Texans with Disabilities are Eligible for Mail-in Voting
Disability rights activists say they’re worried the confusion may deter at-risk Texans from voting or cause them to needlessly put their health at risk to show up in person at the polls despite being eligible for mail-in voting.
Texans with disabilities are eligible for mail-in voting, but people must decide for themselves if they qualify
"Texans with disabilities are eligible for mail-in voting, but people must decide for themselves if they qualify" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Citing a disability is among the few reasons that Texans can qualify to vote by mail during the pandemic this November — in addition to being 65 or older, being outside of their county during the election, or being confined to jail but otherwise eligible to vote.
But in recent months, what counts as a disability in Texas has been politicized and litigated. The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that a lack of immunity to the coronavirus is not in itself enough to qualify. Beyond that, the court ruled that voters should decide for themselves if their medical situations meet the state’s criteria.
State law defines a disability as a “sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on Election Day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter’s health.” It gets specific only in saying that “expected or likely confinement for childbirth on election day is sufficient.”
Aside from that, voters are largely left to interpret the law for themselves.
“Individuals are being left up to themselves to make some pretty big eligibility decisions on their own, which can be nerve-wracking and make citizens very concerned about whether or not their choices are justifiable or not,” said Molly Broadway, voting rights specialist at Disability Rights Texas. “A lot of voters are concerned about, will they truly be seen as having a disability for those who do have disabilities?”
Texas is one of five states that hasn’t made mail-in ballots available to those afraid of contracting COVID-19. During a typical year, Texas is one of only 16 states that doesn’t offer no-excuse mail-in voting, which allows voters to request ballots for any reason.
Texans have had the option to cite disability as a reason to receive mail-in ballots since 1935, just two years after the first use of voting by mail. Advocates say the system may have some flaws, but it serves to increase access for many disabled people.
“Our recommendation to most people is, if you can vote by mail, we highly encourage it,” said Donna Meltzer, CEO of the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities. “We think that [helps] keep people with disabilities — who are much more vulnerable to contracting COVID or having greater health conditions — safe and healthy.”
In April, state Democrats and civil rights organizations argued in court that susceptibility to the coronavirus meets the state’s definition for disability. In May, the Texas Supreme Court sided with Attorney General Ken Paxton and ruled that lack of immunity to the virus is not a “physical condition,” and therefore the risk of contracting the virus does not meet the state’s qualifications.
But the court also ruled that voters could evaluate their own health and medical history to determine if they should apply for mail-in ballots during the pandemic based on a disability, as long as they have a “correct understanding of the statutory definition of ‘disability.’”
Abhi Rahman, spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, said he believes Texans are going to decide for themselves if they have conditions that qualify as disabilities for mail-in voting.
“Voters are smart enough to make their own decisions, whether or not they want to claim a disability, for whatever disability they might have,” Rahman said. “And really the secretary of state and election officials — they can’t check what the disability actually is. So if voters feel like they are disabled in any way, they should vote in whatever way they’re comfortable with voting in this election.”
On the application to vote by mail, voters are asked to check a box confirming they have a disability and aren’t required to provide any other details.
Voters haven’t been required to provide documentation for their disabilities since 1981, but when filling out their applications, they certify that the information is correct and that they understand giving false information is a crime.
Local election officials, who oversee the distribution of mail-in ballots, do not have the authority to verify a voter’s disability status.
But election experts say it’s unclear whether the Texas attorney general’s office would try to pursue the issue. Paxton and other Texas Republican officials have attacked efforts to broaden mail-in voting as a “threat to Democracy.”
“I applaud the Texas Supreme Court for ruling that certain election officials’ definition of ‘disability’ does not trump that of the Legislature, which has determined that widespread mail-in balloting carries unacceptable risks of corruption and fraud,” Paxton said after the Supreme Court decision. “Election officials have a duty to reject mail-in ballot applications from voters who are not entitled to vote by mail. In-person voting is the surest way to maintain the integrity of our elections, prevent voter fraud and guarantee that every voter is who they claim to be.”
Instances of voter fraud are incredibly rare, and there’s a lack of comprehensive data on the subject. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, lists 1,071 instances since 1982 of proven voter fraud in the U.S. None of the examples include voters incorrectly citing disabilities.
If the attorney general were to pursue a case against someone, citing false information given about a disability, the burden of proof would be on the state to prove a voter isn’t disabled, said Joaquin Gonzalez, attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project.
“They couldn’t just force a voter to prove their disability. They would have to have some evidence showing that the voter was fraudulently claiming it in the first place,” Gonzalez said.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Bob Kafka, organizer at ADAPT Texas, a disability advocacy grassroots organization, said the attorney general’s messaging alone is enough to intimidate voters.
“The bottom line is 99% of people with disabilities or people that might be in jeopardy of contracting COVID are totally confused,” Kafka said. “Unfortunately, it has the effect of intimidation. Whether that’s the goal or not, the end result is when you’re threatened with a felony of voting fraud, whether its intent is intimidation, its end result is intimidation."
Disability rights activists say they’re worried the confusion may deter at-risk Texans from voting, or cause them to needlessly put their health at risk to show up in person at the polls despite being eligible for mail-in voting.
Kafka said he and other activists spoke with Secretary of State Ruth Hughs and were assured that county clerks would not ask people who checked the “disability” box to verify their disabilities. But as the attorney general continues to release what Kafka says are “threatening” statements, activists still are not sure it’s enough to convince people to vote.
“We are not promoting voter fraud, but we also don’t want people not to vote,” Kafka said. “We already have one of the most restrictive mail in-ballot processes in the whole country.”
The secretary of state’s office declined to comment for this story.
Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/18/texas-mail-in-voting-disabilities/.
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August Unemployment Rate in Texas Drops
The U.S. Labor Department on Friday announced Texas' unemployment rate for August was 6.8%, underscoring a summer of large and steady numbers of jobless Texans.
August unemployment rate in Texas drops to 6.8% from 8% in July
"August unemployment rate in Texas drops to 6.8% from 8% in July" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Six months after the coronavirus pandemic began choking the economy, Texas' unemployment rate in August was 6.8% — a sign the state's economy has improved from the spring months, but is still suffering.
The Texas rate, announced by the U.S. Labor Department, is down from 8% in July and an even starker improvement from April and May when Gov. Greg Abbott closed or limited in-person commerce across the state.
But after Abbott sought to reenergize the flailing economy by allowing businesses to reopen, the coronavirus spread rapidly through Texas, eventually leading Abbott to reverse some of his economic decisions. And in late August and early September, after weeks of declining numbers of Texans applying for unemployment relief, that trend reversed.
Now, the new economic data helps paint a more clear picture of the recession in Texas — the economy has made progress from the dreadful early months of the pandemic, but economists said the data underscores a large and steady number of jobless Texans over the summer months.
“We were mostly stagnant,” Michael Carroll, director of the Economics Research Group at the University of North Texas, told The Texas Tribune.
On Thursday, in another attempt to energize the economy, Abbott again began loosening restrictions for restaurants and other businesses in most regions of Texas. Retail stores, restaurants and office buildings, which have been allowed to open at 50% capacity, will be permitted to expand to 75% capacity. Hospitals will be allowed to offer elective procedures again and nursing homes can reopen for visitations under certain standards.
It’s too soon to tell what impact Abbott’s moves will have on the economy, but Tim Fitzgerald, an economist at Texas Tech University, hopes the trend of Texans entering the workforce continues.
“Today’s report is a good sign for the economy and indicates there’s more labor force participation and more employment across the state,” Fitzgerald, who worked on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration, told The Texas Tribune. “Now, the future course of the virus is obviously going to be important."
The state's failure to control the coronavirus, which has left more than 14,000 Texans dead, means a strong economic resurgence, however, will have to wait, economists said. Nearly 2 million people across the state are still collecting unemployment relief and The Texas Workforce Commission has struggled to keep up.
Despite the agency’s woes, many unemployed Texans who were able to receive unemployment benefits during the spring and summer also received an additional $600 a week as part of federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act legislation approved by Congress, which expired in July.
“The CARES Act was predicated on a two to three month period of major slowdown,” Waco economist Ray Perryman told The Texas Tribune. “We are now at six and counting."
In an effort to supplant that money in August, President Trump announced new, extra $300 weekly payments would be distributed to unemployed people, but the program was short-lived and ended in September.
The consequences of the disintegrating safety net have already been dire — some Texans receive as little as $69 per week in benefits, a paycheck that was easier to manage when federal money was added.
Now, October is approaching and monthly bills will be due again, but despite the Trump administration announcing a new eviction moratorium, some unemployed Texans unable to pay their bills have not been protected, Houston Public Media reported.
Still, neither Congress nor President Trump have indicated additional money for unemployed people, who in Texas have faced “unprecedented financial challenges,” Abbott said Thursday.
“You still have a significant number of people that are unfortunately either unemployed or underemployed right now,” Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said recently during The Texas Tribune Festival.
As a result, Texans have spent less money over the last five months, leading to far fewer revenues from sales taxes, the largest source of revenue for the state’s budget. Already, state leaders have ordered state agencies to cut budgets by 5%.
“Consequently, further declines in sales tax revenue may ensue in the coming months,” Hegar said in early September.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has said he would rather die from the coronavirus than see instability in the economy, said Thursday’s announcement by Abbott was an important step in helping buck Hegar prediction.
“I know this is welcome news to everyone watching, and all the business owners out there,” Patrick said alongside Abbott Thursday.
But the Texas Restaurant Association said in a statement Thursday that many restaurants “will continue to struggle to reach the occupancy cap because of the social distancing requirements.”
“We’ve crossed the six-month mark of this crisis,” the statement read, “and it’s no exaggeration to say that the next few weeks will make the difference between tens of thousands of businesses surviving the economic fallout, or being forced to close their doors forever.”
Dr. Seth H. Giertz, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas who used to work in the Congressional Budget Office, wasn’t optimistic about the current trajectory.
“It’s possible we could have bad financial situations and many more businesses collapsing even on the route we’re going now, just because businesses aren’t able to operate the way they were before and they're not getting the same support,” Giertz said.
Houston Public Media, University of Texas - Dallas and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/18/texas-unemployment-rate/.
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Selected Business Can Open up to 75% Starting Sept. 21
In order for a business to open, the TSA metric should have seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID-19 hospitalized is 15% or less.
By Menda Eulenfeld, Sep 18, 2020
Governor Greg Abbott announced that selected business such as Gyms / Exercise Facilities, Manufacturers, Museums and Libraries, Office-Based Employers, Restaurants and Retailers can open up to 75% occupancy starting on September 21, 2020.
A data driven hospitalization metric known as the Trauma Service Area (TSA), will be used by doctors and medical experts to determine if businesses in the area can reopen. In order for a business to open, the TSA metric should have seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID-19 hospitalized is 15% or less.
Victoria, Laredo, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley will remain at 50% occupancy until the hospitalization metric requirements are met.
"With the medical advancements we have made and the personal hygiene practices we have adopted, Texans have shown that we can address both the health and safety concerns of COVID-19 while also taking careful, measured steps to restore the livelihoods that Texans depend on," said Governor Abbott.
Restaurants and Other Businesses can Open up to 75% Occupancy
Restaurants, retail stores and office buildings will now be able to operate at 75% capacity, Abbott said. Three regions — the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo and Victoria — were excluded from the loosening of restrictions, however.
Gov. Greg Abbott loosens coronavirus restrictions for restaurants and other businesses in most regions of Texas
"Gov. Greg Abbott loosens coronavirus restrictions for restaurants and other businesses in most regions of Texas" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that most of Texas will be able to loosen some coronavirus restrictions, including letting many businesses increase their capacity to 75%, as soon as Monday.
