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- Austin-Bergstrom International Airport announces new flight service while anticipating capacity cuts
- Austin Resource Recovery to formally amend cart collection rules
- Austin ISD gets $41 million from the Education Department. What happens if the agency closes?
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- Firefighters, city reach agreement on retirement fund
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Stories by Becky Fogel, KUT
Austin ISD gets a C under Texas' updated school rating system
Austin ISD earned a C for the 2022-23 school year under the state’s academic accountability system. The C marks a slide from the previous year when the district earned a B before the Texas Education Agency started using more rigorous…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Apr 25, 2025
UT Austin professors fear Trump administration's funding cuts will derail life-saving research
Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at UT Austin, knew from a young age that she wanted to be a scientist. She said she always loved watching birds and bugs. “Even as a kid, I would watch the…
Public Health • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Apr 21, 2025
716,000 meals canceled for Austin-area food bank as federal funding is cut
The Central Texas Food Bank is feeling the effects of the Trump administration’s funding cuts after the U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed more than a billion dollars in funding for programs that support food banks and help schools buy goods from local…
Public Health • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Apr 17, 2025
Austin ISD gets $41 million from the Education Department. What happens if the agency closes?
When Christy Fox thinks about why federal funding is important to Austin ISD, she thinks about who those dollars support: staff typically working with the district’s most vulnerable students. “I think about the human behind it,” she said, “because these…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Apr 14, 2025
Austin public education advocates blast Trump’s order aiming to close Education Department
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to phase out the U.S. Department of Education – an agency that provides loans and grants to college students, distributes federal funding to schools and is tasked with protecting students’ civil rights. The move…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Mar 25, 2025
Texas won’t offer a program to help feed kids over the summer. Advocates push for change next year.
About three dozen states plan to participate in a federal program that helps families pay for groceries over the summer. For the second year in a row, Texas – which has the second-highest rate of food insecurity in the U.S.…
Texas State Legislature • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Mar 12, 2025
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New Texas teacher pay bill proposes increasing certain salaries by as much as $10,000
The chair of the Texas Senate Education Committee has outlined his vision for boosting teacher salaries, with a focus on retaining experienced educators. Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) filed Senate Bill 26 on Tuesday, a couple of weeks after Gov. Greg…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Feb 20, 2025
Austin ISD announces hiring freeze as budget deficit grows to $110 million
Lee esta historia en español Austin ISD will institute a districtwide hiring freeze on March 1 as the school district tries to claw its way out of a financial hole that has grown deeper since the 2024-25 budget was approved in…
Budget • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Feb 18, 2025
Austin ISD says it is prepared for potential impact of Trump's immigration policies
Officials for the largest school district in Central Texas said they have taken steps to prepare for the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Austin ISD General Counsel Kenneth M. Walker II said the district began reviewing its…
AISD • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Jan 29, 2025
Eanes ISD school board votes to combine two elementary schools to save money
The Eanes ISD school board voted unanimously on Tuesday to close Valley View Elementary as part of an effort to reduce an estimated $6.5 million budget deficit. District officials said closing the campus, which is currently at 50 percent of its operational…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Jan 16, 2025
$17.8 million in food funding for Austin-area kids is on the line when the Legislature convenes
A federal food assistance program could provide families in Hays, Williamson and Travis counties with more than $17.8 million to feed their kids over the summer if Texas decides to participate. But that’s a big if. The Texas Health and…
Education • By Becky Fogel, KUT • Jan 15, 2025
How Austin ISD is lowering its chronic absenteeism rate, which more than doubled during the pandemic
When Austin ISD students Jonnell and Layth started middle school a few years ago, their attendance was on the spottier side. Jonnell said she didn’t like going because it wasn’t easy to get along with some of her classmates at…
