The Houston Independent School District is soliciting Requests for Proposal (RFP) via the district’s electronic bidding portal. Proposers may login to view specifications and submit their responses at the following link https://houstonisd.ionwave.net/Login.aspx until 11:00 a.m. (CST) Thursday, August 1, 2024, for the following solicitation(s):
RFP 24-03-01 Broadline Distribution and Warehouse Services for K12 Program
Pre-proposal conferences via Microsoft Teams will be held in conjunction with these RFP’s. Information regarding dates, times, and a link to join the meeting is located within the electronic bidding portal under the “Event Details” tab specific to the solicitation.
During a Houston City Council meeting on June 5, City Controller Chris Hollins announced a delay in certifying a pending agreement between the city and the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association. Hollins cited the need for additional review before his office can approve the document.
The agreement, which outlines a settlement totaling approximately $650 million, was initially disclosed by the city in March. However, the intricate financial details of the contract sparked contentious debates among City Council members.
Hollins revealed that his office only received the full 150-page document on June 3, leaving insufficient time for thorough examination. He emphasized the importance of comprehending the agreement’s implications before proceeding with certification.
“It’s very common for our office when we receive agenda items, if we don’t have a clear understanding, to go and ask questions of the city departments,” Hollins stated. “But here, before we even ask those questions, it’s our responsibility to simply read the document. We need to understand it before we move forward with it, and we haven’t had enough time to complete our review.”
Certifying the agreement hinges on assessing the availability of funds, Hollins explained. Understanding the financial impact necessitates a detailed examination of the document, a process currently underway.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire acknowledged the likelihood of the agenda item being tagged by a council member, regardless of the controller’s office certification. Tagging allows council members to postpone voting on an agenda item until the subsequent council meeting.
In addition to the firefighters’ agreement, City Council was scheduled to vote on the fiscal year 2024-25 budget during the same meeting. However, this item was tagged and is slated to return for a vote at the next council meeting on June 12.
In a bid to clamp down on theft, TJX Companies, the parent corporation overseeing retail giants like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, has rolled out body cameras for its employees. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to enhance safety measures across its U.S. outlets, which also include Sierra and Home Sense brands.
According to a spokesperson from TJX Companies speaking to FOX Business, the implementation of body cameras aims to de-escalate potential incidents, deter criminal activities, and underscore the company’s commitment to ensuring safety within its stores. These body cameras are exclusively worn by loss prevention associates, who undergo specialized training to effectively utilize the devices. Notably, the footage captured is only accessible to law enforcement upon request or in response to a subpoena.
During an earnings call in May, TJX finance chief John Klinger emphasized the significance of this move, suggesting that the presence of body cameras acts as a deterrent against illicit activities. Despite this focus on security, Klinger highlighted the company’s ongoing efforts to address “shrink,” an industry term referring to lost or stolen merchandise. In 2022, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimated shrink losses amounted to $112.1 billion.
TJX Companies remains steadfast in its commitment to balancing merchandise protection with customer convenience. While expecting shrink levels to remain steady year-over-year, the company is actively exploring various strategies to safeguard its goods while ensuring a seamless shopping experience.
This announcement follows recent measures undertaken by other retailers to tackle organized retail crime. Dollar General, for instance, disclosed plans to remove frequently stolen items and phase out self-checkout options in thousands of additional stores. As part of this initiative, approximately 3,000 stores were transitioned away from self-checkout in May, bringing the total number of converted locations to 12,000 since the start of the fiscal year.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The Houston Independent School District’s state-appointed superintendent said the state takeover of the district could end sooner than expected based on this year’s STAAR test results.
Superintendent Mike Miles made that revelation during a Wednesday afternoon press conference, responding to a question from Eyewitness News.
“If we keep up growth like this, we’ll be able to transition out into an elected board soon,” Miles said.
HISD released data showing increasing test scores at its high schools. Subjects like English II and algebra saw five-point jumps. The greatest change came in biology, which saw a 14-point jump.
Schools that switched to Miles’ New Education System saw even more significant jumps. In biology, NES schools had an 18-point jump compared to a seven-point jump for non-NES schools.
“Maybe this suggests that we can get out of intervention status sooner rather than later,” Miles said.
To return to local control, Miles said all 123 schools that had a “D” or “F” status would need to earn a “C” or greater.
He said many may be upgraded this year based on the STAAR scores.