The standard that Abbott unveiled applies to the 19 out of 22 hospital regions in the state where coronavirus patients make up less than 15% of all hospitalizations. In those 19 regions, businesses that have been open at 50% capacity will be permitted to expand to 75% capacity — a group of places that includes retail stores, restaurants and office buildings. Hospitals in those regions will also be allowed to offer normal elective procedures again, and nursing homes can reopen for visitations under certain standards.
The three hospital regions excluded from the new reopening stage are in the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo and Victoria. Abbott said those regions’ hospitalizations are still “in the danger zone.”
At the same time, Abbott said the state was not yet ready to reopen bars, saying they are “nationally recognized as COVID-spreading locations.” He stressed, though, that the state is looking for ways to let bars reopen safely.
Abbott unveiled the new standard during a news conference at the Texas Capitol that marked Abbott’s first major announcement about the reopening process since early summer. In late June, Abbott shut down bars and ordered restaurants to scale back to 50% capacity as case numbers started to surge.
Days later, Abbott issued a statewide mask mandate.
A few weeks later, key coronavirus metrics began to trend downward. Those statistics include daily new cases, daily new deaths, hospitalizations and the positivity rate. For example, the state reported 3,249 hospitalizations Wednesday, a drop from several days in July when the tally was above 10,000 but still higher than springtime numbers than hovered around 2,000 or lower. Also on Wednesday, the seven-day average of daily new cases was 3,415 — again, a significant decline from July highs but still clearly above the levels in April, May and June.
Still, there have been regular questions about the reliability of the state data. On Monday, state health officials announced they were changing the way they calculate the positivity rate — the ratio of cases to tests — an acknowledgment that the previous method was flawed.
Democrats noted the data issues in their pushback to Abbott’s news conference.
“Gov. Abbott’s press conference today was notable for what he didn’t say,” state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. "There was no mention of a contact tracing program, no mention of improving the state’s unreliable data and no mention of expanding Medicaid to increase access to health care for the millions of Texans who are uninsured.”
The Texas Democratic Party said Abbott is "basing his decisions on dirty data."
Abbott began the news conference hailing the state’s progress in the fight against coronavirus, saying the “biggest reason” for improvements has been that Texans are taking the pandemic seriously and exercising personal responsibility.
The governor reminded Texans that doctors have said the goal is not to eradicate the virus but to “contain the disease, to limit its harm and to maximize the health care system’s ability to treat both COVID patients as well as other medical needs of the community.”
When it comes to further reopenings, he emphasized the state will consider all data but “rely most heavily” on hospitalizations, calling that metric the “most important information about the severity of COVID in any particular region.” It is also the “most accurate information available on a daily basis,” Abbott said.
To that end, the regions that will be allowed to further reopen must have seen coronavirus hospitalizations makes up less than 15% of all hospitalizations for seven consecutive days, according to the governor. If coronavirus hospitalizations rise above the 15% threshold for seven consecutive days in a region, a "course correction is going to be needed," Abbott said, suggesting the solution would be a reversal of the area's latest reopenings.
In addition to stores, restaurants and offices, the business that will be able to shift to 75% capacity on Monday include manufacturers, museums, libraries and gyms.
As for elective procedures, Abbott said the restoration is effective immediately. In early July, also as part of Abbott's response to the statewide surge, Abbott expanded a ban on elective surgeries to cover more than 100 counties across much of the state.
The new rules governing nursing-home visitation go into effect Sept. 24. They apply to "all nursing-home facilities, assisted-living centers, state-supported living centers and other long-term care facilities," Abbott said.
After Abbott’s news conference, the state Health and Human Services Commission detailed the new visitation rules. They allow residents to designate up to two “essential family caregivers” who will be trained and then permitted to to go inside a resident’s room for a scheduled visit. The designated caregivers do not have to socially distance from the resident, but only one is allowed to visit at a time.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/17/greg-abbott-texas-coronavirus/.
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Teacher Wonders if Students are Learning with Online School
Spend a day with Westfield High School teacher Cris Hernandez, and you'll see the frustrations and uncertainties of virtual teaching. More than four weeks into the school year, he still can't tell if he's connecting with his students.
Faceless avatars and microphone malfunctions: A Houston teacher wonders if his students are learning
"Faceless avatars and microphone malfunctions: A Houston teacher wonders if his students are learning" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Standing before a marked-up whiteboard, Cris Hernandez asked his students to explain what they learned from the day’s history reading, which offered two takes on conflict in colonial America.
Not one of the faceless avatars on the Google Hangouts grid on his computer screen responded.
Hernandez, who teaches Advanced Placement U.S. history, tried harder to coax a response from about five students. Alone in his bare Houston-area classroom in Westfield High School on Monday, he couldn’t see the furrowed brows, glazed eyes or jiggling legs that might indicate his students were confused about the reading, or just plain tired. It was the last class of the day, and getting students to participate felt like pulling teeth.
Finally, one student unmuted herself and responded: “I was just finding it hard to read in general.”
Hernandez immediately launched into advice for building reading comprehension, encouraging students to come to his office hours for more help. As the hour continued, he used examples from the students’ lives to help them understand the dense political analysis. A camera perched on spindly tripod legs broadcast Hernandez and his whiteboard notes to students’ iPads and laptops as he tried not to move too far outside its field of vision.
After the class was over, he flopped down in a chair and sighed. More than four weeks into the virtual school year, Hernandez is often frustrated by the challenge of connecting with his students, sometimes unsure whether they’re learning or even sitting at their computers.
“They really don’t get to see me move around as much. If they are seeing me in the classroom, I bounce around everywhere and I jump. I get excited when I talk about this stuff,” he said. “I could get them excited about this by my body language.”
Hernandez and his Spring Independent School District colleagues are adjusting to a new normal in education as the majority of Texas public school students begin the year learning remotely during a global pandemic. A politico-turned-educator in his third year of teaching, Hernandez usually relies on his humor and energetic personality to keep students’ attention, tools that seem out of reach when he can’t see his students’ faces and doesn’t know if they’re watching him.
In the spring, many Texas school districts struggled to abruptly pivot to remote learning, and more than 10% of students didn’t complete assignments or respond to teacher outreach for some period of time, according to state data. Educators and politicians debated how and when to reopen classrooms in person this fall as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations piled up, weighing the health risks of in-person instruction against the social and educational pitfalls of keeping students at home.
As most students begin the academic year online, Texas has ordered school districts to resume grading, taking attendance and teaching new material, to get learning back on track. That leaves teachers juggling hefty responsibilities, including advocating for stricter safety guidelines, searching for students who haven’t logged in since spring break and facing down the challenge of engaging students over a screen.
For Hernandez and his peers, the stakes of delivering a quality education are especially high. Westfield High School students are predominately Black, Hispanic and low income, communities harder hit by COVID-19 and more likely to have received little instruction last spring.
During first period Monday, one of Hernandez’s chattiest students tried to talk to him and found that her voice would not go through. “MIC NOT WORKING,” she wrote in the chat box, followed by a string of unintelligible letters showing her frustration: “JHFAKFHKFEWF.”
Hernandez had his class of 24 students split in two groups to discuss the reading, meaning they had to close the classwide Google Hangouts window and open separate windows for the small groups. He had wanted the normally chatty student to lead one of the discussions, but it would be harder with her microphone off.
Students logged into the video lesson late, some 15 or more minutes in. Some appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared, their computers likely freezing or their internet spotty. “This is an AP class, so you’re rarely going to have kids come in late, and if they do there’s a reason, like they’re stuck in band hall,” Hernandez said. “Now, I can’t tell whether they have good reason. I have to assume they all have good reason.”
A lot has changed about this year. Before going to school each morning, Hernandez fills out an online checklist of COVID-19 symptoms, self-reporting no sign of fever, cough or shortness of breath. With just staff and a few students in the buildings, the hallways are mostly empty on the walk to his classroom. Rushing to the faculty bathroom between classes, he fits a disposable blue mask over his bearded face.
In normal years, teachers gather regularly with others in their department to talk about student progress and share ideas, a highlight for many. Now, those gatherings take place over video chat, each teacher confined to their own room to avoid spreading the virus.
Technology is more important than ever before. Hernandez is one of the most creative teachers, using an online polling tool to collect students’ answers and setting up separate chat rooms for smaller discussions. His classroom setup includes one camera, an iPad, one large monitor and two computers, so he can simultaneously show his notes on the whiteboard, refer to the historical text, check attendance and monitor students’ written pleas for technical support.
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None of his students turn their cameras on and he doesn’t push them, aware they may be too embarrassed or scared to show their homes in the background. “I told them: Look, you want to be on camera? Be on camera. If not, that’s OK. But that doesn’t excuse you for not participating,” he said. “At the least, let me hear you. Let me see you in chat.”
But even this tech whiz cannot surmount all the hurdles. Due to issues with the publisher, Westfield High students don’t have access to the online history textbooks the district purchased. For now, Hernandez is using a “bootleg book” he found online that’s about four or five editions old and doesn’t even reach former President Barack Obama’s term.
In his second class Monday morning, Hernandez did not recognize a student’s name that popped up on the Google Hangouts grid. In a normal year, he would greet that new student at the door, or pull him aside and introduce himself. Now, the main options are calling the student out in front of the entire class or attempting to email him later.
“How many times have I caught these new people? I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t see them. There might be people I’ve completely lost and I haven’t said anything,” he said. “I’ve been worried.”
Last weekend, school employees went door knocking to find about 80 students enrolled last year whose parents haven’t responded to phone calls or emails. Some likely have moved or enrolled in other districts, Principal David Mason said. A few administrators have conscripted students to help them track lost kids on social media.
In two weeks, Hernandez will be required to simultaneously educate nearly half his students in person and the rest online, adding another task to the precariously tall pile he is balancing. Westfield High phased in students with disabilities first, then freshmen and sophomores next week, and juniors and seniors in two weeks. The school will limit the number of students who can come in each day in order to allow for more social distancing. About half the school’s students decided to return in person by the end of the month, similar to the percentage districtwide.
The district previously told teachers it would close schools each Wednesday to sanitize buildings. But recently, administrators said teachers would be required to come into the building Wednesdays and the district would deep clean after they leave. Teachers and students will be responsible for providing their own masks, Mason said. Students who forget to bring their masks can request one. The school has provided each teacher with a bucket of 300 wipes, a refillable bottle of hand sanitizer and six cloth masks for the year.
Research shows that children are less likely than adults to suffer severe symptoms of COVID-19, but they can transmit it to their teachers or families. Hernandez worries about whether he’ll make it through the year without getting infected and wishes he felt his administrators were doing all they could to keep staff safe.
“This is us living or dying. This is not trying to pencil whip it so you can say, ‘Hey we’ve done these things,’” he said. “If I were an administrator or higher up, I’d be trembling with the sheer weight of the responsibility you have to us as your teachers.”
On Monday morning, despite the technical difficulties and late arrivals, the class discussion appeared relatively normal: A handful of students dominated the discussion, others listened silently and presumably a few daydreamed at their desks. Hernandez took attendance by asking students to drop their names into the chat so he could gather them later.
At the end of the hour, alone in his classroom, Hernandez sent his students off with what has become a catch phrase: “Have a wonderful day, love you all, be safe. I’ll catch you Friday.”
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/17/texas-teacher-virtual-school-coronavirus-pandemic/.
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Texas Supreme Court Blocks Harris County From Mail-in Ballot Applications
The Supreme Court granted the Texas attorney general’s request to temporarily halt the county’s mailing of applications while the case is appealed. A separate order blocking the effort was set to end this week.
