Area News

Twenty-eight Texas schools earned the 2025 Lone Star Ribbon recognition for their outstanding academic performance, including campuses from La Joya ISD, PSJA ISD, Roma ISD and Sharyland ISD. The newly formed Lone Star Ribbon program replaces the longstanding National Blue Ribbon program, which President Donald Trump axed last month in his latest move to reduce…

The new South Texas School Board Association picked a board last month and added two more members.     In August, the incipient nonprofit group — organized by former State Board of Education Member and current Region One Education Service Center Board Member Ruben Cortez — started asking school boards in deep South Texas to…

The Texas Education Agency awarded Pioneer High School the Purple Star Campus Designation (PSCD) — a recognition for schools with exceptional military support programs. State legislators created a law in 2019, encouraging districts and campuses to take specific actions in assisting military-connected students and their families to help ease their transition after relocating. Schools that…

Following consistently low or unstable state accountability scores, La Joya ISD placed Corina Peña Elementary and Dr. Javier Saenz Middle School in an academic program designed to accelerate student success. The Texas Education Agency released the 2025 district and campus accountability ratings last month. For the third consecutive year, Peña Elementary earned a D rating,…

Anyone wanting to receive dash camera or body-worn camera footage from the Rio Grande City Police Department will be paying significantly more for it after commissioners voted to levy steep new fees for copies at a meeting last month.   Anyone can request body camera video and dashcam footage from police departments under the Texas…

The city of Mission’s new co-interim city managers disagree with their spokesperson about whether or not they’ll be speaking with the press.   The Progress Times reached out to both of the city’s co-interim city managers Tuesday evening for comment on their appointment.   Neither initially responded.      Instead, Media Relations Director Sydney Hernandez…

Mission says it will no longer use Zoom for city council meetings after a participant unaffiliated with the city hijacked Tuesday’s publicly accessible meeting livestream and played clips of pornography.   The pornography was only visible on Zoom, though audio from those videos could be heard on the city’s YouTube livestream, which the city restricted…

Two new emergency services districts boards created by voters earlier this year selected officers and began laying the groundwork for the new entities at two initial meetings this month and in August.   Voters created the districts — Number 5 and Number 6 — to provide emergency services to parts of western Hidalgo County.   Number…