AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18

[bschoolprof 6,264]

UT going virtualish until 1/31 to "slow the spread."  

[Texas Jeff 1,945]

9 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

aisd is fucked for many reasons, but recapture is the main one. enrollment is down, the district sends a huge amount of its funding out into the rest of the state, and admin is bloated.

Check out this site, if you are curious as to how any Texas district has been funded over the past five years:

https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/school.finance/forecasting/financial_reports/1920_stacked_bar_charts.html

You can compare any Texas school district to any other Texas school district, and it will break down how much money each district has had to spend on education and where it came from.  Austin has lost a bunch to recapture but it does have access to about the same amount of money as surrounding districts.  Some of those are poorer and some are wealthier.  None are talking about cutting 21 million from the secondary school budget by overloading teachers.

Austin has tiny schools.  If you look at Austin plus all surrounding districts, there are 37 major high schools.  Austin ISD operates 9 of the 11 smallest high schools.  There are 63 middle schools in the area, and Austin has 7 of the 8 smallest middle schools.  I think that's a lot of the bloat you mention.  It's more expensive to maintain lots of extra buildings and hire all of those additional principals, admins, coaches, etc.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Texas Jeff

[Harrison Bergeron 1,798]

1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

UT going virtualish until 1/31 to "slow the spread."  

Thank goodness. I mean those UT students will be dutifully staying in their dorms or apartments and would never to out or to a party.

[South Austin 52,521]

Email from AISD about last two days of student/teacher testing:

[Guest Lobo]

20 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

Thank goodness. I mean those UT students will be dutifully staying in their dorms or apartments and would never to out or to a party.

Well actually they gave as much heads up as was possible so that the thousands and thousands of students from out of state/out of the country can change their travel plans appropriately and hang back home and attend first two weeks virtually.  As for students within driving distance, they can obviously come back to campus or stay back home with family and do classes remotely.  West campus and the dormitories are only 20% populated right now and that would normally continue until the weekend before Tuesday classes start after MLK Day.  Students trickling in from 1/18 to 1/30 into those living spaces and keeping them from congregating on campus in enclosed spaces is not perfect, but it's the best available option.  It's a mid-sized city of 75,000 people on a given day, nothing wrong with easing back into that.  Yes, some students will get together on the weekend of the 24th or whatever and have a party and spread some Covid.  But I think this was the right thing to do.  Most lab work doesn't start until the 2nd week of class anyways, so students in the science and engineering and nursing fields can still connect with professors online and then get to the physical portion of the class about the right time.

I rise now to ask the obvious question---does this mean the $10 holiday break hoops tickets will be made available for Oklahoma State and Tennessee games in late January?  Because I'd like to see those game.s

[BrickHorn 18,239]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

Email from AISD about last two days of student/teacher testing:

That’s fucking great. “We tested a small sample and it turns out a shitload of people who will be in school with your kids are sick with the world’s second-most contagious virus. Welp, see your kids at school tomorrow!”

Edited January 5, 2022 by BrickHorn

[South Austin 52,521]

Both of my kids tested negative yesterday at one of the AISD testing sites.  I went to my daughter's high school basketball game last night.  There were about 10 people in the stands, most if not all McCallum parents.  The home team only had five players dress so no subs, and McCallum needed to call up a few girls from JV.

It's going to be a fun few weeks ahead.

[midtown 3,346]

I still don't understand the hang wringing at this point.  Everyone and I mean everyone is getting this.  By most accounts a very mild case.   My vaccinated daughter who wears her mask EVERYWHERE still got it.  A very large percentage of kids who end up in the hospital with omicron are obese.    Let's just keep the kids in school and get it over with

[South Austin 52,521]

2 hours ago, midtown said:

I still don't understand the hang wringing at this point.  Everyone and I mean everyone is getting this.  By most accounts a very mild case.   My vaccinated daughter who wears her mask EVERYWHERE still got it.  A very large percentage of kids who end up in the hospital with omicron are obese.    Let's just keep the kids in school and get it over with

Pasting a quote below from the other COVID thread that provides some response to your post.  Though most cases might be mild, if hospitalizations are increasing, and given this variant's substantially greater rate of transmission even among the vaxed and masked population, I can see the continuing argument that student and teacher quarantining, when there's a positive case or close contact, can still help slow transmission enough to make a meaningful difference in hospital capacity and availability of hospital staff.