Texas Supreme Court again blocks Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to all voters
"Texas Supreme Court again blocks Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to all voters" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
The Texas Supreme Court has once again blocked Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to all its 2.4 million registered voters ahead of the November election.
In a Tuesday order, the Supreme Court granted the Texas attorney general’s request to halt the county’s effort just before a separate order blocking the mailing was set to expire. The all-Republican court told Harris County to hold off on sending any unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots “until further order” and while the case makes its way through the appeals process.
A state district judge had ruled Friday that the county could move forward with its plan, shooting down the state's claim that Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins was acting outside of his authority by sending out the applications. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office claimed in court that the mailing of the applications would confuse voters, quickly appealed that ruling to the state’s 14th Court of Appeals. Paxton kicked the request up to the Supreme Court after the appeals court declined his request to block the lower court's ruling and instead set an expedited schedule to consider the appeal.
The Supreme Court had previously blocked the county from mailing out ballots in line with an agreement between Harris County and the AG’s office to pause the mailings until five days after a ruling from the state district judge. That agreement was set to expire Thursday.
In a statement Tuesday, Paxton celebrated the Supreme Court's order and reiterated his claim that Hollins "knowingly chose to violate Texas election law and undermine election security" — an argument the state district court rejected. On Twitter, Hollins said his was ready to send the applications and accompanying guidance on who qualifies to vote by mail "at the conclusion of this baseless litigation."
Harris County has faced intense criticism from Texas Republicans since announcing it would mail out the applications to every registered voter, going well beyond its initiative from the July primary runoffs when it sent applications to every registered voter in the county who is 65 and older. Under Texas law, those voters automatically qualify for a ballot they can fill out at home and mail-in or drop off at their county elections office.
The legal squabble over who can receive an application for mail-in ballot is part of a broader clash over mail-in voting in Texas during the coronavirus pandemic. The state’s Republican leadership has fought off any form of expansion. Texas also allows voters to cast ballots by mail if they will be out of the county during the election period, confined in jail but otherwise eligible, or if they cite a disability, which the state defines as a physical condition or illness that makes a trip to the polls a risky endeavor.
While lack of immunity to the new coronavirus alone doesn’t qualify a voter for a mail-in ballot based on disability, a voter can consider it along with their medical history to decide if they meet the requirement.
Despite the Supreme Court’s block on sending out any unsolicited application, Harris County has already proactively sent applications for mail-in ballots to voters who are 65 and older — an initiative several other counties are now taking on ahead of the November general election.
The order in the Harris County case was the second issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday that affects mail-in voting procedures. The state's top civil court also ordered the state to add three Green Party candidates back to the ballot after a judge previously ruled them ineligible. That decision will lead to a scramble at county elections offices, which must update their overseas and military ballots by the Saturday mailing deadline and send new corrected ballots to replace any that had already been mailed.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/15/harris-county-mail-in-ballot-applications/.
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State Health Officials Walk Back Cuts to Health Services
The changes to the budget proposal come after lawmakers and advocates protested the previous plan would hurt vulnerable Texans.
Texas officials walk back $15 million proposed cuts to women’s and children's health services
"Texas officials walk back $15 million proposed cuts to women’s and children's health services" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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State health officials walked back a plan to cut $15 million in funding from health and safety net programs, including services that offer low-income Texans access to birth control and cancer screenings, and support families of young children with disabilities or developmental delays.
They are instead looking at other belt-tightening measures this year to find savings — and continuing to focus cuts on the agency’s administrative budget — under a revised proposal released Monday.
The latest proposal — part of a state-mandated budget reduction to weather the coronavirus pandemic — comes after lawmakers and advocates warned the previous plan would hurt vulnerable Texans and criticized top state officials for propelling the process without formal input from the Legislature.
The new plan says the Texas Health and Human Services Commission received “feedback” from numerous stakeholders and found “alternative savings opportunities.” The agency also has more “financial certainty” after the close of the fiscal year two weeks ago, the budget proposal said.
Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and outgoing House Speaker Dennis Bonnen asked state agencies in May to reduce their budgets by 5% as the coronavirus battered parts of the economy and left Texas with a projected deficit of $4.6 billion. Several state agencies responding to the virus and its economic fallout were exempted from the mandate, as were critical programs like child protective services and much of the health commission’s two-year budget, which includes about $29 billion in state funds.
Bonnen said a public hearing will be held to discuss the cuts, though money has already dried up for at least one program — a mobile unit for stroke patients whose director said funding was supposed to arrive Sept. 1 for the next fiscal year.
“The legislative budget board is statutorily required to hold a public hearing for the purpose of discussing interim cuts before they are finalized," the speaker said in a statement. "The House will follow the proper process and notice requirements so the public can be heard.”
Texas’ Republican leadership asked the health commission to come up with cuts worth about $133 million in state funds. Most of the commission’s proposals have focused on reducing administrative costs, shrinking its workforce and letting unspent funds lapse.
But in the initial plan, officials also suggested direct cuts to women's health and other programs, worth about 11% of the total reductions. Advocates and lawmakers feared the loss of funding could lessen oversight of child care facilities, make it more difficult to sign families up for health insurance or food benefits and reduce access for low- and middle-income women seeking contraception, postpartum treatment or checks for diabetes, breast and cervical cancer, and sexually transmitted infections.
A proposed cut of $3.8 million from women’s health programs would have left fewer Texans receiving birth control or cancer screenings, a budget document obtained by The Texas Tribune said.
State Reps. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, and Donna Howard, D-Austin, said the cuts to women’s health were not financially prudent, given the programs saved Texas an estimated $20 million in the 2019 fiscal year by averting births with contraception and family planning.
They also criticized the agency’s decision to leave intact a robustly funded program that discourages women from having abortions,and offers new parents financial counseling, social service referrals and children’s items like car seats.
State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, responding on Twitter to a Tribune report, said the health commission should “go back to the drawing board” to preserve funding for women’s health, and that it would remain at an “all-time high” as long as she chaired the powerful finance committee.
Health commission spokesperson Christine Mann did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new plan, but has said that agency is “deeply committed to ensuring budget reductions have minimal impact on the Texans we serve every day.”
“We’re equally mindful of the financial responsibility we have to Texas taxpayers as we face the economic challenges brought on by this pandemic,” she has said.
The agency’s latest plan assumes the $15 million previously cut from programs can now be almost entirely absorbed by funds left unspent at the end of each fiscal year.
Reductions to other services — like administration and regulatory oversight — could still affect low-income Texans. Shrinking the agency’s workforce that reviews applications for assistance programs could delay services and risk the state running afoul of federal guidelines that require needy Texans to be quickly enrolled, for example. A summary of the agency’s initial proposal conceded that some hiring freezes “would have a significant impact on the agency’s mission.”
In all, the agency proposed cutting about $54 million from its administrative budget, including regulatory oversight and benefits enrollment. The remaining $76 million would come from funds left unspent this fiscal year.
“This plan is not final and will evolve over time,” the new proposal says.
Stephanie Rubin, chief executive of the advocacy group Texans Care for Children, called the updated proposal a "step in the right direction," but said the administrative cuts could still have negative consequences for children and families.
“In particular, we’re concerned about proposed cuts that would create delays for kids who need to sign up for Medicaid insurance so they can see a doctor and proposed cuts that could threaten kids’ safety in child care or foster care," she said in an email. "We encourage the Governor, Lt. Governor, Speaker of the House, and other legislative leaders to take cuts for kids and families off the table for this year and next session.”
Kami Geoffray, CEO of Every Body Texas, said she was "heartened" by the revised plan but called for more transparency.
"Confusion over funding availability threatens the stability of the family planning safety... we urge HHSC to engage stakeholders early and often to ensure that the real-world impacts of policy and funding decisions are incorporated into agency analysis," said Geoffray, whose organization supports women’s health providers that contract with the state.
A Bonnen spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the format and timing of a public hearing on the cuts.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/15/texas-funding-women-health/.
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Testing Backlogs Skewed Coronavirus Data
The Texas Department of State Health Services said it will now rely on a calculation that takes into account the date on which a coronavirus test was administered, rather than when it was reported.
Texas officials change how the state reports positivity rate after testing backlogs skewed coronavirus data
"Texas officials change how the state reports positivity rate after testing backlogs skewed coronavirus data" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Texas health officials announced Monday that they are changing the way the state reports a key metric used to evaluate the extent of coronavirus infection, a move that conceded that the state’s previous method of calculating the “positivity rate” muddied the extent of viral transmission by mixing old data with new.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said it will now “primarily rely” on a new calculation of the daily positivity rate — defined as the share of tests that yield positive results — that takes into account the date on which a coronavirus test was administered. Officials said the new metric will give a more accurate representation of viral transmission in Texas on a given day.
It also means that each day’s positivity rate will be an oft-changing number, fluctuating as officials collect lab results over time. Labs and hospitals report their test results to the state with varying degrees of timeliness, and state officials will have to recalculate the positivity rates for previous days as more test results from those dates pour in.
That’s a departure from the current system, which calculates the positivity rate based on the date the health agency receives test results, which can be weeks or even months after the tests were administered.
It marks the latest in a series of data methodology changes and corrections health officials have issued over the course of the pandemic.
While touting the new reporting method as an improvement, state officials defended the old system as providing the best information that was available at the time. The new positivity rate for the most part closely resembles the old metric, particularly when viewed as a trend line over time, officials said.
Health department spokesperson Chris Van Deusen said in an email that the different positivity rates generally moved in parallel until about August, when the state reported dumps of test results. “As long as the test results and new cases were reported fairly close in time, the case reported date was working as a metric,” he said.
Asked if the health department had concerns about the accuracy of the positivity rate before August, Van Deusen said, “We have to go off of the data that we have.”
The state said it will begin releasing the positivity rate under both the new and old methods later Monday. Health officials said they will publish a third positivity rate metric, which is calculated based on when lab results were reported to a national disease surveillance system, NEDSS, which officials said would reduce reporting lag time.
In its announcement, the Texas Department of State Health Services said the new calculations for the positivity rate will provide a more accurate representation of coronavirus transmission on any given day. It said the change was made after technology improvements last month improved the department's ability to use data from labs and other testing sites. The agency said that until recently, it wasn’t able to track test results by the date they were administered.
The state can now process about 100,000 lab reports per day, officials said, compared with about 45,000 per day before August.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, so must the data we share,” Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner John Hellerstedt said in a prepared statement. “Our information must provide the clearest possible picture of what is happening now and what has occurred in the past.”
Gov. Greg Abbott has pointed to the positivity rate as one metric that guides the state’s response to the pandemic, helping policymakers calibrate the level of restrictions placed on bars and restaurants, for example. Abbott has previously said that a rate above 10% would be considered a red flag. According to the state's old calculations, the rate regularly exceeded that level in late June, after Abbott began allowing businesses to reopen in phases in early May.
The department did not immediately respond to a question about whether it agrees with the governor’s threshold.
Health experts have raised questions about the value of the old metric since it included test results from widely variable time periods, and they have pointed out the limitations of the state’s data.
“The numbers that we see from the county health departments or the state health department … they're not useless, but they are highly qualified and unreliable in terms of studying the trend,” Rajesh Nandy, associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, has said.
Coronavirus test results vastly undercount the extent of viral transmission; researchers estimate that the true number of coronavirus cases could be more than 10 times the number of positive tests. As many as half of the people who contract the virus may never experience symptoms and may not seek out testing.
