Bill Zeeble
Senior ReporterBill Zeeble has been a full-time reporter at KERA since 1992, covering everything from medicine to the Mavericks and education to environmental issues.
He’s won numerous awards over the years, with top honors from the Dallas Press Club, Texas Medical Association, the Dallas and Texas Bar Associations, the American Diabetes Association and a national health reporting grant from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Zeeble was born in Philadelphia, Pa. and grew up in the nearby suburb of Cherry Hill, NJ, where he became an accomplished timpanist and drummer. Heading to college near Chicago on a scholarship, he fell in love with public radio, working at the college classical/NPR station, and he has pursued public radio ever since.
His first real radio gig was with a classical station in Corpus Christi, where the new Texan was dubbed “Billy Ted”; he was also a manager at WNO-FM in New Orleans.
Several stories he covered on television for KERA 13 helped homeowners avoid losing their homes.
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Several districts weighed in this week ahead of a March 1 deadline on whether to allow chaplains to serve as school counselors.
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Alena Analeigh Wicker is 15, just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Science from Arizona State University, will get her master’s degree this spring, and has already been accepted to medical school.
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Parents from Katy, Austin and Keller recently launched the Texas Freedom to Read Project. All were angry over growing book bans they say infringe on free speech and access to ideas.
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Keller ISD's interim Superintendent John Allison took the district's projected $27 million shortfall to the public this week. In a community meeting, he explained the causes and blamed the state for inadequate funding.
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The Keller school board unanimously picked its own Chief Human Resources Officer, Tracy Johnson, to be the district's next superintendent. Johnson has 22 years in education as an elementary teacher and administrator across several north Texas districts.
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PEN America has tracked a nationwide growth of laws and bills that — since 2021 — have impinged on educational free speech rights. The organization says 2023 saw 22 state legislatures approve more than 100 bills it calls “educational gag orders.
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House Bill 1 includes funding for school safety and salary raises for teachers. But the measure’s most controversial provision, one creating a school voucher-like program, was stripped from the bill on Friday afternoon.
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Former instructor Michael Phillips said Collin College's decision not to renew his contract last year was based, in part, on his political leanings and public criticism of the school.
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A version of the bill that would send public money to private schools passed through a Senate committee on Thursday. Gov. Greg Abbott made such legislation one of his top priorities in this fourth special legislative session.
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The proposal is now headed to the Texas House of Representatives, where similar legislation stalled in the last special session. At the same time, House lawmakers are also debating their own voucher proposal, which has some significant differences from the Senate's.
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After more than a year of campaigning by Gov. Greg Abbott and three special sessions, the newest bill for Education Savings Accounts adds teacher pay raises, greater per-student allotment, a preference to families with lower incomes, and accountability measures. It still may not be enough to for legislators to approve sending public dollars to private schools.
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A principal in Overton, Texas, is back on the job after he was arrested after he paddled a student, a punishment allowed in the district. Community members support him, but experts say corporal punishment isn't effective.