Larry T. Spider

Not surprising but toll road usage is way down. I know a lot of them are privately owned. They were planning on using the extra mopac express lane revenue to help fun the new project on 183 north. Another winner is the lungs of everybody in very polluted cities. Read that Delhi isn’t at dangerous levels right now when they are typically at 40x the threshold for the most dangerous level.

Anybody else getting robo texts and calls from Austin/Travis county telling them to stay home this weekend?

Went to wiki on the killer bees. Seems that they are our friends now. In areas of suitable temperate climate, the survival traits of Africanized colonies help them outperform European honey bee colonies. They also return later and basically work under conditions that often keep European bees hive-bound. This is the reason why they have gained a well-deserved reputation as superior honey producers, and those beekeepers who have learned to adapt their management techniques now seem to prefer them to their European counterparts. Studies show that in areas of Florida that contain Africanized honey bees, the honey production is higher than in areas in which they do not live.[44] It is also becoming apparent that Africanized bees have another advantage over European bees in that they seem to show a higher resistance to several health issues including parasites such as Varroa destructor, some fungal diseases like chalkbrood and even the mysterious colony collapse disorder which is currently plaguing beekeepers. So despite all its negative factors, it is possible that the Africanized honey bee might actually end up being a boon to apiculture.

When I was a kid there were always news stories about killer bees and how they were going to take over the US (not the astros). What ever happened with that?

I usually put around $1,500 on my credit card each month and pay it off. Currently sitting at $205 with 10 days left. Pretty much all of that was from hitting up a few local restaurants doing take out. Evidently the big loser is places I was running up bar tabs.

Joe exotic reportedly has the covid. He wasn’t even much of a celebrity when the year started. Strange times.

AISD officially closed schools indefinitely. Instruction will continue online.

English motherfuckers. Do y’all speak it?

TEA assured funding for this academic year, so yeah I don't get it. Either the district or TEA are BSing right now.

It’s complicated because there are 3 classes of districts based on their property wealth per student and they are all on different schedules. Class 1 gets 10 payments a year from what I understand. Not really my realm though.

AISD sent out termination emails to employees that are less than 50% of full time last night. Hourly positions such as custodians and teacher assistants are only being paid for the hours they can document that they worked. The district is looking at other staff that can be deemed “non-essential” for layoffs. The email from TEA that went out a couple of weeks ago said not to worry about funding. Now the district says they are getting hurt on funding. I don’t know what the real story is but the shit storm seems to be heading our way. I will say that contract employees (teachers) seem to be safe for the moment.

Pflugerville has a ton of international residents. Could easily see it spreading there due to their travel as well as family visiting. Used to teach there....it was like the United Nations.

Heard that a BMW dealership was doing a lease special and a ton of people got it there.

Glad that you seem to have that worked out so well and are able to work on next years curriculum. My 3rd-4th grade math teachers don’t feel the same. They teach new concepts up until early May. I used to teach 4th grade math and can promise you that if you start on day 1, you will be lucky to get it all in before staar. There are far too many new concepts, even though the overall difficulty isn’t too bad. 5th seems to be better off because they only had a couple of weeks until their staar date. Just about everything had been covered.

My school is completely full and we have a full kindergarten crew coming in next year. We can talk about the educational side of things but the logistical side would be a wreck if more than 10-15 kids per grade were retained. It would bump me to hiring a new teacher per grade and I don’t have anywhere to put them. It would mean rows of portables with teachers that wouldn’t be at the school long term because they wouldn’t be needed once the retained kids get worked through the system. Now imagine that same issue state wide. We don’t have enough teachers in many schools as it is. I think there are two groups of kids that shouldn’t be lumped together. The group that gets by or might be a little behind. They can’t afford to miss instruction for two months but retention would be too drastic. They need some type of summer school if we can swing it. The group that’s legitimately behind already. Many of these kids are in special education due to having a learning disability. In most cases retention isn’t the answer. They are already getting individualized instruction for their needs. Obviously this online mess is going to hurt them.

TEA is really expecting districts to move forward with online learning and they have the dollars. I haven’t seen any specific threats that the money will stop flowing if you don’t do this but that seems to be the message that districts are getting. So, this is probably necessary for your wife to continue getting paid. TEA expectations: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/health-safety-discipline/instructional-continuity-planning-framework

Lolz at online public school. Most people are poor (nobody here). Both parents work (yes they're still leaving the house every day). They may or may not have wifi or a computer. Public school IQs range from 20 to 150. This works for college online instruction, but for the non pre AP type of dipshit this will be a disaster. See you in September kids. I don’t disagree but the other option is education employees start missing paychecks. Gotta give it a good faith effort. It will also be a great test of what works and what doesn’t. God forbid we ever have to do something like this again.

Yeah, next year is going to be the real bitch of this, especially in math. The kids have to have the concepts from the previous year or they will be completely lost. However, there arent enough days in the year to make up 1/3 of last years curriculum plus the current year. Prediction time: math staar scores are going to suck next year.

Yeah the AISD terminology is weird. When they say classes are cancelled, they mean in person classes. School is technically still in session and will continue to be through the end of the semester. Only way we continue to be funded and thus pay people.

Nothing yet. My guess is that we will eventually say classes are cancelled indefinitely as Hays did. It keeps you from having to play the week extension at a time game. It leaves the door open to coming back this year if something drastically changes but also signals that people better start buying into the online learning that will be provided. Pure guesswork though. This is the last week of optional activities vs required coursework. We should know some specifics for requirements starting tomorrow. I talked to an assistant principal at a low income school and he guesses that 25% of his kids will participate. Not really sure what you do with that other than let it go. Technology devices have been collected, inventoried and should be available for pickup soon. Packets of work have been going out at locations where food is being distributed with more sites on the way. I will be doing that starting Wednesday. Pflugerville ISD starts their required coursework tomorrow so we will see how it goes.

Username checks out

The people leaving NYC and spreading covid in other cities reminds me of all the northern Italians going to their vacation homes in southern Italy.

Agree. No way they are making much off these family packs. Just burning inventory and keeping people at work as long as possible. Vendors that serve restaurants have got to be so fucked. Huge inventory and no where to move it.

We were wondering that. Wife is PPCD and had a Zoom conference call and told me they're still trying to figure out what to do about special education. She's trying to figure out how they're going to get ARDs and other required stuff done. We are waiting on TEA for guidance. Don’t want to start doing one thing only to get slammed with lawsuits down the road. There are a few lawyers in town who basically sue us for a living so I’m sure the sharks are circling. TEA says they are waiting on the US department of education for guidance because the laws are federal. I can’t say anything about them without it being political.

Our biggest challenge is that experience levels and expectations are all over the place. Some parents want daily organized lessons with a ton of activities. Others want something minimal because parents are working from home and can’t help their younger kids. Obviously the number devices and internet connection is something else to consider. If we roll one thing out to appease one group, the other starts freaking out. I’ve collected info from about 200 families and there is a distinct divide about what they want/can’t handle. In addition, some of our teachers could teach via zoom for 8 hours a day starting tomorrow. One can’t get into the meeting we are having right now...