myFOXhoustonWebStaff's Blog

Vidor ISD is now giving its students the option of reciting the pledge of allegiance after a civil rights union disputed its policy.

The district's decision came after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the district for disciplining a student who refused to stand for the pledge on Sept. 11, 2007, according to an official statement. The new policy goes into effect immediately.

"Students may wish to refrain from reciting the pledge for a variety of religious and political reasons, and the First Amendment protects their right do so as long as they don't disrupt other students," Legal Director of the ACLU of Texas Lisa Graybill said in a prepared statement. "We are delighted that the school board chose to adopt a policy that helps minimize the potential for not understanding the voluntary nature of the pledge, and we look forward to seeing the new policy implemented throughout the school district."

Vidor High School Senior Rosal Salas declined to participate in a classroom pledge, claiming she had neither stood for nor recited the pledge for several years, according to the document. But Salas was told the district's policy required her to stand and provide a written note from her guardian to be excused from reciting the pledge.

"I couldn't believe my beliefs were insufficient for my school," said Ms. Salas, an advanced placement student who has competed in UIL Literary Criticism and is president of the French club. "I was very upset, and shocked that the administrators were trying to make me choose between my beliefs and my education. But I'm glad that I had a chance to help convince the school board to change its policy so other students will be free to say the pledge or not, depending on their own beliefs."

The ACLU informed the district of the Constitution's First Amendment rights, and the school apologized to Salas, removing the disciplinary referral from her student record, according to the statement. The district then developed the new pledge policy, which was approved unanimously Dec. 18.

For more information, visit the ACLU Texas' Web site at http://www.aclutx.org.

A piece of computer hardware that holds all of the blogs and comments that members of the myFOXhouston.com community post will be moved to a new data center late Thursday night into early Friday morning.

The move for the myFOXhouston.com blogs and message boards will officially start at 8 p.m. Thursday.  The migration should take no longer than 6 hours.

During this time, blogs and message boards will be read-only.  This means you will not be able to post new blogs or add comments.  You will also, most likely, not be able to log into your account either.

Once you are allowed to access the blogs and message boards again, please e-mail myFOXweb@fox26.com if you experience any problems.

While we will miss reading all of your wonderful posts, take a break, relax and enjoy your, hopefully, computer-free evening.

It has been a long time coming, but you can now search myFOXhouston.com. And this isn't your typical local news Web site search engine.

Here are a few features of the Collarity search engine we hope you will take advantage of:

-- The Collarity search engine can search for information published and archived on myFOXhouston.com.

-- When you add a search term in the text box, the Collarity "Compass" will appear directly below offering some related keywords based on searches by other users.

-- Directly below the related keywords area, the "Compass" will show you the first five results for the search word(s) you have typed in the text box. You can either click on one of the first five stories or click the "Go" button to receive a more complete list of possible stories.

-- If you click "Go" and end up on the Search Results Page, a tag cloud will display at the top of the page followed by the search results. What is a tag cloud? It is a text-based depiction of terms that show frequency of term usage.

-- Once you click on a story, you will notice two boxes at the bottom of the story that feature related stories and suggested searches. Related stories are derived from the search term and the content of the story chosen. Suggested searches are derived from the search term and the story's content.

-- And, if you can't find what you are looking for on myFOXhouston.com or want more information from an outside source, you can search the entire World Wide Web from myFOXhouston.com. Simply check "Web" instead of "Site" next to the search text box.

Currently, the only downfall to this new feature is that you can not search the blogs. However, that function is part of Phase 2 and is coming in the next few months.

Have you ever thought about why you continually visit the same news Web sites? Is it out of habit to visit the same ones or do those sites provide something that is unique and different? Maybe it is as simple as the way the site is designed or the continuous updating of the day's stories. Or, is it the Web exclusive content, blogs and interactive features that have you hooked.

As the staff of FOX 26 KRIV work to make myFOXhouston.com the best local news provider on the Web, we want to know what will keep you coming back for more.

Let us know what you would like to see on myFOXhouston.com and what you would like to see changed by adding a comment below.

We want to let the myFOXhouston.com blogging community know about some of the new functionality available on our blog page.

As of Monday, whenever you post a blog or add a comment to someone else’s blog, it will immediately appear on the site. We will be monitoring the blogs closely to ensure material that violates the user policy you agreed to when you signed up does not show up on the site.

However, while what you write will not require approval, the pictures and avatars you submit to the site will still need to be approved. This process should take less than 12 hours, but hopefully much less time.

As of last week, the first of many upgrades to the blog page was rolled out. You can now use HTML to edit the font, size, alignment and color of your posts, as well as add links, lists, photos or videos inside your posts. Other new features will be added to the blog page in the months to come.

The myFOXhouston.com Web staff has the ability to turn the video, photo and link embed tools on or off. When they are turned on, users can embed external web content and it will appear without waiting for any approval. Do you think myFOXhouston bloggers can handle this privilege? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

- myFOXhouston.com staff