At this point, that's my only real concern.  If severe COVID cases aren't enough to take up hospital beds for grandpa who needs cancer surgery or grandma who just suffered a heart attack, and transmission isn't causing significant chunks of hospital staff to take a few days off of work because of a positive test, then I'd be much more bullish about keeping everyone in school and let the Omicron chips fall where they may.

But irregardingly, I'm sending both of my vaxed kids to school with no worry about their or my family's health.  And hopefully if the trend continues, by the next variant school districts and health officials will say fuck it, it's like another cold and flu season and everyone's staying in school.

18 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

stolen from Reddit. This dude graphs published covid data. It's a GREAT source for up to date status of hospitalization and deaths. 

TLDR: Omicron hospitalization is increasing but deaths aren't rising, yet anyway.

https://covid-texas.csullender.com/?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_campaign=rw56km

[Samson's Wig 3,193]

16 hours ago, Lobo said:

Well actually they gave as much heads up as was possible so that the thousands and thousands of students from out of state/out of the country can change their travel plans appropriately and hang back home and attend first two weeks virtually.  As for students within driving distance, they can obviously come back to campus or stay back home with family and do classes remotely.  West campus and the dormitories are only 20% populated right now and that would normally continue until the weekend before Tuesday classes start after MLK Day.  Students trickling in from 1/18 to 1/30 into those living spaces and keeping them from congregating on campus in enclosed spaces is not perfect, but it's the best available option.  It's a mid-sized city of 75,000 people on a given day, nothing wrong with easing back into that.  Yes, some students will get together on the weekend of the 24th or whatever and have a party and spread some Covid.  But I think this was the right thing to do.  Most lab work doesn't start until the 2nd week of class anyways, so students in the science and engineering and nursing fields can still connect with professors online and then get to the physical portion of the class about the right time.

I rise now to ask the obvious question---does this mean the $10 holiday break hoops tickets will be made available for Oklahoma State and Tennessee games in late January?  Because I'd like to see those game.s

lol. You're worried about tickets to a basketball game?  Just walk up to any of them sir.

[South Austin 52,521]

McCallum announced 41 cases yesterday, but supposedly 20 of those were reported from the break, which seems odd that the school wouldn’t have announced those cases as they came in.  

In any event, the Karens are out in full force, many suggesting we just go all virtual this week and possibly beyond. I picked the wrong year to do a dry January.

[CooterBrown 18,015]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

McCallum announced 41 cases yesterday, but supposedly 20 of those were reported from the break, which seems odd that the school wouldn’t have announced those cases as they came in.  

In any event, the Karens are out in full force, many suggesting we just go all virtual this week and possibly beyond. I picked the wrong year to do a dry January.

My daughter said that one of her teacher's said that 30 of the 41 were teachers.

[South Austin 52,521]

I get that six months ago a report of 41 cases at one high school might cause a bit of a freak out.  But with what we know about his variant so far, it's just a fucking number that doesn't justify some of the hysteria I'm reading. 

Of the 41 cases, how many were vaccinated?  How many were boosted?  How many were asymptomatic?  Of those with symptoms, how severe and long were they? 

I know we won't get those numbers, but I'm fairly certain that all 41 of those who tested positive aren't going to be in bed with a high fever and respiratory problems, and it's a safe assumption that most of those cases are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.  But it's nevertheless high Karen season.

[BrickHorn 18,239]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

Of the 41 cases, how many were vaccinated?  How many were boosted?  How many were asymptomatic?

I don’t think any of those questions are very relevant to transmissibility. Which is the big reason case counts matter. Omicron has an R0 of 3-3.5. 41 known cases in one school today means 125 more cases in a few days, which means 375 more a few days after that, and so on. And those students and teachers take the virus back home and out into the world with them. 

Now that said, maybe a shitload of cases of a milder variant is what we need to go through to finally exhaust this damned thing. And I’ve run out of patience for the voluntarily unvaccinated. If you get sick and die because some school kid with mild Covid sat next to you at church and you Did Your Own Research and Made The Best Choice For You, well that’s just too damned bad. (I do worry for the involuntarily immunocompromised, however.)

