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At a May 16 City Council meeting, Rollingwood Chief of Police Kristal Muñoz said the department has seen a consistent number of car break-ins year over year. (Courtesy Rollingwood Police Department) In an effort to curb ongoing automobile break-ins in the area, the Rollingwood Police Department is looking into...

The design of the new Bee Cave Public Library is being finalized, according to a report heard on Tuesday by the City Council, meaning construction of the much-needed expansion could start as soon as next year — but at a cost that is $10 million over what the city authorized three years ago.  Brian Jorgensen of construction strategy company Turner & Townsend Heery said that while an estimate in 2021 put the cost of the library’s construction...

DRIPPING SPRINGS — Families will have another option for their student’s education with a new micro high school opening in Dripping Springs for the upcoming fall semester. Sarah Pevehouse, a Dripping Springs resident who has more than 15 years of experience in education, is bringing the first micro high school to the region: Apogee Dripping Springs. The school is designed to allow for students to learn in a collaborative studio of multi-age learners and prepares them for life beyond the classroom, equipping them with practical skills, from financial literacy to real-world problem-solving, and nurturing their character. The mother of two daughters, ages 11 and 14, was researching the current high school options in Dripping Springs. Pevehouse was looking at whether the programs would prepare her children to leave home after high school graduation feeling capable and prepared and she did not want to be forced to compromise her own personal values in order for her children to receive an education. “There are really great programs here. There's a lot of great options for K-8, but when you get to the high school level, there's really not a lot of choices. There's some private schools and then there's public schools. And when I looked into the programs themselves, it really felt like everybody’s goal was really just to track everyone to college,” Pevehouse said. “To be honest, that's not really my goal and it's not my child's goal, either. She really wants to be an author and an illustrator. So, I thought that seems really myopic to just only focus on really tracking kids towards one direction when life really is a buffet of opportunity and options and there's really so many ways to be successful in life.” When developing her program, Pevehouse said that she has been focusing on three main themes: life skills, character development and getting students connected to local mentors. “Looking at developing my program, specifically around these life skills, these character development aspects of my program and then those early mentorships and internship opportunities to give them some real life experience early on, I think are going to be really important. When I talk about life skills, and I say ‘Oh, just think old school home economics,’ I really mean that. These kids are gonna learn how to cook, they're gonna learn how to budget, they're gonna learn how to change a tire, they're going to learn how to do, like, what happens next. All these will be a preview of whatever is going to come next,” she said. “I want to make sure that these kids have this internal dialogue of they can do hard things, but they can also figure it out … That's part of utilizing a project-based opportunity and learning, which is that they're gonna have to get creative with problem solving.” Microschools are a fast-growing, diversified movement in the U.S today, with about a 2% market share of students generally, and growing, according to Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center. With between 1.1-2.1 million students currently using microschools as their primary source for learning, and a median size of 16 students per microschool, Soifer said that there are approximately 100,000 microschools around the country. This type of school is an innovative, personalized multi-family learning environment, according to the National Microschooling Center. Each individual microschool is different; they can be organized as shared learning opportunities for homeschooled children, licensed private schools, unaccredited nonpublic schools or even with public charter or traditional public school space, as long as pertinent state and local rules are followed. For what motivated founders to open their microschools, 69% shared the most popular response, “to enable children to thrive as they had not in prior settings,” according to American Microschools: A Sector Analysis, conducted by the National Microschooling Center. Offering educational options more relevant to the future of learners was the second most popular response, with 60% of the founders, and providing opportunities to underserved or marginalized communities was selected by 50% of the founders. And for Pevehouse, opening a micro high school in Dripping Springs has felt like the best fit for her daughter, and other students, to thrive in smaller group settings. “From working in education for as long as I have … what I found is that when kids are in small group opportunities for learning, they can't hide socially or academically. When they're in a really big group, it's really hard for a teacher