A committee of parents and district officials recommended closing Dove Elementary School and Bransford Elementary School to combat a $10 million state funding loss at a Nov. 17 Grapevine-Colleyville ISD school board meeting. Trustees did not take action or approve the recommendation.

In a nutshell: The Education Master Planning Committee, or EMPC, recommended consolidating Dove Elementary with Cannon Elementary School and Silver Lake Elementary School, along with consolidating Bransford with O.C. Taylor Elementary School and Colleyville Elementary School.

District Chief Financial Officer David Johnson said GCISD enrollment has dropped by about 1,500 students since 2019, resulting in a revenue loss of more than $10 million.

By the numbers: District documents show Bransford is currently at about 67% capacity, while Dove sits at roughly 57% capacity. If Dove closes, enrollment at Cannon will increase from 465 to 581 students, and Silver Lake’s enrollment will go from 450 up to 635 students for the 2026-27 school year.

Outdoor gear and clothing retailer Orvis is closing both its Plano and Southlake locations.

What you need to know: The Plano store, located at 2412 Preston Road, is expected to close Dec. 24, according to a store employee. A closing sale is underway and will continue until the store’s final day. The Southlake store, located in the Park Village shopping center, first opened in April 2015.

One more thing: The Orvis Company was founded in 1856 as a fly fishing retail supplier but has since expanded to sell sportswear, home decor, luggage and travel accessories, according to its website.

📍 1101 E. Southlake Blvd., Southlake

Gov. Greg Abbott announced that a runoff election for Senate District 9 will be held Jan. 31 between Taylor Rehmet and Leigh Wambsganss.

During the Nov. 4 election, neither candidate garnered more than 50% of the vote needed to win the race and fill the spot vacated this past summer by Sen. Kelly Hancock. The North Richland Hills politician resigned from the legislature to become the acting Comptroller of Public Accounts.

What you need to know: Rehmet, a Democrat, got 56,506 votes, or 47.56% during the Nov. 4 election, according to previous reporting.

Two Republicans split votes during the race. Wambsganss got 47,712 votes, or 35.59%, while former Southlake Mayor John Huffman received 19,591 votes, or 16.49%.

Texas cannot use its newly redrawn congressional map in the 2026 election, an El Paso federal court ruled Nov. 18.

The details: The state must instead use the congressional map that Texas lawmakers drew in 2021, after the 2020 census. 

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in the Nov. 18 preliminary injunction. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”

What they're saying: Texas Republican leaders said they would “swiftly appeal” the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the court takes up the case, its justices will be pressed for time ahead of the Dec. 8 deadline for candidates to apply to run in the March primary elections.

Texas Democrats celebrated the Nov. 18 ruling as "very good news for Texans."