[utee94 15,835]

A friend of mine who lives in AISD said the district has asked for kids to start wearing KN95s, y'all hear the same thing?

If so and you're looking, he got some from Amazon delivered same-day today.

 

 

[South Austin 52,521]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

A friend of mine who lives in AISD said the district has asked for kids to start wearing KN95s, y'all hear the same thing?

Yes, both Highland Park and McCallum have asked students to wear KN95s if possible.

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2,678]

On 1/4/2022 at 7:00 PM, Texas Jeff said:

Check out this site, if you are curious as to how any Texas district has been funded over the past five years:

https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/school.finance/forecasting/financial_reports/1920_stacked_bar_charts.html

Austin has tiny schools.  If you look at Austin plus all surrounding districts, there are 37 major high schools.  Austin ISD operates 9 of the 11 smallest high schools.  There are 63 middle schools in the area, and Austin has 7 of the 8 smallest middle schools.  I think that's a lot of the bloat you mention.  It's more expensive to maintain lots of extra buildings and hire all of those additional principals, admins, coaches, etc.

 

 

Maybe they should re-zone then, because my kid's middle school was built for a capacity of 5-600 back in '55, and now has more than 1200 students. 

[smoky 840]

A friend of mine who lives in AISD said the district has asked for kids to start wearing KN95s, y'all hear the same thing?
If so and you're looking, he got some from Amazon delivered same-day today.
 
 

They also asked to double up your masks if you don't have those. Seems like a round about way to say cloth masks don't do much.

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2,678]

KF94's for the win. A hell of a lot easier to wear all day long than 95's.

[Guest Lobo]

Yes, but see this 95 is one more.  It's one more than 94.  It's for when you need that extra "mmmmph" to get over the edge.  This one goes to 95.  

[hayden_horn 11,362]

8 hours ago, South Austin said:

I get that six months ago a report of 41 cases at one high school might cause a bit of a freak out.  But with what we know about his variant so far, it's just a fucking number that doesn't justify some of the hysteria I'm reading. 

Of the 41 cases, how many were vaccinated?  How many were boosted?  How many were asymptomatic?  Of those with symptoms, how severe and long were they? 

I know we won't get those numbers, but I'm fairly certain that all 41 of those who tested positive aren't going to be in bed with a high fever and respiratory problems, and it's a safe assumption that most of those cases are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.  But it's nevertheless high Karen season.

i don't think karen means what you think it means.

[South Austin 52,521]

1 minute ago, hayden_horn said:

i don't think karen means what you think it means.

Sounds like something Karen would say.

[WBT 20,622]

Bucee's has boxes of 10 KN95s for $2

[CleverNickname 1,320]

I know of am AISD school where 21 of 30 class rooms pool tested hot.

[hornian 5,219]

4 hours ago, WBT said:

Bucee's has boxes of 10 KN95s for $2

I know there a a joke in here about beavers and rednecks avoiding putting them near their faces but I’m too tired to put it all together. 

[atomheartbevo 89,735]

8 hours ago, utee94 said:

A friend of mine who lives in AISD said the district has asked for kids to start wearing KN95s, y'all hear the same thing?

If so and you're looking, he got some from Amazon delivered same-day today.

Yeah, they are asking at my kid's school to double up when possible, and the parents are responding pretty quickly, helped by some positives at school yesterday.

[ABSR 5,319]

On 1/6/2022 at 4:43 PM, smoky said:

On 1/6/2022 at 2:59 PM, utee94 said:

A friend of mine who lives in AISD said the district has asked for kids to start wearing KN95s, y'all hear the same thing?
If so and you're looking, he got some from Amazon delivered same-day today.
 
 

They also asked to double up your masks if you don't have those. Seems like a round about way to say cloth masks don't do much.

You see, Chotchkie’s Middle School doesn’t require you to wear a mask.  Now, you know it’s up to you whether or not you want to do just the bare minimum.  Or….well, like hall monitor Brian, for example, has 3 masks, okay.  And a terrific smile…..which we can’t see.

