Houston Chron: District bus drivers don't get paid sick leave
August 17, 2010 5:44 pm Zen T.C. Zheng, Houston Chronicle

Robert Paul Van Beets: Fotolia
A new Fort Bend Independent School District policy that makes school bus drivers and monitors ineligible for paid sick leave has angered a teacher/worker union.

For each 18 days worked, all regular district employees hired half-time or more earn five workdays for paid sick leave per school year. The sick leave is dubbed “local” to be differentiated from state-allowed leave.

For the first time, the district has defined bus drivers and monitors, who watch discipline and safety during rides, as not “regular” employees and excludes them from local sick leave benefits.

Administrators also stipulated that employees injured on the job may no longer collect pay for accrued paid sick leave while receiving state worker’s compensation.

Representatives of the union, Fort Bend Employee Federation, called the decisions “malicious.”

-Get the full story at http://www.ultimatefortbend.com/2010/08/district-bus-drivers-dont-get-paid-sick-leave

Houston Chronicle: Judge rules that grades must be truthful
June 30, 2010 12:04 pm Richard Zagrzecki:

A Travis County judge ruled Monday that Texas public schools are required to give students truthful grades on class assignments and on their report cards under a 2009 state law that 11 school districts were challenging in court.

The school districts, including Fort Bend ISD, argued that the law applied only to grades on assignments, noting that the statute didn't specifically mention report cards, semester grades, or six- or nine-week averages.

But state District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal ruled that the statute is "not ambiguous" and clearly means districts cannot require teachers to give students grades they did not earn. The bill's author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has said she intended it to apply to all grades...

Question: How much taxpayer funding supported this failed lawsuit by FBISD and 10 other districts against honesty in grade reporting?

Full report: http://www.ultimatefortbend.com/2010/06/judge-rules-grades-must-be-truthful