Texas health officials said Monday that the positivity rate is just one of many metrics that inform disease surveillance. After a midsummer surge that overwhelmed some Texas hospitals, particularly in South Texas, the state’s number of coronavirus hospitalizations has fallen in August and September. Still, rates of viral spread and hospitalizations are higher now than they were before Abbott began the phased reopening of businesses in May. More than 14,000 Texans have died from the virus, according to the state’s accounting.
The decision to start calculating and posting the additional positivity rates began this summer, when thousands of backlogged tests were added to the health department’s reporting system, causing the positivity rate to spike, health department officials said.
Part of that logjam — some 350,000 of more than 850,000 tests — had accumulated because the state could not process enough test results each day before an Aug. 1 system upgrade. Labs have also struggled to upload their test results to the state’s system, with formatting errors and glitches as minor as an errant question mark sometimes causing monthslong delays. Local officials and lawmakers have called the data “meaningless” and “inaccurate.”
Just Sunday, San Antonio officials shared a health department email that revealed more backlogs — this time of roughly 205,000 test results from HCA Houston Healthcare, including 21,366 positive cases extending as far back as March. Baylor Scott and White and the health department’s own lab in Austin also encountered a “routing error” during the system upgrade that prevented some 140,000 test results from June to the present from being processed into NEDSS.
Van Deusen said some of the cases were reported to local health departments despite the “routing error.”
“I wish I could guarantee there would never be another IT issue that interrupts lab reports, but that’s probably not realistic,” Van Deusen said.
About 800 facilities have registered or are in the process of working with the health department to submit test results — many of them long-term care facilities, including nursing homes that are now under a federal mandate to regularly test staff for the first time, Van Deusen said. The department could not immediately provide a number for how many labs already testing Texans have been unable to upload their results into the state system so far.
The state has hired health technology company Persivia to help improve the reporting process. Another consultant, Deloitte, joined the Department of Information Resources and Abbott’s office in working with DSHS to improve “data quality and transparency,” the health department said.
State data will also start to more accurately and efficiently separate tests by county, which could eliminate a large pool of tests that have been stubbornly categorized as “pending assignment” without being tied to a specific county, health officials said.
Disclosure: The University of North Texas Health Science Center, Baylor Scott and White, and Deloitte have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/14/texas-coronavirus-positivity-rate/.
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Returning to Football
College football is starting back up with a new burden: It's the most visible evidence of the wisdom of putting Texas students back on campus.
Analysis: College football is back — as both a spectacular and a science experiment
"Analysis: College football is back — as both a spectacular and a science experiment" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Texas’ college football players won’t be the only people with butterflies in their stomachs this weekend.
They’re just the most public players in the state’s reopenings of educational institutions, a fraught statewide foray into in-person education, live arena events, and the kinds of young adult interactions that have made coronavirus hot spots of campuses and college towns across the country.
Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University were supposed to play Friday but canceled when some TCU players and staff tested positive for COVID-19. SMU played last Saturday against Texas State University, but the TCU-SMU game would have been the first involving a Big 12 school. This weekend, two Texas schools in that conference will take the field: the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech University. A third was supposed to play, but Baylor University postponed its weekend game after several Louisiana Tech players tested positive. Texas State will play again, this time against UT-San Antonio.
Returning to school is a test for the students, the schools and the state. Returning to football, with its wider audience and high visibility, raises the stakes.
Not everybody has followed the stories about COVID-19 cases at colleges in Texas and elsewhere. Search the internet for “COVID” and the name of your favorite school, and you’ll get a quick peek. For a lot of places, things are going well; either the students know what they’re doing, the schools know what they’re doing, or both.
Lots of places aren’t so lucky. The New York Times surveyed 203 counties where students make up at least 10% of the population — college towns, basically. Half of those had their worst pandemic weeks after Aug. 1.
Many schools have COVID-19 dashboards to keep everybody up to date. Here’s one at UT-Austin, where cases have jumped in the last couple of weeks. Another, at Texas A&M University, tells a similar story — that cases rise when school starts and the population swells.
Increases in coronavirus cases were expected. The question — and it’s still unanswered at this point — is whether it’s wise, on balance, to reopen in the way Texas colleges have reopened.
In the meantime, the most visible results tend to be the negative ones. And the blame tends to be aimed at students — especially when they’re off campus — and not at the administrators and others running the schools. If you put a bunch of young people together, away from home, with plenty of free time, you don’t get something you’ve never seen before — you get what you’d expect.
But the students are the reopening vanguard for the rest of us.
Some schools planned for this better than others. Some were ready to handle coronavirus outbreaks, and others are learning. For instance, schools that had been sending sick students home are now keeping them on campus, in quarantine, where they don’t take a contagious disease back to their families and their hometowns.
Students, like everyone else, are looking for ways to blow off steam, to enjoy their leisure time. At the moment, they’re shut out of bars, restaurants and other gathering places. Swimming pools and river tubing and similar adventures are off limits. As Karen Brooks Harper reported for The Texas Tribune, the responses vary. Baylor is cracking down to see that students don’t get rambunctious in ways that would spread the virus. Texas A&M has asked the surrounding community to report big off-campus parties and gatherings.
But now college football is back. It’s one of the most visible things colleges do. It’s full of built-in social distancing violations, too, with crowded arenas, tailgate parties, house parties, sports bars and all the rest.
All that is supposed to be on hold this year, or tamped down to a nonthreatening size. The players have their own risks — remember those TCU and Louisiana Tech examples. Students on the whole have had their own risks since they began drifting back to campus for the fall semester.
Now the fans will be tested, and in two ways. They’ll either behave or not; it’s just as easy to spread a virus if everybody gets together in front of a TV set as it would be at a tailgate.
Second is the test that’s of interest to people in college administration, in government and in politics: Whether it’s smart to proceed with a season of college football during this pandemic — and with a semester of students gathering on and around the campuses of the colleges that field the teams.
Disclosure: Baylor University, Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/11/texas-football-coronavirus/.
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Extra $300 Payments Will no Longer be Given to Unemployed Texans
The Federal Emergency Management Agency notified state officials Wednesday that the payments for out-of-work Texans have ended, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, which handles unemployment claims.
Unemployed Texans will no longer receive an extra $300 in weekly payments
"Unemployed Texans will no longer receive an extra $300 in weekly payments" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Texans receiving unemployment benefits who qualified for an extra $300 in weekly jobless payments issued by the Trump administration will no longer receive the additional funds after claims from last week are paid, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
The agency, which processes unemployment claims, said in a news release Wednesday afternoon it had been notified of the news by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provided the funds. Roughly 1.8 million Texans currently receive the $300 payment, according to the workforce commission.
It’s unclear whether more federal relief could be on the way for unemployed Texans. According to a report by The Washington Post on Wednesday, White House officials were considering an additional round of executive actions, including one to address unemployment benefits.
In August, President Donald Trump announced the extra weekly payments after an additional $600 weekly payment approved by Congress to help offset losses tied to the pandemic expired in July. The Trump administration said the federal government would provide $300 per week and that states could decide whether to contribute an additional $100, which Texas did not do. The state applied for federal funding roughly two weeks after the president issued his order.
Since the pandemic began in March, nearly 3.4 million Texans had applied for unemployment assistance as of Aug. 29. Texas has seen record-worst jobless rates in the months since the start of the pandemic, and the state's economy has, as the state comptroller has described multiple times, entered into a recession.
After news of the additional funding was made, the workforce commission said over 347,000 Texans receiving unemployment benefits would not qualify for the additional $300 weekly payment as of Aug. 24. A spokesperson for the agency said some people did not qualify because they did not indicate they had lost their jobs because of the pandemic when they filed for unemployment. Others did not qualify because they were receiving less than $100 in weekly unemployment benefits.
Disclosure: The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/09/300-unemployment-texas/.
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Kingsville Community Radio Promotes Local Musicians and Small Businesses
The audio stream is hosted remotely through Live365.com and if one simply types “Kingsville” in the search box, the station page and player will pop right up.
By The Novel Blend, Sept. 9, 2020
The Novel Blend bookstore located in the heart of historic downtown Kingsville opened for business in June of 2019 and was steadily increasing its local customer base through in-store events such as poetry readings, weekly open mic nights, wine and painting sessions, and author events.
Just like all businesses nationwide, at the end of this past March, things went drastically wrong. Upon reopening after the two-month quarantine, owners Tom and Jill DiFrancesca found themselves operating a small business with very few customers and sadly no longer able to host weekly and monthly events. “We had to think of something that would help draw customers back to the store and for us to stay connected to them,” Tom DiFrancesca said. “We also wanted to continue to help local musicians be heard and since we could no longer host our popular weekly open mic nights, it just seemed like building an Internet radio station was the answer.”
The small studio for Kingsville Community Radio is located inside The Novel Blend bookstore located at 311 E. Kleberg Ave. The audio stream is hosted remotely through Live365.com and if one simply types “Kingsville” in the search box, the station page and player will pop right up. The station did a soft launch in late June. The Novel Blend covers the cost of stream hosting and music royalty payments. “Over the past few months we’ve started including about a dozen local musicians and bands in our daily programming and then every evening at 7 pm we feature them in the Coastal Bend Music Showcase where they receive an additional opportunity to be heard,” DiFrancesca said. “We’ve got artists from Kingsville, Corpus Christi, Portland, Rockport, Sinton, and even Victoria.”
Just last week Kingsville Community Radio started airing free advertising spots for dozens of locally owned downtown small businesses and plans to expand that mission to all small businesses in the area as well as for local non-profit organizations and sites of interest in the Kingsville area. “We just want to help this community thrive any way we can, we’ll never charge for advertising if it’s a locally owned small business and there’s no charge to the musicians either,” DiFrancesca said. “The Internet radio station is strictly not-for-profit.”
Source: The Novel Blend
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Texas is Revising its Sex Education Standards
The State Board of Education is taking up the first revision of sex ed curriculum in more than 20 years. LGBTQ students say they're being excluded again.
Texas is revising its sex education standards, but they'll likely remain silent on LGBTQ issues
"Texas is revising its sex education standards, but they'll likely remain silent on LGBTQ issues" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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By the age of 16, Atticus Sandlin has become a sex education expert.
As a student at Hebron High School in Lewisville Independent School District, in the suburbs of Dallas, he built what he calls a "sex ed mini career," educating himself through internet research, conferences and advocacy groups — then turning around and educating his peers.
Last school year, he says, students would find him in the halls to ask questions like, "What is a hymen?" or "Does this count as sex?" He handed out condoms, pamphlets and dental dams to anyone who asked, and highlighted the importance of respecting other people's boundaries. He even taught sexual education classes specifically for LGBTQ students through Youth First, a program in North Texas for queer teens.
Texas does not require public schools to teach LGBTQ issues in sex education, an omission that frustrates Sandlin, who is bisexual and a transgender boy. "There are some queer people who don't do their own research, and they don't get information from school or any resources," said Sandlin, now a high school junior at public iSchool Virtual Academy of Texas. "It's important that they get that information even when they don't have access to it or it's not safe for them to get access anywhere else."
This week, the Texas State Board of Education, which determines what millions of public school students learn, is expected to approve new standards outlining how schools should teach health and sexual education — the first revisions to that statewide policy since 1997. At an initial public hearing this June, many students, teachers and advocates asked the board to require that students learn about sexual orientation and gender identity, especially since LGBTQ students are more likely to be discriminated against and bullied.
One study conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law estimates that as many as 158,500 LGBT youth live in Texas, about 2% of the state's youth population.
But the final proposal, set for debate and a preliminary vote this week with final approval expected in November, still excludes any direct mention of LGBTQ issues.
Over the last several years, Texas Republican leaders have targeted LGBTQ rights and protections. In 2017, they unsuccessfully pushed a policy preventing transgender people from using public bathrooms that match their gender identity, and last year they encouraged an investigation into whether a mother supporting her child's gender transition was committing "child abuse."
