The Austin School District will offer tuition-supported prekindergarten classes for four-year-olds for the first time this fall. Children who are four years old on or before September 1, and who do not qualify for either the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities or the state-mandated prekindergarten program, are eligible.

The program will offer students a six-hour day of quality educational programming led by certified teachers who are specifically trained to work with young children. Tuition-supported prekindergarten will be offered at the following schools:

The Moody Foundation has approved $4.6 million over seven years for a School for Young Men in the Austin Independent School District. The project has multiple phases, including a Feasibility Study in the first year of grant implementation. Based upon the exceptional results of AISD's Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders and longstanding community interest in developing a School for Young Men, the district has been exploring the possibility of duplicating this successful model for boys over the past year.

New school attendance awareness t-shirts, designed by three Austin students, will remind other students beginning next Fall that "every day counts" in their education.

"We received so many wonderful t-shirt designs from our campuses. Thank you to the art teachers who encouraged their students to submit designs. We appreciate their support for improving attendance," Director of Fine Arts Greg Goodman said.

Students with the winning t-shirt designs are:

Three Austin eighth grade students have been awarded $5,000 college scholarships to help them fulfill their dreams of the future.

The Seedling Foundation recently announced the winner of the 2011 Seedling College Scholarship, sponsored by the Austin employees of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Raneesha Joiner, a student at Webb Middle School, was selected by the Cadence employees as their beneficiary.