“Hopefully, it won’t take seven or eight years. Maybe now it’ll only take a few years,” Miles said.
Judy Cheng, whose daughter attends Bellaire High School, celebrated the news.
“The school district is not independent when the state has control over everything,” Cheng said.
She also cautioned against judging schools based only on growth.
“At the high-performing school where you have 100% of students approaching grade level and to see that 1% growth is not possible,” she said.
Miles predicts HISD will outperform the state and other large districts in terms of growth. The Texas Education Agency will release its test results on Friday.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Deputies arrested a man accused of stabbing a driver to death in what would be one of two random knife attacks in the middle of a north Harris County neighborhood, the sheriff’s office said.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office investigators were called to the 2500 block of Sandlewood Trail Lane in the Silverglen North neighborhood on Wednesday.
According to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office was the agency that responded to a call at about 4:40 p.m. about a weapons disturbance. Deputies located a man with a knife wound in the chest. Medical first responders pronounced him dead.
The sheriff’s office said deputies arrested the suspect at 5:25 p.m. after deploying a Taser.
According to investigators, the man was standing in the street holding a knife and a stuffed animal, trying to get motorists to stop. The first victim was a woman. She was stabbed and drove off. She survived. The second victim was a man. He also drove off but drove home, some five to 10 miles away, according to HCSO Homicide Sgt. Sidney Miller. Family members found the victim in his car in his driveway. They got him out, and he collapsed, Miller said.
Investigators believe the 49-year-old suspect did not know the victims and said the attacks appear to be random. Miller said the suspect, whose name has not been released, does not live in the neighborhood. They have no motive and are looking into whether he has a mental illness.
HCSO has not released the victim’s identity but said he is approximately 40 years old.
For more on this story, follow Jessica Willey on Facebook, X and Instagram.
This story comes from our news partner, ABC13 Houston.
The Houston City Council delayed the vote on the city’s proposed budget for next year and the approval of Houston’s proposed $1.5-billion deal for a new contract and backpay for Houston Firefighters during Wednesday’s city council meeting.
The firefighter’s deal is pending review from the City Controller Chris Hollins, the city’s chief financial officer.
Houston City Council also said during a budget meeting that they need more time to review the contract.
Hollins said his office just received the collective bargaining agreement on Monday afternoon. The two-day turnaround time for review and recommendation is not enough, he said, to certify the agreement.
“We had less than two days to consider what’s roughly 150 pages,” Hollins said before city council on Wednesday.
“This is upwards of a billion dollars of a financial impact for the city, and it’s my responsibility to, at a baseline, understand what’s going on in it before putting it forward to you,”
Hollins said the financial reporting team has started to directly review financial terms of the documents to perform analysis.
Hollins explained that the certification is a stamp of approval based on “ultimately the availability of funds.
“To understand the availability of funds, we need to understand the financial impact, to understand the financial impact we need to read the document,” Hollins said.
“The Firefighters agreement is incredibly important and is incredibly weighty in terms of its magnitude and the impact on the city and our future financially.”
The council is scheduled to vote on the contract and budget next Wednesday.
MANVEL, Texas (KTRK) — Authorities are investigating after a 4-year-old boy’s body was found in a lake in Manvel on Tuesday evening.
The young child was found at the Twin Lakes RV resort along Morris Avenue, police said.
At 6:30 p.m., authorities responded to a missing child report at 19230 Morris Avenue.
Officers said they initially searched the area using drones, a watercraft, and on the ground.
After exhausting all possibilities on land and the lake’s surface, the Houston Police Department’s dive team was called in. The boy was found in an underwater search.
At this time, authorities do not suspect any foul play.
This story comes from our news partner ABC13 Houston.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.
A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.
The trip by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was expected to take 25 hours, with an arrival Thursday. They will spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before climbing back into Starliner for a remote desert touchdown in the western U.S. on June 14.
Years late because of spacecraft flaws, Starliner’s crew debut comes as the company struggles with unrelated safety issues on its airplane side.
Wilmore and Williams – retired Navy captains and former space station residents – stressed repeatedly before the launch that they had full confidence in Boeing’s ability to get it right with this test flight. Crippled by bad software, Starliner’s initial test flight in 2019 without a crew had to be repeated before NASA would let its astronauts strap in. The 2022 do-over went much better, but parachute problems later cropped up and flammable tape had to be removed from the capsule.
