The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - October 16, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy, folks, today is Thursday, October 16th, and you're listening to The Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lauchess, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. First up, Dallas is considering updates to its ordinances and policies so that it can comply with federal laws, regulations, and executive orders about diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI and immigration. In June, the City Council passed a resolution calling on staff to review and evaluate all city policies and programs and allowed temporary operational changes to ensure compliance. Next week, the staff will return to the City Council with an omnibus resolution that, quote, ensures continued federal compliance across departments. Specific areas of consideration include the business inclusion and development policy, which favors minority and woman-owned business enterprises

Starting point is 00:01:04 in city contracts, the racial equity plan, and the equity impact assessment tool. These programs were suspended this summer until the city can evaluate possible alternatives. Instead, it is looking to transition the business inclusion development policy to a framework that advances economic mobility for small business enterprises. In other news, Houston Independent School district superintendent Mike Miles announced that the district has decreased its usage of individual graduation committees, or IGCs, which allows students to graduate without passing up to two of their end-of-course exams in Algebra 1, English 1, English 2, biology, and U.S. history. In 2015, state education code established IGCs for qualifying students at the end of or after the student's 11th grade

Starting point is 00:01:55 year, to determine whether they may graduate by completing additional remediation and either a related project or portfolio of work in the failed subject areas. At an October 9th board meeting, Miles outlined the district's problems with the committee process, saying HISD had been graduating too many students through the IGC pathway. He said the documentation was lacking and unsatisfactory, failing to show proper evidence of course proficiency. Miles said of the district's previous actions, quote, if a kid couldn't pass their EOCs, they gave them this committee diploma and that way they kept their graduation rates up. That's an attempt to raise the graduation rate without the requisite proficiency. He further explained, quote, this was supposed to be

Starting point is 00:02:44 rare and even with an IGC, they're supposed to show proficiency. Last but not least, as it decreases its student population, Grapevine-Colliville Independent School District is having to consider measures to right-size the district. In January 2025, it created the G-C-ISD Education Master Planning Committee to take a, quote, systemic view of the school district, facilities, and enrollment projections. The district has taken other cost-cutting measures to run things in a more fiscally efficient way. Board President Shannon Braun told the Texan about several of those measures earlier this year, including examining every vendor to eliminate waste and overspending and reducing staff through attrition. It also passed a tax increase in November 24 that raised an additional $6 million

Starting point is 00:03:34 in revenue that the district can keep, rather than send to Austin as part of the recapture school funding system that transfers a portion of local property tax revenue from property wealthy districts to property poor ones. Braun said that even with the tax increase approval, the district is still facing financial difficulties with a fund balance of $20 million presently. She said that the district is already down 222 students over what it had projected. Thanks for listening. To support the Texan, please be sure to visit the texan.news and subscribe to get full access

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The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - October 16, 2025

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