Friendswood ISD’s board of trustees considered potential stipend allotments for district staff, including special education and athletics, for fiscal year 2026-27 at its April 27 workshop session.

Zooming in: The board reviewed the current 2025-26 salary schedule, along with data on staff stipends from neighboring districts, to help guide upcoming budget discussions and set priorities ahead of the May 11 board meeting.

Special education stipends are considered an immediate priority in the overall budget review, Lindsey Foley, FISD’s executive director of human resources, said at the workshop.

“They're delivering amazing instruction and meeting the physical needs of our students. I think that's a really high priority,” Foley said.

What’s next: The board of trustees are scheduled to review an updated budget report for FY 2026-27 and further discuss stipend allotments at 5:45 p.m. May 11 in the FISD boardroom, located at 302 Laurel Drive, Friendswood.

NECOA, a brand that sells advanced filtration systems, is expanding its footprint in Texas. 

What we know: The Korean premium water care brand announced in an April 20 news release that it is expanding its showrooms in Texas with locations in Austin, The Woodlands and the Bay Area. 

NECOA uses purification technology and a 5-stage filtration system to filter out over 80 contaminants, such as heavy metals, through a certified reverse osmosis process, the release states. 

One more thing: The new showroom at Baybrook Mall will open in May, but a temporary outdoor activation on the Lawn at Baybrook Mall is now available for residents to view. 

• 500 Baybrook Mall, Friendswood

CenterPoint Energy has made key first-quarter progress in reaching milestones tied to the company’s Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative, according to an April 17 news release from the company.

Digging deeper: Launched after Hurricane Beryl, the initiative is a multiyear effort to strengthen resilience and improve reliability for its 2.9 million electric customers, and to help build the most resilient coastal grid in the nation, according to the release. 

Quote of note: “We are proud of the progress made in 2025 which helped deliver more than 100 million fewer outage minutes when compared to 2024, and we are determined to make even more progress in 2026 as we work toward our defining goal: building the nation's most resilient coastal grid,” said Nathan Brownell, CenterPoint's vice president of Resilience and Capital Delivery, in the release.

TSA PreCheck Touchless ID is now available at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, or IAH, and William P. Hobby Airport, giving eligible travelers another way to move through security, according to an April 23 news release from Houston Airports.

What you need to know: The system "enhances security screening by using facial comparison technology to verify identity faster and more efficiently," the news release notes.

Enrolled travelers with participating airlines can move through dedicated lanes at Hobby Airport and at IAH TSA Checkpoints Terminal A-North, Terminal C-North and Terminal E.

More details: Passengers must meet the following requirements to be eligible for TSA Precheck Touchless ID:

• Have TSA PreCheck
• Have an active airline profile with a participating airline
• Upload valid passport information to their airline profile

Some Texas families began learning April 22 if they were accepted to the state’s education savings account program for the 2026-27 school year, officials said.

The big picture: Over 42,600 students will receive funding notices through April 24, the state comptroller’s office announced April 22. The first awardees include low- and middle-income students with disabilities and their eligible siblings.

Families accepted to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program will receive state funds to send their children to private school or homeschool them.

The details: The first round of awardees is set to receive about $400 million of the $1 billion allocated for the program. Up to 100,000 students are expected to qualify for the program's first year.

The comptroller's office will run a lottery the week of April 27 to determine which low-income students will be accepted based on a prioritization system.

Stay tuned: Families that do not qualify for funding will also be notified through April 24. Additional students will receive funding awards in the coming weeks, a program spokesperson said.