 

[Pescado_Rojo 19,425]

On 1/6/2022 at 10:36 PM, hornian said:

I know there a a joke in here about beavers and rednecks avoiding putting them near their faces but I’m too tired to put it all together. 

The boy and I stopped at the on in NB yesterday afternoon to gas up and take a piss. We got to the front door and turned right around and went back to the truck. There were at least 150 people in that store, and mask utilization was 50% at best. If all the big Bucee's are like that I'd bet half the cases in Texas are transmitted in a Buccee's. 

[Pescado_Rojo 19,425]

Also just got a text from LISD that they are so short of bus drivers, they're having to make two trips on most routes at Rouse. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8,936]

Hutto ISD is shutting down bus service until further notice.

Quote

We continue to make adjustments to keep our campuses open. Unfortunately, we lost more transportation staff over the weekend due to COVID-19. Due to our driver shortage, we have decided to cancel all regular routes until further notice. We are directly notifying all affected riders. 

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

6 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

The boy and I stopped at the on in NB yesterday afternoon to gas up and take a piss. We got to the front door and turned right around and went back to the truck. There were at least 150 people in that store, and mask utilization was 50% at best. If all the big Bucee's are like that I'd bet half the cases in Texas are transmitted in a Buccee's. 

I went into the one in Bastrop a while back on my way to a fishing trip and it was the same.  Luckily that was before Omicron.

[CooterBrown 18,015]

McCallum had 41 cases last week and 39 cases today.  A+ for consistency.

[South Austin 52,521]

3 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

McCallum had 41 cases last week and 39 cases today.  A+ for consistency.

Got the same email.  Technically, the 41 cases in last week's email includes 20 that reported during the winter break.  But the 39 cases in today's email covers just January 6 to January 9, which is just awesome.

[atomheartbevo 89,735]

57 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

McCallum had 41 cases last week and 39 cases today.  A+ for consistency.

51 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Got the same email.  Technically, the 41 cases in last week's email includes 20 that reported during the winter break.  But the 39 cases in today's email covers just January 6 to January 9, which is just awesome.

The non-so-secret thing is that AISD only has like 10-15 campuses doing serious testing - the pool testing or whatever.  If they were doing pool testing at all campuses, I can't imagine what the numbers would be. And some of the schools are ramping up their after-school activities starting this week.  Hopefully this doesn't become a clusterfuck.

[South Austin 52,521]

4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The non-so-secret thing is that AISD only has like 10-15 campuses doing serious testing - the pool testing or whatever.  If they were doing pool testing at all campuses, I can't imagine what the numbers would be. And some of the schools are ramping up their after-school activities starting this week.  Hopefully this doesn't become a clusterfuck.

Yeah, I speculate that one reason McCallum is reporting numbers higher than other schools is because it's actually one of the AISD testing sites, so it's relatively easier for a parent to get their student tested in the morning right before classes start.  And, McCallum is kinda sorta more liberal than most high schools in Austin, so maybe the parents are taking the testing requests more to heart than others, if you're indulging in political generalizations.

[atomheartbevo 89,735]

2 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Yeah, I speculate that one reason McCallum is reporting numbers higher than other schools is because it's actually one of the AISD testing sites, so it's relatively easier for a parent to get their student tested in the morning right before classes start. 

From what I understand, if you sign your kids up for the pool testing at one of the official testing site schools, they get tested one or more times a week (technically the kids test themselves with swabs), so it's not even a matter of things like symptoms, it's just testing a group of people consistently.

I actually like the idea of the pool testing.

[TexasEd 8,067]

Here's a generalization about Buccees.  I avoided it for years, just had no interest, family said I had to at least look.  Later I found out it is aggy owned.  Now I know why my intuition was to stay away.

[BabaYaga 15,301]

McCallum?  This thread make me miss coach Caldwell.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

Here's a generalization about Buccees.  I avoided it for years, just had no interest, family said I had to at least look.  Later I found out it is aggy owned.  Now I know why my intuition was to stay away.

Posted in another thread, but the place is gross to me. Not in a sanitary sort of way, but it's the culmination of the worst of Texas/American instincts to build massive oversized parking lots and sell so much shit that nobody needs. A gross mecca of bad capitalism.