At its June hearing on the new policy, the 15-member elected education board — 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats — split down partisan lines, with Democrats pushing for explicit inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity and Republicans largely opposed.
"There likely will not be consensus on this," said Keven Ellis, a Lufkin Republican, who chairs the board, at the June meeting. He told The Texas Tribune in an e-mail that he supported teaching about "different types of bullying, including bullying for sexual reasons."
All Texas public schools must offer health education for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, but health education is optional in high school. The board is considering requiring all seventh and eighth grade health teachers to include lessons about contraceptive methods for the first time, now only a requirement in high school health.
Schools are not required to teach sexual education, but those that do must stress abstinence as the preferred choice for unmarried young people and spend more time on it than any other sexual behavior. Parents can opt their children out of any lesson they want.
Dee Lepine, a 17-year-old senior at Timber Creek High School in Keller ISD, remembers eighth grade health teachers showing students pictures of people with sexually transmitted diseases and telling them not to have sex. That was the last health class Lepine, who is nonbinary and uses gender-neutral pronouns, took. There was no mention in the class of sexual orientation or gender identity.
"I think just knowing that having attractions when you're a teenager is normal and you shouldn't scare kids with scary images," Lepine said. "It's really important that they don't feel like, you know, a freak, because everyone deals with it."
Lepine remembers learning the details of sex education from the media and friends, who were similarly uneducated and confused.
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Sandlin can clearly remember one of the most uncomfortable assignments he received in a public school sexual education class. Each eighth grade student was given a cup with liquid and told to pour it back and forth among other students' cups.
"At the end of it, they put drops in all of our cups. If your cup turned purple, you had a [sexually transmitted infection]," said Sandlin. "I just remember it being awkward. I was like, are they really trying to get us to simulate sex?"
And most important, the educator at the front of the classroom didn't include very many lessons that would apply to LGBTQ teens. Sandlin sat in the class with a few friends taking notice of the gaps in the lessons, like the statement that all sex risks pregnancy, which is untrue for many queer people.
In high school, whenever Sandlin realized a class had a substitute teacher, he would run to the front of the room to explain his chosen name and pronouns, which differ from the name and gender he was given at birth. Some teachers made a point of ignoring his requests — an indication, he believes, that comprehensive health education classes would be just as useful for those outside of the queer community.
"Pretty much every queer person I know has experienced some level of bullying or just plain ignorance," he said. "One time, I had a teacher straight up say, 'I'm not going to call you that.'" As he's gotten more confident, Sandlin has reported such incidents to counselors, but said it's scary to go up against a teacher.
The State Board of Education debated the importance of adding gender identity and sexual orientation into the standards in June, and a few Republicans suggested strengthening the lessons around bullying, making it clear that students know that they should respect everyone. But they largely opposed making direct references to LGBTQ students.
"If we start delineating things, we need to go back and make sure we include everybody else," said Ken Mercer, a San Antonio Republican on the board.
"If we can save a life because we include this and we allow these students to find that there is no shame in their gender identity, isn't it worth it to you? It's worth it to me," said Ruben Cortez, a Brownsville Democrat on the board. "Hearing and knowing of teens that have [killed themselves] ... because of some of the things they deal with, if we in Texas have the opportunity to correct some of this and save one life, I think it's worth it."
Georgina Pérez, an El Paso Democrat on the board, said including LGBTQ students in the health standards would parallel work the board has already done creating standards for Mexican American and African American studies courses over the last couple of years. "LGBTQI is an identity, an identity that's not reflected in any of our curriculum," she said.
"Racism is a lot bigger problem than the sexual thing as far as people being picked on for different things," responded Pat Hardy, a Fort Worth Republican on the board.
The state sets minimum standards for what should be taught, but districts are allowed to include additional topics they feel would benefit their students. Some districts, including Austin ISD and Fort Worth ISD, have adjusted their own health and sex education policies to include lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Conservative groups such as Texas Values have headed the fight against these policies, considering them pro-LGBT "indoctrination" and urging parents to opt their children out of sexuality courses. Left-leaning advocacy groups such as Texas Freedom Network, Planned Parenthood and the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy have pushed in the other direction.
Sock Trimarco, who is "queer in most senses of the word" and uses gender-neutral pronouns, has taken sex ed workshops through Planned Parenthood after learning abstinence-only sex education in the online public school Texas Connections Academy.
The 17-year-old shies away from coming out as transgender and nonbinary in school or out in the world, worried about people "pushing back or being upset" or even resorting to violence. "I have to think in my head and say, 'Should I introduce myself as my deadname, or should I introduce myself as my name?'" Trimarco said, referring to their previous name.
Sex education that includes LGBTQ students benefits everyone, they said. "To teach people not only that it's OK to be you, but it's also OK for other people to be queer."
Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network and Planned Parenthood have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/08/texas-state-board-education-sex-ed/.
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Federal Judge may Hold Texas Responsible for not Meeting Foster Care Reforms
Federal Judge Janis Jack hammered state child welfare officials during a two-day hearing over what she called failures to improve Texas' foster care system.
Federal judge says she will again hold Texas in contempt of court for failing to meet foster care reforms
"Federal judge says she will again hold Texas in contempt of court for failing to meet foster care reforms" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
U.S. District Judge Janis Jack said Friday she will once again hold Texas health and human services officials in contempt of court, a punishment that may come with hefty fines, for failing to make progress toward foster care reforms she ordered to be implemented last year.
Jack indicated she would give the state about a month to make improvements before deciding whether to assess fines of up to several thousand dollars per day.
If finalized, the contempt finding would mark the second time in 10 months that Jack has punished state officials for being out of compliance with her demands, which are the culmination of a decade-long class-action lawsuit that brought the state under federal court supervision. Her announcement followed a two-day hearing, held by video conference, in which she frequently chided some of Texas’ top child welfare bureaucrats.
At times, she interrupted Paul Yetter, the Houston-based attorney representing more than 10,000 long-term foster children in Texas, to emphatically agree with his assertions that the foster care system “continues to hurt and endanger children.”
“I actually am stunned by the noncompliance of the state,” Jack said, “but I keep being stunned every time we have one of these hearings.”
The hearing focused on more than a dozen of Jack’s orders, which required state officials to beef up oversight of residential facilities that house kids, improve the timeliness of state investigations into abuse and neglect in foster homes and build software to alert caregivers and caseworkers about instances of child-on-child sexual aggression. Jack also urged state officials at the hearing to improve communication between two separate state agencies: one that oversees children in foster care, and one that licenses homes and facilities that house large numbers of foster children.
Throughout the hearing, Jack echoed concerns raised by two-court appointed monitors in a 363-page report released in June that detailed “substantial threats to children’s safety,” particularly in large, privately-run foster homes.
“The State’s oversight of children’s placements is in numerous instances lethargic and ineffective,” the monitors wrote. “Operations with long, troubled histories of standards violations and child abuse allegations remain open and are permitted to care for vulnerable children, some of whom are then hurt. The prevalence of physical restraints and injuries to children in some facilities is simply shocking, as are the numerous instances where DFPS staff document that the agency does not know where children are placed.”
Jack said she agreed with the monitors’ findings and accused state officials of dragging their feet on making meaningful changes. In particular, she took issue with Jean Shaw, the associate commissioner for child care regulation at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, for not coming down harder on residential operations with long histories of regulatory violations.
Texas foster care officials testified Thursday that they had recently stopped placing children in one facility where monitors identified problems. A Texas Department of Family and Protective Services official testified that the agency was terminating its contract this week with Prairie Harbor, a Houston-area residential treatment center where a teen died in February from a pulmonary embolism associated with a blood clot in her leg.
The home has yet to have its license pulled, though state officials indicated that was a possibility.
Jack berated Shaw for allowing the home to remain open for months after the teen’s death and for recently approving a variance that allowed the home to marginally reduce the number of staff supervising children. Shaw said the agency had approved the variance at Prairie Harbor, and similar variances at other foster facilities, because of private operators’ difficulties fully staffing during the coronavirus pandemic.
At one point, Jack told Shaw, “I don’t think you’re thinking at all.” At another, Yetter asked Shaw if she realized that granting the variance had placed children at Prairie Harbor at risk.
“I don’t realize that,” Shaw said.
Jack cut her off. “That’s the problem, Mr. Yetter,” the judge said, addressing the children’s attorney. “That’s the problem.”
In a statement after the hearing, Katie Olse, the chief executive of the trade group Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services, which represents foster home administrators, said that “Texas’ children must be at the center of this process” and that private groups have been “heroically serving children coming from terrible circumstances.”
“The community-based organizations serving these children take problems in Texas’ foster care system very seriously, and this legal process has no doubt brought attention to specific issues that need to be addressed,” Olse said. “It’s clear that better alignment between state agencies would improve care for vulnerable children. We also need to be sure that all available resources are flowing to help the young people who need them.”
During the two-day hearing, state officials described their efforts as a work in progress and resisted the sweeping terms Jack used to criticize the system they oversee. But given the opportunity, they declined to name any perceived inaccuracies in the court-appointed monitors’ report, which detailed 11 recent child deaths.
At one point, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Jaime Masters told the judge, “Your Honor, I’m concerned by what I’m hearing as well.”
In a recent legal filing, lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, which is defending child welfare officials in the case, wrote that they had “taken tremendous strides” to comply with Jack’s order. The arguments made by the children’s attorneys, they wrote, paint “an incomplete picture” of the state’s efforts.
In November 2019, Jack held the state in contempt of court after a similarly fiery hearing for failing to comply with her orders, at the time focusing on a requirement that large foster homes have 24-hour, awake supervision. Based on initial information from the monitors, she said then she no longer found the state’s child welfare agency “to be credible in any way.”
She fined the state $150,000 at the time.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/04/texas-foster-care-lawsuit-judge-hearing-contempt/.
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Military will not be the First Group to Receive the Coronavirus Vaccine
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has developed a plan to develop a coronavirus vaccine at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
By Menda Eulenfeld, Sept. 4, 2020
An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has developed a framework for implementing a plan to develop a coronavirus vaccine at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
According to an article by Military.com a four tier plan for the vaccine has been recommended. In the plan, the military will not be selected as the first group to receive the vaccine. “…the military has had 38,424 cases of the coronavirus and seven service members have died. About 575 people have been hospitalized and 23,011 have recovered, according to Pentagon data.”
Tier 1: The highest priority target groups who serve important societal needs (e.g., health care providers, emergency services personnel, pandemic vaccine and antiviral drug manufacturers) and vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and infants;
Tier 2: Groups critical to national security (e.g., National Guard, intelligence services), critical community support personnel (e.g., pharmacists), other critical infrastructure (e.g., just-in-time utility services), high-risk children aged 3–18 years old, and household contacts of infants <6 months old;
Tier 3: Other critical infrastructure groups (e.g., those that maintain transportation, financial infrastructure), other health care, critical government personnel, and children aged 3–18 years without a high-risk condition;
Tier 4: Adults aged 19–64 years with high-risk conditions and adults aged >65 years;
Tier 5: Healthy adults aged 19–64 years not included in other groups.
Source: The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine
Millions of Texans Could be Shielded From Evictions
A previous federal order, which only protected renters in federally backed housing, expired in July.
Millions of Texans could be shielded from evictions under new Trump administration order
"Millions of Texans could be shielded from evictions under new Trump administration order" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
The federal government announced a nationwide eviction moratorium Tuesday that is designed to protect renters from losing their homes until the end of the year. The order could keep millions of Texans from being evicted.