Wednesday’s launch was the third attempt with astronauts since early May, coming after a pair of rocket-related problems, most recently last weekend. A small helium leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system also caused delays, but managers decided the leak was manageable and not a safety issue.
“I know it’s been a long road to get here,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said before the weekend delay.
The flight, if successful, will rival SpaceX’s prolific Crew Dragon capsule and expand American options for ferrying astronauts to ISS.
Boeing was hired alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX a decade ago to ferry NASA’s astronauts to and from the space station. The space agency wanted two competing U.S. companies for the job in the wake of the space shuttles’ retirement, paying $4.2 billion to Boeing and just over half that to SpaceX, which refashioned the capsule it was using to deliver station supplies.
SpaceX launched astronauts into orbit in 2020, becoming the first private business to achieve what only three countries – Russia, the U.S. and China – had mastered. It has taken nine crews to the space station for NASA and three private groups for a Houston company that charters flights.
The liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the 100th of an Atlas V for rocket maker United Launch Alliance. It was the first ride for astronauts on an Atlas rocket since John Glenn’s Mercury era more than 60 years ago; the rocket usually launches satellites and other spacecraft.
Despite the Atlas V’s perfect record, the human presence cranked up the tension for the scores of NASA and Boeing employees gathered at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston.
Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon are designed to be fully autonomous and reusable. Wilmore and Williams occasionally will take manual control of Starliner on their way to the space station, to check out its systems.
If the mission goes well, NASA will alternate between SpaceX and Boeing for taxi flights, beginning next year. The backup pilot for this test flight, Mike Fincke, will strap in for Starliner’s next trip.
“When you have a new spacecraft, you need to learn all about it and this has been a great exercise,” Fincke told reporters late last week.
This story comes from our news partner ABC13 Houston.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A large party at an apartment complex in north Harris County ended with a young man shot by a deputy late Tuesday night, authorities said.
Major J. Nanny with the sheriff’s office told ABC13 that deputies received multiple calls at about 11:53 p.m. about a gathering with more than 100 people on a property at W. Airtex Boulevard near Grand Point Road.
People there were seen carrying guns, being loud and making threats to each other, Nanny said, adding that as deputies arrived, they heard gunshots go off and screaming.
Nanny said that as deputies ran toward the gunfire, they came across a man, believed to be 18 years old, with a gun, and that’s when one of the officers shot him.
According to Nanny, authorities gave the man first aid, but he was still treated at a hospital.
No one else was injured.
The deputy who shot the suspect is 27 years old and has been with the department for 14 months, Nanny said.
Per protocol, the deputy will go on desk duty during an internal affairs investigation.
In a recent development, Texas A&M University President Mark A. Welsh announced in an email that the university will not reinstate the annual bonfire tradition. The decision comes amidst speculation that university leaders were considering reviving the celebration, which ceased in 1999 following a tragic incident that claimed 12 lives.
“I have decided it is not in the best interest of Texas A&M and the Aggie Family to bring Bonfire back to campus,” Welsh stated in the email sent to students and stakeholders on June 4. He emphasized that after consulting various members of the Aggie family, including current and former students, the overwhelming consensus was against reinstating Bonfire.
The tradition, which spanned over 90 years, came to an abrupt halt on November 18, 1999, when the structure collapsed during construction, resulting in 12 fatalities and 27 injuries. Experts later attributed the catastrophe to the university’s disregard for safety protocols and structural integrity, as untrained students were allowed to undertake the construction.
In response to the tragedy, Welsh had convened a committee in the fall of 2023 to review how the university commemorates its rivalry with the Texas Longhorns, known as the Lone Star Showdown. The rivalry, dating back to 1894, saw a hiatus after Texas A&M left the Big 12 conference in 2011. However, with Texas A&M’s recent entry into the Southeastern Conference, the rivalry is set to resume, with a scheduled match on November 30.
One of the proposals put forth by Welsh’s committee was to have an engineer-designed, contractor-built bonfire structure on campus. However, Welsh clarified that the “only legally viable option for the return of the campus Bonfire” would involve an outside agency handling the construction.
While some supported the revival of Bonfire, citing its role in fostering camaraderie and leadership skills among students, Welsh noted that the majority believed the tradition should only return if students were actively involved in organizing and building it.
In light of the decision, the university is exploring alternative ways to celebrate the rivalry, including organizing a fun run to benefit military veteran resource groups at both universities. Additionally, the 25th anniversary of the tragedy will be commemorated at the Bonfire Memorial on November 18.
