted the first attrition study. In this latest report, when compared to the prior year’s report, attrition rates for all ethnic and gender subgroups declined, except for African American students, whose attrition rate (of 24 percent) remained unchanged.
Sentenced
A state district judge in Tyler sentenced (Jan. 23) ex-Lindale ISD elementary school counselor Monica Paige Mize to two years deferred adjudication for giving an elementary student a non-authorized prescription pill used to treat ADHD in children. Mize pleaded guilty to a second-degree charge of delivery of a controlled substance to a minor. Mize was arrested and charged after she told the school secretary and school nurse what she had done.
Meanwhile, federal authorities reported (Jan. 27) Nikki Diane May was sentenced to 23 months in prison as a result of her guilty plea to a wire fraud charge last year for embezzling more than $60,000 from the Texarkana-area Pleasant Grove ISD High School Showstoppers Dance Team while she was the treasurer of the team’s booster club.
May’s attorney, in court papers, had asked the judge
(as reported here) to consider probation for his client because she had cooperated with authorities, had repaid the money, and is a single mother raising two teen-age children.Mental Health Survey
UT Austin, state health authorities and the TEA are jointly conducting a survey of school nurses, counselors, psychologists and administrators who are knowledgeable about their school’s approach to addressing student mental health. Deadline: Feb. 14.
Election News
A resolution passed by the party accuses SBOE District 5 candidate Robert Morrow of having “a history of misogynist and vulgar language,” and that he has made outrageous and slanderous allegations about President Trump, members of the Bush family, and ex-governor Rick Perry, among others.
Morrow was the Travis County Republican chair for a while before being forced out by party leaders, and is one of three candidates in the March 3 Republican primary for the SBOE seat being vacated by Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio.
Damaged Schools
Dallas ISD’s school board approved (Jan. 23) spending $132 million to address three campuses that were damaged last October by tornadoes, and have not been able to be used since then.
The district will spend $82 million to renovate Thomas Jefferson High School, with the remaining $49.9 million to create a new PK-8 campus at the site of Cary Middle School to consolidate the operations of what was Cary Middle School and Walnut Hill Elementary. DISD officials hope to have the students back in permanent locations by Aug. 2022.
Health Insurance Survey
Results released thus far of the ongoing 2019-20 Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) health insurance survey reflect that with the increase in TRS ActiveCare insurance premiums this school year, 84 percent of districts passed all or some of the additional costs on to employees, a 5 percentage point decrease compared to 89 percent last school year.
The median amount districts report contributing to employee-only and employee-plus-family plans, including the $75 contributed by the state, is $300 — the same as reported for the last three years.
The median amounts employees are contributing for health insurance increased over last school year, and now stands at $103 monthly for individual plans and $1,135 monthly for employee-plus-family plans.
Ninety percent of the responding districts participate in ActiveCare, with the remaining 10 percent either self insured or fully insured.
ActiveCare premium rate hikes this school year ((TEN, May 6, 2019) ranged from 3 to 9 percent for all plans, except for one of the three HMO plans, where premiums decreased.
Vaccination Mandate
UT Austin will require all incoming students to show proof of a measles vaccination starting in Fall 2020. The new requirement, first reported (Jan. 28) by The Daily Texan, comes after a case of the measles was reported in Travis County in December — the first such case in Austin since 1999. The infected adult was believed to have contracted the virus while traveling in Europe.