Housing advocates had been calling for such broad protections since the start of the pandemic. A previous measure, which expired in July, only stopped evictions in homes that were backed by federal loans.
The new order, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and set to be published Friday, says that COVID-19 is a “historic threat to public health” and that eviction moratoriums can facilitate quarantining.
“I want to make it unmistakably clear that I’m protecting people from evictions,” President Donald Trump said in a White House press release.
In Texas, advocates for renters applauded the order but said more protections are needed, and representatives for landlords expressed concern about its potential impact on their businesses.
Rent, typically one of the largest items in any household’s budget, has become one of the top worries of Texans who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19. According to a survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, 39% of renters in Texas weren’t certain they could pay their rent in August. Most eviction moratoriums enacted during the pandemic’s initial blow to the economy have expired.
A provision included in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act expired in late July. But that measure only delayed evictions for tenants in federally backed housing. The new order from the CDC is more extensive, protecting most renters who expect to earn no more than $99,000 in annual income in 2020, or $198,000 if filing a joint return.
“The prior moratorium that Congress adopted only covered tenants in certain federally backed properties. Less than half of renters were covered by the prior protection,” said Heather K. Way, director of the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic at the University of Texas Austin. “This order covers all renters that meet an additional criteria. There are no limits in terms of the type of housing.”
Tenants will have to provide declarations to their landlords stating that they meet all the requirements in the order, including that they fall within the income limit and that they tried to get any available government assistance for rent or housing. They will also have to state that they have been unable to pay rent due to loss of income, work or health expenses, and that they might be at risk of homelessness or doubling up if they are evicted.
Finally, renters will have to state that they are using their “best efforts” to pay rent on time. Tenants can face criminal charges for false statements in their documents.
“This applies to most tenants. They should begin communication with their landlords to enjoy their protections under this order,” said Zoe Middleton, Southeast Texas director of the advocacy organization Texas Housers. Middleton added that it is important to know that this order is not automatic and that it doesn’t allow people to stop paying rent.
There are no statewide numbers on evictions, but data from The Eviction Lab, a research center based at Princeton University, shows that they have increased in cities like Houston and Fort Worth since local and national moratoriums ended. An exception is Austin, where justices of peace have agreed to not hear these kinds of cases. Yet evictions remain below pre-pandemic levels despite the fact that 3.3 million Texans have applied for unemployment. Researchers said that the stimulus checks, unemployment benefits and rent assistance programs have helped.
Housing advocates also warned that more action is needed, including rent relief.
“This action delays but does not prevent evictions. Congress and the White House must get back to work on negotiations to enact a COVID-19 relief bill with at least $100 billion in emergency rental assistance,” Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told The Washington Post.
Both legal experts and landlord representatives also stated other concerns about the new order.
“There’s a lot of subjective criteria that could be used against renters that are trying to utilize this order,” Way said. “For example, they have to show they used their best efforts to get any rental assistance that is available, but what does that mean?”
David Mintz, vice president of government affairs for the Texas Apartment Association, said that the organization is still analyzing the order and that evictions are always a last resort.
“How all the details work out and what it means in real life is something that we are going to have to see,” Mintz said.
Mintz added that it is yet to be seen the impact the order will have on landlords, especially owners with fewer properties, who are “already working on smaller margins” and “still have to pay their bills, their employees, their taxes.”
“The real focus needs to be on making sure we have robust rental assistance programs for renters in need,” Mintz said.
Disclosure: David Mintz and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/01/evictions-trump-order/.
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Texas Students are Being Left out of Virtual Learning
In South Texas, students share computers, phones and spotty internet with siblings.
As the school year begins online, thousands of Texas students are being left out of virtual learning
"As the school year begins online, thousands of Texas students are being left out of virtual learning" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Texas schools struggled this spring to abruptly shift from teaching students in classrooms to reaching them at home. Many students fell behind in the makeshift remote learning systems cobbled together when the pandemic hit.
Education officials vowed to do a better job come fall.
But as the new academic year ramps up, a patchwork system will still leave many students across Texas struggling to get an education. Some will be sharing computers with three or four siblings, their districts unable to muster more than one laptop per family. Others live in rural areas beyond the reach of broadband internet. Thousands of laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots remain on back order, and the state still hasn’t finished building out the system of virtual courses it is offering school districts.
Meanwhile, Texas has ordered school districts to resume grading students, taking attendance and teaching new material, pushing them to get academics as close to normal as possible after a chaotic, unfocused spring. The state standardized test is set to resume this academic year, along with ratings for schools and districts, though elementary and middle school students who fail the tests can still advance to the next grade.
Many superintendents are already begging the state not to think of this as a normal year. After all, the pandemic continues to ravage some communities and threatens to cycle back through others. They know that as the virus disproportionately sickens and kills Hispanic and Black Texans, the pandemic also may result in more students from those communities getting a lower-quality education online.
“Their parents want their children to learn. Whose fault is it that their home is located where the infrastructure [for internet access] is not there?” said Jeannie Meza-Chavez, superintendent of San Elizario Independent School District, a majority-Hispanic district where 65% of students have opted to stay online.
Outside of El Paso, a stone’s throw from the border with Mexico, many San Elizario families complained that the hotspots their district provided worked only sporadically. It’s common for the signal to be stronger on Mexico’s side of the border, and families struggle to find internet service providers who can reach them.
“They ended the year at a disadvantage. Instead of more money thrown into assessment, throw it into the area where you can fix the infrastructure for rural districts,” Meza-Chavez said.
The problem is not limited to rural districts: Experts say hotspots used to bridge the digital divide in southern Dallas are a short-term solution, with demand far exceeding availability and the price of monthly internet above what many residents can afford, The Dallas Morning News reported.
In the Rio Grande Valley, Blanca Alcaráz didn’t think internet access was a necessity for her family before March. She had a phone with a data plan, and her children spent most of their time in and around Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD anyway, where Alcaráz volunteered often.
Now, with her four children learning from home indefinitely, she can’t imagine going without the service. She bit the bullet and decided to pay Spectrum about $55 per month, which her one-income household can barely afford.
“If the price starts going up any further, I’ll have to cancel it,” she told The Texas Tribune in Spanish.
Community leaders in the Rio Grande Valley, where COVID-19 has filled morgues and hospitals, are rallying for high-speed internet in the region’s colonias, stretches of land along the border with Mexico that may lack services such as drinking water or sewage lines.
Alcaráz lives in Loma Linda, among broad swaths of Texas where a significant percentage of families do not have access to broadband. She knows other families, living farther from services such as phone lines, who may struggle to find an internet provider to cover them; federal data shows about 44% of households in the school district boundaries don’t have broadband subscriptions.
She applied for laptops from the district but isn’t sure how many she will receive, and the district has predicted they won’t arrive for weeks. When school starts Sept. 8, Alcaráz’s children may still be waiting for their laptops to arrive and sharing phones to complete assignments, while other students have had high-speed internet and personal laptops for years.
Texas did make improvements throughout the pandemic, with more school districts prioritizing direct contact between teachers and students and providing more educator training. The state is offering districts free access to a virtual learning system and contributing hundreds of millions through federal stimulus money to subsidize bulk orders of computers, hotspots and iPads for school districts. The state’s “Operation Connectivity” program, as of mid-August, has ordered 756,000 devices and 310,000 hotspots for more than half of Texas’ school districts.
But with supplier backlogs across the country, some may take as many as 14 more weeks to arrive, according to a mid-August estimate from the Texas Education Agency.
Last Tuesday, Killeen ISD Superintendent John Craft announced at a virtual school board meeting that he would need to open classrooms for in-person instruction a week earlier than planned. The Central Texas district was not reaching up to 7,000 students through virtual education, and a shipment of 16,000 iPads, processed through the state, possibly would not arrive until October. State guidance only allows schools to keep classrooms fully closed if all students have access to online education.
“We felt we had an adequate number of devices and hotspots. … Once we started distributing the devices, it became clear everybody needed one,” Craft told the school board and community members tuning in on their phones and computers. “In hindsight, could we have tried to problem-solve ahead of time? We did. Or we tried to.”
South Texas’ Mercedes ISD has distributed hundreds of Chromebooks and hotspots, some paid for with state help, but still can only afford to issue one per family — even for families with four or five children, according to Superintendent Carolyn Mendiola. About 70% of students want to continue learning online; the district is almost entirely Hispanic and low income.
“We know it’s gonna put a burden on some of these families, but at this point, with our finances, that’s what we’re able to purchase,” Mendiola said.
In Brazosport ISD, in the curve of the Gulf Coast, every student has had a school-issued laptop for about five years, from the smallest pre-K student to the oldest high schooler. Last spring, when school leaders closed classrooms, they had “plenty of Chromebooks” to check out to elementary school students, as well as 800 hotspots for those who needed internet access at home, said Superintendent Danny Massey. The district even ordered extra Chromebooks and hotspots that were subsidized through the state.
Even so, he worries about the 35% of students who have opted for online education in the first grading period, many in schools with more low-income students. “Remote learning is just going to increase the equity gap. The economically disadvantaged students are staying at home, which I know is not the best quality of education, despite the best efforts of our kids,” he said. “We’re just going to see that equity gap grow throughout the pandemic.”
While most Texas districts didn’t require teachers to deliver live virtual lessons to students last year, more are attempting that type of instruction this year, by having teachers broadcast their classroom lessons to kids sitting at home. Others are using a combination of prerecorded videos, self-guided assignments and paper packets to reach students learning remotely.
Texas was one of the states awarded a federal grant, almost $20 million, to train hundreds of thousands of teachers and build out new virtual courses for students in pre-K through 12th grade. But the grant came too late to set up the system by the start of the school year.
“We have shared with our superintendents [that the courses] are not going to be fully ready for this fall,” Lily Laux, TEA deputy commissioner of school programs, told The Washington Post this summer. “But we do hope to be caught up by Christmas.”
Alcaráz is hopeful that with Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD’s support, she will learn how to help her four children complete their lessons while their father is away working at an oil refinery during the week. In March, she missed the school district’s orientation for remote learning, unable to get connected to the virtual meeting.
Now, she has broadband and a single tablet, in addition to her older son’s cellphone, a massive improvement. She worries about her 7-year-old daughter, who is too shy to interact with her teachers across a screen. She also worries about her 16-year-old son, whom she fears is depressed, with too much time spent in front of a screen and without his friends.
She arranged space in her home where her children can dedicate themselves to learning without getting distracted. “Everything has been very, very different since the pandemic arrived,” she said in Spanish. “We weren’t prepared.”
Emma Platoff contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/01/texas-schools-reopening-virtual-learning/.
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Investigation into Fort Hood
The Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus reupped its request on Friday for a congressional investigation into Fort Hood, the Killeen military base.
Photo by U.S. Army - Sgt. Elder Fernandes, 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Sustainment Brigade
The Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus wants an investigation into Fort Hood. At least nine soldiers stationed there have been found dead this year.
"The Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus wants an investigation into Fort Hood. At least nine soldiers stationed there have been found dead this year." was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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A dozen Texas Senate members are reupping their request for a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood military base after a soldier was found dead earlier this week, becoming at least the ninth person stationed at the Killeen post to have been found dead this year, according to officials and media reports.
The body of Sgt. Elder Fernandes was found Tuesday in Temple, about 30 miles from the base, roughly a week after he was reported missing. Temple law enforcement officials said foul play was not suspected.
In May, Fernandes reported he had been a victim of sexual assault. Army officials said Wednesday that an investigation determined the inquiry was unsubstantiated and that Fernandes was made aware of the results, according to The Washington Post. But an attorney for the Fernandes family said Thursday that Fernandes, who was transferred to a new unit after reporting his assault, was harassed and bullied over it before his death.