and a student to make a solid connection with each other. For one student to connect with 32 other students is really rare and then also to have a solid connection with their teacher. And then, from the other side of it, for a teacher to actually connect with 30-some kids on a really meaningful level is hard. It’s that hiding aspect, though, that’s really important to me,” she said. “There's actually a threshold if you can keep it under 15, around 15 or less, what does happen also, which is a really positive thing, not just evoke a connection with a teacher, but everybody finds their place socially. What you prevent is cliques from happening.” “Once you go over a certain threshold, we are a very tribal people, like we really like to find our little group … What I'm focused on is those in classroom connections and that is where that happens. What I mean by everybody finding their place socially is that even the children that may have habits or personalities that are a little off-putting to some students, they actually still become part of the full group, integrated fully in,” Pevehouse continued. “It really does become kind of like a small family. Everyone just kind of finds their place socially, no one is left out, which is the goal.” The most popular microschool models are not new. Today’s multi-age, innovative small learning environments often resemble the one-room schoolhouses that were nestled across the American prairies 150 years ago, Soifer said, but with updated teaching methods and technology. While microschooling has been around for a long time, it became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns when families reevaluated their relationships with traditional school settings. Additionally, Pevehouse explained that a lot of teachers shifted themselves toward the microschool movement. “During COVID, a lot of teachers stepped out of the classroom and started what was called learning pods. From there, it's really caught on and they realized that they can make this a business, they can actually be an entrepreneur. There's this whole new kind of vernacular that's developed around this. They're called edupreneurs, or education entrepreneurs,” Pevehouse explained. “There’s all kinds of cohorts and things that have developed in support of this because a lot of teachers are like, ‘You know what, I'm a good teacher and I love what I do, but I don't actually know how to run a business’ and so, there's that element of it. Then there's been administrators who can go, ‘I see that there's a need for this in my community and I really want to launch something, but I need to hire teachers because I'm not really equipped to be a teacher.’ So, there's two different ways that people are finding their way into the microschool movement. It really is something that came up through COVID and it's just been very successful. A lot of parents really, really prefer it. Communities are small inherently because of the class or the school itself is small, so parents are able to form really solid connections with each other and the students are as well because of those small class sizes.” Pevehouse shared that there was a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult and EdChoice that surveyed more than 1,000 teens in sixth through 12th grade in public school from February-March. The poll showed that 60% of the kids said that they thought school was boring, while 30% of the kids said that they thought school was a waste of their time. She added that traditional public education has remained the same for several years, but independent schools, like microschools, could make a difference. “I do believe education has been the same for 150 years. The classroom has looked the same with a chalkboard or a whiteboard in the front and students sitting in desks and teachers teaching the way that they do. There's been some innovations, but it's been so slow, there's not a ton of drastic changes that have happened within public education,” Pevehouse said. “And that's where I think that independent schools, and especially microschools, really have the opportunity here because we can be so flexible in our approach. The bonus of being in Texas is that Texas doesn't regulate homeschooling and it doesn't regulate private schools. So, we don't have to turn in test results to the state to get funding or anything like that; we're able to really think outside the box.” Currently, the class size at Apogee Dripping Springs is expected to be 14 students of mixed ages from 13 to 17 years old. Tuition is $13,000 per year, paid monthly. The school will be opening in the fall of 2024 — around the end of August or at the beginning of September — and it will operate on a 10-month schedule with the year being split into seven sessions, each running 4-6 weeks; sessions are followed by a one-week break, with the exception of December providing a two-week break. Pevehouse is in the process of renting out a local church to house the school; she will be signing a lease in mid-May and it will be located near downtown Dripping Springs. Application information and other details about Apogee Dripping Springs can be found at www.apogeedrippingsprings.com/welcome. To learn more about the microschool movement, visit www.microschoolingcenter.org . For teachers who are interested in setting up their own microschools, grant details can be found at www.vela.org.

