Manvel City Council unanimously voted to end its contract with Flock Safety at its Sept. 8 meeting.

What you need to know: Flock cameras are manufactured by Flock Safety and capture images of vehicle license plates. That data can then be searched and shared between law enforcement agencies.

Manvel has been using Flock cameras since 2024 through a four-year contract, officials said at the meeting. Keith Traylor, Manvel’s police chief and director of public safety, said the cameras were meant to be a supplemental investigative tool at traffic corridors, such as State Highway 288 and Highway 6.

Next steps: Now that City Council has voted to end its contract with Flock Safety, all 16 city-operated cameras will be covered within 48 hours and all allocated funding for Flock cameras was removed from the city’s budget for fiscal year 2026-27.

"This is not a request to reduce our commitment to public safety—it's a request to make a different policy and budget choice about this particular vendor and this specific system,” Mayor Dan Davis said at the meeting. “They have no place in the city of Manvel. It's time to deflock Manvel."

In an effort to build a pipeline for new educators within Alvin ISD, the board of trustees approved a memorandum of understanding with the University of Houston-Clear Lake to support teacher residencies.

In a nutshell: The district was awarded an allotment from the Learning Acceleration Support Opportunities, or LASO, Cycle 4 program. The program was created under House Bill 2, which passed during the 89th Texas Legislature in 2025, and provides state funding to support paid teacher candidates when partnered with approved university Educator Preparation Programs, such as UHCL.

Diving in deeper: The residency program will provide aspiring teachers with year-long classroom experience during the 2026-27 school year, according to district documents. Students will be able to be alongside effective mentor teachers while completing their certification requirements.

Pearland ISD students will have the opportunity to participate in five 45-60 minute sessions focused on mental health awareness after the board of trustees approved an agreement with UTHealth Houston’s Department of Psychiatry at its Sept. 8 meeting.

The overview: UTHealth Houston’s Risk and Resilience Network has a Youth Aware of Mental Health, or YAM, program. The program is designed to increase knowledge and discussion about mental health among adolescents.

Also of note: The agreement, which will have no financial impact, is effective through the end of June in 2028, district documents note.

On Sept. 1, the State Board of Education moved forward with an overhaul of what Texas high schoolers will learn in four social studies courses: U.S. History, U.S. Government, World History and World Geography.

What's happening: Roughly 100 Texans testified about the high school curriculum rewrite at an Aug. 31 meeting, with the debate revolving around how students would learn about the two largest world religions, Christianity and Islam.

Dozens of Muslim Texans asked that students learn about the religion’s core principles and how Muslims have contributed to advancements in math, science and medicine throughout history.

Some testifiers said the social studies curriculum should highlight the role of Christianity in the founding of Texas and the U.S., praising the board for prioritizing “American exceptionalism” and topics that they said would teach students to love the country.

The context: The discussion comes as the Republican-led board nears the finish line on its new K-12 social studies curriculum standards.

If approved, the new requirements will be rolled out to public school classrooms in the 2030-31 school year.