Earlier this summer, the remains of 20-year-old Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, who had reportedly told her family that she was harassed on base, were found in Bell County after the soldier had been missing since April. The circumstances surrounding Guillén's death sparked protests across major cities in Texas, with demonstrators calling on the military to reform its investigations into sexual assault allegations.
After her remains were found, the U.S. Department of Justice said the main suspect in Guillén's death, fellow Fort Hood soldier Aaron Robinson, killed himself when confronted by police.
In July, after Guillén's remains were found, the Army called on an independent panel to review the base's command climate. But in a letter Friday, the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus said that the review did not include an examination of the base's policies and processes with sexual assault or harassment cases, as well as soldier deaths or disappearances. The caucus sent the letter to Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, Gov. Greg Abbott, members of Texas' congressional delegation and Scott Mras, legislative liaison to McCarthy.
"While we acknowledge the U.S. Army is taking steps to examine the base, these reviews are still led and conducted by the U.S. Army itself," the caucus wrote. "Anything other than a thorough transparent investigation into the processes, discipline, and the United States Army’s handling of the matters in their aftermath would be a disservice to the [Guillén], Morales, Morta and now Fernandes families."
Other lawmakers and elected officials have recently called for changes to the base. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for example, wrote a letter to McCarty this week before Fernandes' body was found saying that changes were needed to "better safeguard the soldiers stationed there."
When reached for comment later Friday, a spokesperson for the Army told The Texas Tribune via email that, as with all correspondence involving elected officials, the department "will respond directly to the authors of the letter." The email also cited the July 30 announcement of an independent review of the military base.
A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/28/Texas-Hispanic-Caucus-Fort-Hood/.
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Special Education Students Lost Help During Lockdown
Ten percent of Texas public school students need special education resources, and many were left stranded when schools closed abruptly in the spring.
Special education students lost crucial help when
the pandemic hit. Texas schools are still struggling to
restore it.
By Stacy Fernández, August 28, 2020
Since March, Melissa and her husband have gutted their savings, spending more than $5,000 caring for their three children. Most of the money has gone to child care and speech therapy for their daughter Nora. Two weeks ago, the couple put their house up for sale.
Five-year-old Nora is on the autism spectrum and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, her mother says. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Nora attended school full time in the Katy Independent School District and had access to a suite of behavioral therapists, speech therapists and special education teachers. But that resource lifeline has been cut for nearly six months, and her parents have only been able to afford select specialists since.
She’s at an age when special education intervention and socializing with other kids are crucial. Without them, she could lose out on building key skills — like learning how to intuitively communicate with others — that she may never pick back up. It only takes two weeks without school for Nora to regress. Since schools closed, Melissa has noticed it’s harder for her daughter to pick up on social cues, like when someone speaks to her and it doesn’t click that she has to respond.
“She’s starting to become more self-aware of other kids not liking her, so she’s not even willing to practice those skills anymore, so that’s a little heartbreaking,” said Melissa, who asked the the family’s last name not be used to protect their privacy. “I don’t know if she’ll become more reclusive because of that or if she’ll be able to pick that back up.”
Nearly 10% of Texas public school students — about half a million — receive special education services through their schools, which offer help with a wide range of behavioral, emotional and physical challenges.
When schools shuttered in the spring, many families were left to manage their children’s learning and seek out special services, like therapy, on their own. Educators, many new to remote teaching themselves, struggled to adapt students’ individual learning plans to a virtual world.
For students with more intensive needs, both cognitive and physical, being at home without access to the many professionals they work with is an “incredible burden to put on parents,” said Lindsay Jones, chief executive officer of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Families don’t have the training to provide the support their children need, she said. Districts need to provide ways to get parents those services online and in “unique and creative ways.”
The online classes offered during the initial months of the pandemic largely did not serve the needs of students with disabilities, parents and educators say. Some classes were prerecorded, and curriculum was more text- and reading-heavy than traditional schooling, putting students who struggle with reading at a disadvantage. Special education students were often left stranded in front of screens. Experts say it’s important to get special education students who have trouble with online learning adapted resources, and some need to be back in classrooms.
As the new school year begins, districts are pushing to do that as quickly as possible, knowing that valuable ground is lost as time slips away.
Pandemic-era school this fall will almost surely be better executed than in the spring, educators say, but with many school buildings still closed, some parents aren’t confident that the education offered to their children will be enough. Some students will struggle to recoup lost progress and move forward in their learning, which could have long-lasting effects.
The health risks of in-person learning for students who may already have physical vulnerabilities has left may families torn. Some would prefer that their children continue learning virtually. Other parents are pushing to reopen in-person classrooms, fearing that without them, their kids will stagnate and regress, cut off from access to crucial resources.
Nora’s teachers from the Katy school district are doing the best they can, her mother said. They’ve uploaded videos on YouTube, created new lesson plans for online learning and checked in on the family via phone and text, though much of that hasn’t been done since early May. What Melissa really wants is for Nora to go back to school.
“The [skills] I worry about the most are probably her socialization because I don’t want her to be lonely in life, where if she sucks at math I can live with that,” Melissa said.
Katy ISD has a reputation as a district with the bandwidth, expertise and resources for children with disabilities. But even a district lauded as a hub for special education is struggling.
Maria Corrales DiPetta, a Katy ISD spokesperson, said in an email that the district will continue providing students the services outlined in their individualized education plans. If accommodations need to be made for distance learning, a meeting will be convened to review options with the student’s parent and support committee.
Some families in the district have been critical of how it is approaching reopening. The district’s local health authority has mandated that schools remain closed to in-person learning until Harris County drops below Red Alert level 1, which means the county needs to average 400 or fewer new cases of COVID-19 over a 14-day period, among other factors, according to county reopening guidelines.
In a letter signed last week by the superintendents of 10 school districts, including Kenneth Gregorski of Katy ISD, school leaders called the threshold for reopening schools “not attainable” and said they cannot support “your recommendation that would essentially require indefinite closure.”
“We must come to grips with the fact that in order to learn and grow, students must be healthy and safe. That means not setting arbitrary dates for reopening schools that provide false hope, dates this virus does not recognize or respect. Instead, our focus should be on thresholds and on developing measured reopening plans,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a written statement.
Earlier this month, the Texas Education Agency released suggested guidelines for schools to consider students with special needs in their reopening plans and virtual learning strategies. The agency suggested access to assistive technology — things like audiobooks, alternative keyboards and screen readers — and spacing out classrooms with mobility needs, like wheelchairs, in mind. The agency also asked schools to consider on-campus, remote, hybrid and intermittent closure models.
On the ground, Texas schools are trying to figure out how to adjust their special education programs and improve on last spring’s makeshift efforts.
Premont Independent School District in south Texas will open its doors to students with disabilities in late August, weeks before welcoming back general education students in person. North East Independent School District in San Antonio is using Google Classroom, which has built-in accessibility tools like audio for students with hearing impairments and those who have trouble with reading. In other districts, some teachers are moving classes outdoors to make physical contact with students safer.
But some parents can’t wait any longer for public schools to work out solutions. A few weeks ago, 14-year-old Katie, whose disabilities include Asperger’s, obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder, started school at a residential mental health treatment center in San Marcos instead of her school in the Keller Independent School District, said her father, Chuck Lee.
Katie’s parents were advised to send her to the care center for up to three months after she tried to hurt herself, an act her parents believe resulted in part from the stress of the pandemic.
For months, Katie moved between her mother’s house and her father’s. The routine for online school was the same in both homes. Katie would sit and stare at the screen. Click. Click. “Type some stuff,” and that was it, her father said. None of the services she was used to, like face-to-face counseling, could be offered through a laptop. Social reinforcement couldn’t be done through a screen.
“The specialized support she gets to help her with her academics, it’s gone from teacher’s aides and special education specialists and the teachers conforming to her [individualized learning program] to just her mother and I and the laptop,” Lee said.
Under federal law, students with disabilities are entitled to a free education that helps them make progress academically and socially.
A hallmark of special education is the individualized education plan put together for each child by a team that often includes parents, teachers and specialists. Some students may need extra time or additional resources, like word banks and calculators, during tests. Others may need full-time aides or physical therapy.
It’s generally understood that the current health crisis presents limitations, but “there’s no exception for a pandemic,” said Dustin Rynders, supervising attorney at Disability Rights Texas.
Katie’s stay at the center is temporary, but as long as she’s there, Lee has more confidence that she’ll get the education she needs.
“It took our daughter a long time to understand that it wasn’t punitive, it wasn’t punishment, she wasn’t being sent away to ‘the bad kid’s place.’ But we just couldn’t get the resources and services that she needed. It’s our hope that … there’s some semblance of normalcy when she comes back,” Lee said.
In some districts, students with disabilities that affect their reading or math comprehension are now spending most of their school days in virtual classes with their general education peers and teachers who may not be know how to make the classes accessible for them, said Jones, of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
It’s possible that students will be sitting at home staring at their computers unable to do work because they can’t understand the lessons without the teachers turning on accessibility tools, which many general education teachers are unfamiliar with using, Jones said.
Ten-year-old Max had his first day of virtual fifth grade in mid-August. Aside from a hiccup in the morning with logging into Google Classroom, virtual learning went smoothly. There were audio options for Max, who has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, general education and special education classes for reading and math were staggered throughout his day — but his usual hourlong extra help sessions were cut to just 30 minutes.
Halley Justus, Max’s mom, will tentatively let her son continue in the North East ISD school during the initial three-week remote-learning period. If she sees improvements in his learning, she’ll likely keep him in the school district.
But like many parents and experts, she’s anticipating gaps in what the local public school district can provide and has already begun looking into alternative education programs that she hopes will better meet Max’s needs.
Advocates and special education experts are urging parents to meet with their children’s education teams and look for solutions before pulling them out of their schools. Rynders and his team have found that most schools are open to finding solutions, “but there will still be cases where combat and compensatory education is needed.”
Paying for online school, which Justus estimated would cost about $1,500 a semester, would be a financial burden for Justus, who had to get a laptop from the school after her son did the bulk of his virtual learning on her smartphone in the spring. But with a scholarship, the switch may be feasible, she said.
“If he’s being neglected and he’s not getting the resources, then I already decided I would put him in one of the actual online schools, the ones that have been doing it since before the pandemic,” Justus said.
"Special education students lost crucial help when the pandemic hit. Texas schools are still struggling to restore it." was first published at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/28/texas-schools-special-education/ by The Texas Tribune.
Texas Students - Tuition Should Decrease due to Pandemic
Students with financial hardships and a hurting economy say tuition should be lowered at their Texas universities. But some colleges are adding new fees related to an increase in distance learning.
Texas students said pandemic-era tuition should be cut. But it’s going up at some schools due to distance learning fees.
"Texas students said pandemic-era tuition should be cut. But it’s going up at some schools due to distance learning fees." was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Paying for her tuition at the University of North Texas was already going to be a challenge this fall for Aimee Tambwe. Just recently, her dad — who helps pay for her education — lost his job because of pandemic-related layoffs.
So Tambwe, who is taking most of her classes remotely this semester, was dumbfounded to see her tuition bill increase by $315 because of “distance education” fees for five courses she’s signed up to take.
“This is not something that we can control. I didn’t plan for a pandemic,” Tambwe said. “I don’t think it’s fair to increase the fees on top of students losing their jobs and funding. This does not help me.”
Students across Texas are denouncing what they view as unfair increases in fees that add to the financial strain on students, especially during a pandemic in which thousands of Texans are losing their jobs and their homes. It’s further injury to students who have instead argued for tuition decreases because of restrictions to campus amenities and experiences that are typically paid for with their fees.