LAKEWAY, Texas - One person was critically injured in a multi-vehicle crash in Lakeway on Monday afternoon. It happened around 12:33 p.m. at the intersection of Flint Rock Road and Stephanie Lane. Austin-Travis County EMS says one person was extricated from a vehicle, and CPR was in progress as they...

Proceed with caution when receiving phone calls from supposed police agencies or organizations seeking donations to “support law enforcement,” warns the Marble Falls Police Department. “Always be super careful when giving out identifying information or credit card information over the phone to anybody,” MFPD Central Investigations Division Capt....

AUSTIN, Texas — Like many cities in Central Texas, Leander is rapidly growing. In fact, numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal it’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. The city of Leander has changed drastically in just over the past few years, but that wasn’t...

Construction will cost an estimated $237,000.

DRIPPING SPRINGS — Families can start making plans to attend the second annual Western Wonderland at Dripping Springs Ranch Park for the holiday season. Following DSRP Manager Emily Nelson’s presentation on Tuesday, May 7, Dripping Springs City Council unanimously approved bringing back the Western Wonderland event for a second year. Last year’s event brought a total of $153,058.48 in revenue, with $110,258.48 coming from fees and $42,800 from sponsorships and Hotel Occupancy Tax funds, according to Nelson’s presentation. The expenditures, which totaled to $297,594.47, compared to the $252,425 that was budgeted, were as follows: • Personnel Costs: $13,962.58 actual; $25,000 budgeted • Advertisements/Marketing: $8,150 actual; $8,800 budgeted • Event Costs (Contract, electricity, HCLE, supplies, merchandise/concessions and signage/graphics): $219,392.72 actual; $232,192 budgeted • Other (Sponsorship costs, banners and appreciation; lodging and fuel): $56,089.17 actual; $20,500 budgeted Nelson explained that after a smooth first year of Western Wonderland, several lessons were learned to create even more positive changes and growth for years to come. • Increase the dates to include the week of Thanksgiving. • Turn over marketing to the city of Dripping Springs marketing team • Expand special events • Create more time slots for community performances during non-peak times • Expand ice skating lessons • Really analyze the traffic patterns to set the hours • Increase party/table rental opportunities • Add skate assists for our small and/or less experienced skaters for a rental fee • Increase merchandise • Offer special discount cards before the rink opens for holiday gifts • Sell frequent skater punch cards throughout the season “We are definitely still in the planning phases. We are actually going to grow upon the ice skating lessons and our special events that we already had started with last year. We're just going to enhance those and bring up more special opportunities where people can come in and have smaller amounts of people on the ice because they're there during a special event time,” Nelson said. “We'll continue growing those programs, they were very popular last year. And then we are excited that we're getting the skate assists, so that any of the new skaters will be able to have a little bit more of a balancing opportunity, they'll build to use those skate assists.” The estimated total cost for the rink is $187,679, with an option to add an ice technician for $41,490 if DSRP decided it needed one. Last year, the total cost — with an ice tech already included — was $203,442. “Currently, we're not going to step forward with an ice tech. Our staff trained last year, which is what we were hoping that they would do, since they handle everything in our arena. So, we're hoping that that would translate a little bit over into our ice rink,” Nelson said. While she was unable to provide the total number of people who attended the 2023 Western Wonderland event, as there were some who came in organically from the trail of lights and community performances, Nelson said that there were a little more than 8,000 skaters. “The positive feedback in-person and [on] social media, it was amazing. The few customer issues I had to navigate with people, it was all reasonable,” Nelson explained. “I never had such an experience where I didn’t have somebody with a lot of negative feedback to give us. Everything out there on social media and just in-person were people asking if there was any way we could have a rink the entire year.” “It was a fun experience for it to be such a happy moment and just seeing [on] social media and seeing the community enjoy it, that definitely warmed our hearts,” she continued. The estimated dates for the event are Nov. 22, 2024, through Jan. 5, 2025. However, the event is still in the planning phases and the dates are subject to change.

On the Front Page Subhead Friday, May 17, 2024 Edition News Staff Fri, 05/17/2024 - 13:48 Image Friday, May 17, 2024 Edition ...

Jordan Scott remembers his grandparents’ RGK Ranch as the summer playground of his youth — a Hill Country landscape where you could go tubing in the shallow waters of Bee Creek, find deer antlers and snapping turtle shells, embark on excursions, and christen unlikely landmarks like Two Tire Alley, the rocky passageway where Scott and his friends, then in their 20s, had to change two flats at once on their old Chevy Suburban. “As a kid, it...

Gavin Silva threw a two-hit shutout with a jaw-dropping 13 strikeouts and Nathan Miller belted a crucial RBI double as Rouse defeated District 25-5A rival Cedar Park 3-0 in Game 1 of a regional quarterfinal series Thursday at Lago Vista High School. Silva gave up a double to the first...

During a special meeting Monday night, Lago Vista city council members voted 4-2 to publicly censure Mayor Kevin Sullivan following a complaint that was filed against him last month.

CORPUS CHRISTI — Harlingen South does not know when to give up. The Hawks pulled off an another amazing comeback to win 10-7 in Game 2 to stay alive in the playoffs by forcing a Game 3 against Leander with a spot in the Region IV-5A final on the line.

On Tuesday, May 7, Judge Marilyn Miller sworn in three members of the Dripping Springs City Council: Mayor Bill Foulds and council members Travis Crow (Place 4) and Wade King (Place 2). Each will serve a two-year term. The election that was initially set for May 4 to elect the three positions was cancelled earlier this year because the candidates whose terms were up for reelection were uncontested.

Starting June 3, the city of Rollingwood will begin installing electronic water meter systems for about 600 residential and commercial properties citywide. (Courtesy Pexels) Starting June 3, the city of Rollingwood will begin installing electronic water meter systems for about 600 residential and commercial properties citywide. The new meters will...

Agendas are posted 72 hours before a meeting so are not always ready by the time this list is published. Check links for more information. Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 Courtroom, 2001 Texas 16 North, Llano. On the agenda:. amend Llano County and Hamilton County EMS interlocal agreement to...

Miller is in his senior season at Rouse, as the Raiders are in the midst of an impressive playoff run.

Ascension Seton medical offices in the Highland Lakes are back online as of Thursday, May 16, following a ransomware attack on May 8 that took down the medical system’s computers nationwide. Ransomware is malicious software or malware that encrypts computer systems until a ransom is paid to release the...