[Hawndoh 2,386]

I appreciate Buccees when I'm road tripping while pulling my camper RV.

Easy to get a trailer in and out of the pumps, a million reliably clean toilets, and a hot sandwich ready to go.

I don't understand buying Buccees branded tshirts or any of the other merchandise, but a fast road trip pit stop is appreciated

[South Austin 52,521]

4 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Posted in another thread, but the place is gross to me. Not in a sanitary sort of way, but it's the culmination of the worst of Texas/American instincts to build massive oversized parking lots and sell so much shit that nobody needs. A gross mecca of bad capitalism.

The premises are quite clean, but the people are a dirty bunch.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, South Austin said:

The premises are quite clean, but the people are a dirty bunch.

And they seem to pay well. I get the popularity, but it's not for me.

Put a damn tree on your property. 

[BabaYaga 15,301]

2 minutes ago, Hawndoh said:

I appreciate Buccees when I'm road tripping while pulling my camper RV.

Easy to get a trailer in and out of the pumps, a million reliably clean toilets, and a hot sandwich ready to go.

I don't understand buying Buccees branded tshirts or any of the other merchandise, but a fast road trip pit stop is appreciated

This.  Big cup of coffee and a decent breakfast burrito or BBQ sammich.  Their fire pits are legit as well and I've picked up deer corn (little overpriced) more times than I can count.

Biggest drawback are the crowds and the time it takes to park, unload, check out, etc.  

[Anastasis 23,477]

48 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

deer corn (little overpriced)

Throw a rock these days.  Fortunately my corn purchasing is done for a while. 

[atomheartbevo 89,735]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Posted in another thread, but the place is gross to me. Not in a sanitary sort of way, but it's the culmination of the worst of Texas/American instincts to build massive oversized parking lots and sell so much shit that nobody needs. A gross mecca of bad capitalism.

1 hour ago, Hawndoh said:

I don't understand buying Buccees branded tshirts or any of the other merchandise,

What if I told you that Bucees existed....to sell Bucees-branded items.

[Snake Diggity 4,625]

The only shitty thing about Bucees is their customers.

[Armybrat 40,851]

Grandson was notified by Zilker elementary that he was exposed to someone with Covid, and to stay home and get tested by Wednesday.

[Cap33 384]

SIAP: AISD says cut off for contact tracing and notification is 48 hours. So if a kid tests positive more 48 hours of last being on campus, then no further action on their end. I guess the horse is out of the barn at that point, so that's one less thing admin has to document. And we're all on the honor system anyway, so whatever.

My middle schooler tested positive this morning (home test), so we let the school know. I thought they'd prob contact my kids' friends because they ate lunch indoors on Friday, so I gave other parents a heads up. But I guess not.  

Also, my kid has been complaining of back pain. School nurse said she sent three kids home this morning because of back pain, so watch for that symptom in your kids.

[Wulaw Horn 19,122]

On 1/10/2022 at 4:35 PM, TexasEd said:

Here's a generalization about Buccees.  I avoided it for years, just had no interest, family said I had to at least look.  Later I found out it is aggy owned.  Now I know why my intuition was to stay away.

I messed a commercial building he owned when I was president of a title company a few years back. I drew up a lease with an out clause where we could escape the lease if we shut down the office but we couldn’t open another office within 30 miles. He called me up screaming at me and berating me. I was like yo- feel free to make a counteroffer. It was bizarre. 
Also did a couple  closings for them. Was not super impressed. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Wulaw Horn

[atomheartbevo 89,735]

On 1/10/2022 at 8:32 PM, Cap33 said:

SIAP: AISD says cut off for contact tracing and notification is 48 hours. So if a kid tests positive more 48 hours of last being on campus, then no further action on their end. I guess the horse is out of the barn at that point, so that's one less thing admin has to document. And we're all on the honor system anyway, so whatever.

My middle schooler tested positive this morning (home test), so we let the school know. I thought they'd prob contact my kids' friends because they ate lunch indoors on Friday, so I gave other parents a heads up. But I guess not.  

Wonder if it depends on the grade level or school, because the two schools we are involved with are doing contact tracing/contact parents no matter what.