At the University of North Texas, the distance learning fee is $35 per credit hour, capped at $315. According to the school’s website, the fee is used to support the management, delivery and technology for distance education courses.
UNT officials say it’s not a new fee, but because the pandemic has necessitated more students going remote, the fee is being applied more widely.
UNT Provost Jennifer Cowley said in an interview that she was sympathetic to students’ frustration.
“I totally understand where it would be coming from,” Cowley said.
Currently, 28% of the fall’s course offerings are online and come with the corresponding distance learning fee, Cowley said.
As students call for tuition cuts, Texas university officials have defended their prices, saying that online classes are not less expensive than in-person classes because faculty and staff still need to be paid. There are also some additional costs associated with technology upgrades needed for more remote instruction.
At other schools across Texas, students are facing sticker shock over some price hikes made months before the pandemic. At the University of Texas at Austin, undergraduate tuition rates will increase by 2.6% per year until 2022, a move that will increase tuition by more than $140 per semester for the next two years.
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A recent petition from the Texas State Employees Union calls for a tuition decrease of 10% for the duration of the pandemic across the University of Texas System. There are at least five tuition-related lawsuits against Texas universities, stemming from students demanding discounted tuition or reimbursements because of the campus changes related to COVID-19 responses.
A recent survey of UT-Austin students also showed that 91% of students were not satisfied with tuition rates.
Gabrielle Vidmar, a Texas State University student, said the San Marcos school had estimated she would pay nearly $7,000 in tuition and fees for the fall semester – including almost $1,000 in new “electronic course” and “off-campus class” fees for classes that had been designated as online because of the pandemic. Her previous tuition bills have been around $4,000.
Texas State later reversed course and shaved off many fees for students, including Vidmar. But the sting remains, compounded by the fact that Vidmar’s money will still be going toward services like athletics and the library, neither of which she plans to participate in or use during the pandemic.
“We are not getting the bang for our buck,” Vidmar said. “It sucks ... that the general consensus is that we feel Texas State doesn’t care about us. And that they’re in it for the money.”
A spokesperson for the school declined to comment and referred questions to a statement released by the school.
Texas State University revised its fee structure in late July. If a student has at least one face-to-face class, school officials said, the $50 per-credit-hour electronic course fee would be dropped. But if a student only takes online and hybrid courses, the electronic course fees would remain while $342 in on-campus fees will be waived.
“Texas State leadership recognizes the hardships our Bobcat Community is experiencing because of COVID-19,” a message from the school reads. It notes that the change will waive more than $7 million in fees for students.
Students like Vidmar, with one in-person class, are off the hook. But others, who may be afraid to go to campus or who simply are placed in online-only classes, will be charged the full slate of distance education fees.
“We didn’t get a stimulus check, we didn’t get help from anyone,” said McKenzie Decker, a Texas State student who started a petition to erase all the online fees. “They’re screwing over students that may not have a choice here.”
Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas System, the University of North Texas and Texas State University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/24/texas-tuition-universities/.
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Texas bar Owners are on the Brink of Losing Everything
Some bar owners are planning to reopen in defiance of the moratorium, a desperate attempt to generate income — and draw Gov. Greg Abbott’s attention.
With no end to the shutdown in sight, Texas bar owners and employees are on the brink of losing everything
"With no end to the shutdown in sight, Texas bar owners and employees are on the brink of losing everything" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Holly Jackson has spent 20 years working for the Austin nightclub Barbarella, where crowds of customers danced and drank until the early morning hours. But for months, there’s been no music or cocktails at Barbarella. And Jackson and around 30 of her employees have been furloughed.
“I have no idea what’s gonna happen to me, honestly,” said Jackson, the bar’s general manager. “I feel like I’ve lost my right arm. I have no family. I have no kids, no husband. My entire identity in life was Barbarella. And now that’s gone.”
Gov. Greg Abbott has shut down Barbarella, along with the rest of Texas’ bars, twice — once in March and again in June — in an attempt to stem the spread of the coronavirus. There is no end in sight for when bars will be allowed to reopen, leaving those business owners and their workers worried about how long they can hang on until they lose everything. In some cases, bar owners are planning to reopen anyway in a desperate attempt to generate some income — and draw Abbott’s attention.
Jackson joins thousands of service industry workers who have filed for unemployment, with restaurant and bar workers leading the state in number of claims. About 12.5% of the 3.2 million unemployment claims filed in Texas between the beginning of March and early August have come from workers in the accommodation and food services sector.
But economists say joblessness in Texas will only improve when the state has a handle on the coronavirus and consumers feel like they can safely patronize businesses in person. Still, Texas is experiencing record numbers of deaths related to the coronavirus and high numbers of hospitalizations.
While some bars can serve to-go items or reopen as restaurants, both of these options require them to have a permanent kitchen, excluding many bars across the state. Chris Porter, a spokesperson for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, said about 6,600 active businesses were required to close under the order.
Jackson said she feels abandoned by the state and is frustrated by the “radio silence” from the governor. Abbott addressed the shutdown last week, expressing sympathy for employees put out of work. But he said the closure would need to continue until coronavirus metrics improve significantly — with the state’s positivity rate dropping below 10% for a sustained period of time and the number of hospitalizations decreasing.
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But many bar owners say their businesses might not survive that long.
Last month, Elizabeth McNiel was forced to move into an RV along with her husband and 14-year-old son behind Ironwood Saloon in Sabinal.
Her husband was the bar’s general manager, and now they’re relying on her income as a school teacher to scrape by. They’ve depleted their savings and maxed out credit cards trying to keep their dream of owning a bar afloat.
“I don't want to lose a dream that we've had for years,” McNiel said. “But on Sept. 1, I will have to close these doors for good.”
The TABC recently allowed some bars and other businesses with high alcohol sales to reopen as restaurants after they applied for food and beverage certificates. However, this workaround requires businesses to have an onsite kitchen and keep alcohol sales under 51%, which excludes many bars across the state and is sometimes cost prohibitive.
Kim Finch owns two bars in Dallas, but neither has a kitchen. So she’s going all in on a third bar — a lease she signed before the pandemic began — that is under construction with a kitchen that will allow it to open as a restaurant.
But even once it’s open, she doesn’t know if it’ll be enough to offset her losses.
“I have absolutely no way to make any income or revenue to pay all the bills, taxes, rent that are due. I can’t provide jobs for my employees,” she said. “I have no way to save my businesses that I’ve worked 17 years to build. And I’m afraid I’m going to not only lose my businesses but lose my house.”
Finch has cashed out all of her investments and her life insurance policy and has depleted 15 years of savings. It’s money she won’t get back even if her businesses survive. She tried opening a pop-up market but was told that wasn’t allowed because even without alcohol, her business was still a bar.
“It’s disheartening. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening,” she said. “I understand there was bad bar operators, too, that were not adhering to guidelines, but it sucks for the ones that were trying really hard to be safe.”
Reopening in protest
Some bar owners say they have no choice but to open in defiance of the state moratorium.
Hundreds of bar owners across the state participated in a demonstration late last month called Freedom Fest, intended to prove that they could open safely. As a result, 16 bars’ liquor licenses were suspended.
Chris Polone, the event’s organizer and owner of the Rail Club Live in Fort Worth, said the event adhered to strict safety precautions — limiting capacity to 25%, requiring masks at all times and enforcing social distancing.
And last week, around 100 bar owners gathered to protest near the TABC office.
But Polone said the group hasn’t been able to discuss the situation with anyone from the TABC or from Abbott’s office.
So now, Polone said some bars are making plans for another unified reopening Aug. 29 dubbed Come and Take It.
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“We don’t have a choice. Our livelihoods are on the line,” he said. “We’re opening and we’re not closing back down.”
The hope is that if enough bars reopen, the TABC will be overwhelmed and unable to enforce the shutdown order, Polone said.
Polone said he will be selling small ownership stakes of his business instead of tickets to his customers — since he says owners of the bars are still allowed to be inside.
“We’re not selling cover charges,” he said.“We’re making everybody an owner.”
A. Bentley Nettles, executive director of the TABC, addressed rumors of bars reopening in an Aug. 7 letter to the industry.
“Recently we have spoken with business owners who tell us they don’t intend to follow the orders. On that note, I want to remind every member of this industry that it is a privilege to be in the alcoholic beverage business in Texas,” Nettles said in the letter. “When a business tells TABC it doesn’t intend to follow these orders, you leave the agency with no option but to revoke your license and shut you down.”
Porter said any business that defies Abbott’s order will first face a 30-day suspension of its license to sell alcohol. Second offenses will result in a 60-day suspension, with third offenses leading to “stronger actions up to and including cancellation of the permit.”
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Music venues
The bar shutdown is also hurting Texas musicians and concert venues.
About 90% of National Independent Venue Association members report that they will close permanently in a few months without federal funding, according to an internal survey. Many bars have doubled as music venues and vice versa.
“I haven't had a paying gig since Feb. 11,” Austin drummer Mike Webb said. “Nobody I know has gotten any gigs.”
Some of his musician friends have moved on to other jobs. One is a janitor now. Another is working at a grocery store.
According to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, 83% of the city’s live music venues and 70% of the restaurant and bar owners reported in a survey that they had to lay off full-time employees.
“Most of those businesses indicated that if something doesn't give in the next few months, that they are at risk of closing their doors,” said Laura Huffman, CEO of the Austin chamber.
Polone said the economic effects of music venues ripple outward, funding musicians, agents, sound engineers, distribution companies, public relations firms and other businesses. The National Independent Venue Association estimates that for every dollar spent at music venues, $12 is generated in economic activity.
“If we lose,” he said, referring to venues being forced to close, “music, in my opinion, will never be the same. The local music business will never be the same.”
Lack of collaboration from Abbott
State Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, said closing bars, breweries and other businesses with high alcohol sales while restaurants are allowed open is unfair and impractical.
“You can go into a restaurant and you can drink, you could buy a $10 hamburger and fries and you could order three drinks,” Schaefer said. “You could sit there and have your drinks and eat your hamburger, without a mask. Tell me how that’s any different.”
He said there’s been a lack of collaboration among lawmakers with both Abbott and with the TABC.
Porter, from TABC, disagreed.
“From the beginning of this crisis, TABC has worked closely with stakeholders to assist struggling businesses and at the same time protect the health of Texans,” he said. “We’ve also worked directly with industry members and state lawmakers to find ways of assisting businesses.”
Schaefer said lawmakers will have to look at options in the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, to find ways to offer relief to the food and beverage industry.
“We’ve got to find economic relief for this industry when you have livelihoods essentially being destroyed by government order,” Schaefer said, adding that it’ll be a challenge due to a constricted budget.
State Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, said she’s unsure that indoor dining of any kind is a good idea right now and believes that a lot of the COVID-19 cases that came on the heels of Texas’ phased reopening could be tied to restaurant and bar activity.
But Zwiener lamented that there has not been enough collaboration between Abbott and lawmakers. Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.
“I really wish Abbott would work more closely with legislators, but his, his circle seems to only get smaller,” she said. “Absolutely legislators are, by and large, not at the table, and that seems to be a bipartisan frustration.”
For Jackson, the general manager of Barbarella, the hardest thing to grapple with is that she has no idea what comes next. She’s running out of options while waiting for something to change.
“I have mentally in my head prepared myself to have to lose my house and probably move back home to Orlando with my mom at 40 years old,” she said. “It’s scary. I did what I was supposed to do. I went to college and worked my ass off at the same job, bought a house, and now it’s all being taken away for something that I didn’t do.”
Disclosure: The Austin Chamber of Commerce has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/21/texas-bars-shutdown/.
The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state. Explore the next 10 years with us.